Hi all,

Just wanted to announce that I am truly alive and still a part of this sangha even if I have fallen far behind (yet I'm still where I am). Glad to see things are still flowing smoothly along here even if at the present time my life is not, everything moves just as it will and in no other way. I ran into some rough patches in my personal life and practice but for now I can only see how they turn out. Many doubts about if I truly belong to the Soto Zen way, or maybe the Korean Zen, or maybe the Tibetan Sangha back home, blah blah blah...

I have done this often before. Sampling everything in buffet only to end up hungry in the end. Mainly in the form of relationships. But that's another story...

Anyways, what I have learned and why this relates in some way: You cannot force life to be something its not, just as you cannot force a person to be what they are not. Clear away the clouds of ignorance, sure, let the true person shine through. But really it isn't up to you to do that. Provide the fan, they themselves much move it. Just so, zazen is not any more than what you make it. If it is time to relax, then it is that. If it is merely going through the motions, it is just that too. But if it is so much of nothing that nothing fails to reach it, then it is just this. Just that. Just it.

Hopefully that runs in a proper vein,
Taylor