Can’t sit still, because something urgent needs to be done? Mind racing because something has to be figured out, right now? Me too.
My favorite distraction when attempting to practice zazen (Zen sitting) is worrying about all the things that need fixing. Yet I have been reminded that we adopt a still and upright posture in Zen for a reason: The body trains the mind.
The traditional Zen emphasis on patriarchal lineage is problematic. What if we recognized all who have nurtured us instead?
We are able to practice Zen today because of many the people, places, and communities that sustained the tradition in the past. We do well to remember and honor our Zen history. In the commercialized Western culture in which I live, it’s far too easy to become enamored of Zen as “the next new thing!” We may lean towards forgetting that it’s an ancient tradition.
Yet the way in which this honoring is traditionally done in Zen is highly problematic.
Continue reading “Ancestry Without Lineage”
Julie A. Nelson 