‘Anyone who has practiced Zen for a while knows that it takes some time to discover that practice is about “me.” It comes from an individual place and is not some generic thing about meditating, bowing, or walking in a certain way, nor is it working with some generic thing called “ego.” This is also true of working with the precepts.
“But I thought Zen was about letting go of ‘me,” you might say. This is true, but we can’t let go of something until we know what it is we are hanging on to. Once we know what we’re hanging on to and are able to thoroughly welcome it- in fact, be it – it will let go of us instead of the other way around.’ (Opening to Oneness)
This was the book recommended to me when I stopped at the Zen Center bookstore the other day. As it happens, my student group was talking about studying the precepts, so I could not resist picking up a new book on the subject, especially one that promises to lean into Dogen a lot.
Shundo David Haye 