“We slowly learn to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the less good, our spiritual criticism can be developed so that we can distinguish true spiritual values from their imitations; and then we can choose the guides of our spiritual life.”

"The extent to which my inner unknown self guides my conscious mind came as a great surprise. An even greater surprise was the realization of how lost I would be without it."

Meditation to a modern mind, accustomed to an unprecedented level of pleasure and desire, is not a literal death but a mental death of life's modern existential reason; to feel good and be entertained.

Mass adoption depends on two factors, the value of the discovery and the ease with which it can be learned or manufactured. When a discovery has little value or is valuable but too difficult to create or understand, it's less likely to be adopted. Ultimately it's too costly.

The question that defines the yogic journey is, "What am I?" The detail is the answer that resolves it must be directly experienced. So, the journey begins.

Bodhidharma, in many ways, is seen as the father of Zen. His teachings are cryptic because they are so simple. This challenges our desire to achieve something through practice which is the main obstacle of meditation. Even here, in this hobby of satisfaction and peace, we promote our subtle dissatisfaction and perpetuate our yearning for more. Tip; read these quotes with no mind. Seek nothing from them. Read them as gibberish and maybe a strange wisdom will come.

This series of transcribed talks, given by Shunryu Suzuki, is a modern Zen classic for a reason! Arranged in a way that makes the great theme of Zen approachable to our busy, Western minds; to read the book is Zen itself.

"There is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and, as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work; “embracing pain."