Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘There’s no place you can go that is not your life. You are not currently in a dress rehearsal for a life that’s going to happen only on Friday and Saturday nights, when the curtain goes up. For that reason, I wish that we’d found a word other than “practice” for practice, because of course, we aren’t practicing for anything. We’re doing it. In this practice, you are not cultivating a self that will one day actually do the practice. You are not cultivating a life that will one day be a reflection of this practice. This practice is now. Period.’ (Commentary on Shobogenzo Zenki)

This was one of those articles that I knew would be good teaching material for the students I work with, and they certainly resonated with it. This paragraph made me think of the old Tom Waits song.