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Everyday Zen: Love & Work

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Charlotte Joko Beck

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“In 1963, I was sitting with a number of my students on the campus of Columbia University in New York. The morning was beautiful, the sun was shining, and we were talking to each other about the Buddhist practice of removing concepts. Suddenly someone passing by stopped and looking at me for a few seconds, and then he asked, "Are you a Buddhist?" I looked up and said, "No." Did I tell a lie? I hope that my students understood me at that moment. If I had said, "Yes, I am a Buddhist," then he would still be caught in his idea of what a Buddhist is, and that would not help him. So "No" was more helpful than "Yes." That is the language of Zen. When you do say or do something, it is to help undo the knots in people's minds, and not to bind them anymore. That is why the language we use should aim at liberation.”

“We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from dying on the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious, beautiful planet. Zen Master Linji said, “The miracle is not to walk on water or fire. The miracle is to walk on the earth.”

“It is taught that all buddhas in the past, present, and future leave the household and attain the way. The twenty-eight ancestors in India and the six early ancestors in China who transmitted the Buddha's mind seal were all monks. They are distinguished in the three realms by strictly observing the precepts. Thus precepts are primary for practicing Zen in pursuit of the way. How can one become a buddha ancestor without becoming free from faults and preventing wrongdoing?”