Yearbook 2008

Antaiji


Ryozan (Sogenji, 37yo, Canadian Monk)


As with last year, I received an email recently in my inbox asking for my contribution to the 2008 Antaiji yearbook. After sitting on this request for over a month, I am still finding myself at a loss as to what to say or write about - and for me to be at a loss as to something to say or write about when it comes to things close to my heart, such as Zen or the Martial Arts - is quite unusual to say the least.

It is as if my interest has left me....not my interest in Zen practice itself...but perhaps my interest in trying to put it into words. Another thing I seem to have lost interest in...at least for now...is checking in with myself to see where I am at, what I am thinking right now about my practice, where all of this is going, etc.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing - I leave this speculation to the reader, since I seem to have no interest in judging it as such. All I know is that this is the way things are for me right now. You will be reading this with your own eyes...looking and understanding from where you are at right now...in your life and your own practice.

With this said, my interest in practice itself seems to have intensified. Digging into the unknown, rather than what I already know; dedicating my time and energies as fully as I am able moment by moment to what one zen master called, `...the study of the unthinkable`. Becoming less and less interested in words and more and more interested in the place where words do not reach.

Even if I did have something to say at this point in time - I am of the conviction that it would only be expressing my level of mis-understanding. Thus, I have managed to write no less than 5 paragraphs about having `Nothing to Say` - a fine expression of the paradox that Zen and Life are.

Until next year, please be well and don`t lax in your practice.

Ryozan


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