Zen Wisdom for Your Everyday Life

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As the New Year  approaches, we review the year, make lists of how we succeeded and what went wrong. We  list our failures, and resolve to improve next year. We do not see that it is not what went wrong that made us unhappy, it is our endless judgments of ourselves and others. And our ceaseless demands that everything turn out the way we like it. When we can learn, enjoy and be grateful for whatever happens, then true happiness begins. When we decide to share our growth, insights and gifts, rather than focusing on what we're getting, then a sense of true peace and contentment pervades everything. 

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As the year ends and the days grow darker, holidays come to bring light and love into the world. We do all we can to light candles, give gifts, decorate the world with . We crave the warmth and glow of light. And yet, the deepest light we all search for, the light that sustains us through all our lives, is who we basically are. Let us taste, shine and share the light of our being and truly light up the world.

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We think our everyday lives are ordinary, nothing much going on. Yet Zen practice tells us that right in the middle of our days, we are being given a huge koan. A koan cannot be figured out, or explained rationally. Yet when we discover how to be with our koan, to keep it warm and play with it, it blooms and comes to live. Then every moment becomes a wonder. We become fully alive.

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t's so easy to get caught in endless mixed messages, hopes and dreams and not know what to believe, or where to go. But Soen Roshi told us that it is easy to step out of confusion, and showed us how. First step is not to be confused by your confusion, see it what it is. Then he showed how to return to this very moment and our original guidance and experience.

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Most of our lives are spent in disappointment. We complain about everything, try to turn things to our liking, constantly. But even if we succeed, something else arises to disappoint us again. The great surprise and gift of life comes, when we let all that go, and become fully available for everything, just as it is. No fights, no complaints, only deep appreciation, acknowlegment and thanks. This practice of thank you is endlesss, can be applied everyday, everywhere.

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Especially on holidays, memories of past years return strongly, including remembering those who are gone. It’s easy to compare one year to another, our lives with others, and wish we were somewhere else now. But we are always where we belong, in the perfect place for us right now. Each encounter is the one which can bring us the most growth and joy. .

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How do we heal the inner confusion, distraction, and conflict we live with? In Zen practice the answer is startlingly simple. Not only do we pay radical and loving attention to whatever appears in our lives, we take good care of it. When we take off our shoe, rather than throw them helter skelter, we carefully place them just where they belong. Same with everything in our lives, including the people we interact with. As we make sure our shoes and enviornment isn't messy and disordered, we are simultaneously straightening our messy minds. 

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We all strive to be better and better to live up to an ideal or image of how we should be, or what we want in the moment. When conditions change, and we cannot achieve it, we fight what is present, reject it, demand things go our way. But the heart of a joyful life is being what we are fully moment by moment, no matter how we wanted things to turn out. Not only accepting it, but enjoying it thoroughly.

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t's so easy to react to the endless changes we go through day by day. Some changes are wonderful, others distressing. When something comes along that we don't like, we'll fight it to fiercely, trying to change or fix whatever happens. Or agreeing with it.

But there is another way to receive whatever comes along. This other way keeps us centered, lively, joyous even, not caught in the rip tide of life. A simple Zen teaching can turn our entire lives around.

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We think that Zen practice is mysterious and difficult, requires that we sit still for hours and become more and more enlightened. But zazen is only part of it. The very heart of Zen is to "Pick up coat from the floor and put it where it belongs. Take care of our life, notice when something, or someone has fallen down and pick them up, put them and ourselves where we belong. Life constantly presents opportunities to interact with it, to be aware of what is needed and give it with open hands.

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