Practice, Part Two

Practice, Part Two

From a Zen point of view there is only practice. Everything is practice. Every breath, every taste, touch, sound, and thought is practice when properly understood.

What does "properly understood" mean? That's the great question, the question answered only in our practice itself. We sit down. We shut up. We listen with all of our senses. As we do so, its as if we are on an escalator. As we rise, we drop away parts of our mind and body, we drop away the escalator. We drop away up and down, right or left. "We" drop away.

What is left is the gate itself: proper understanding or what is sometimes referred to as "Right Understanding." The full integration of body, heart, mind, and environment. We might call this oneness itself.

In this place of proper understanding our eyes are open, as is our heart and mind. It becomes possible for the other elements of the Eightfold Path to manifest. Without proper understanding we are adrift in a boat without an oar or rudder. When we step outside of our practice we view the world in parts, there is you and me, inside and outside, up and down.

Yet, as a continuing result of our practice we begin to appreciate the world around us much more deeply and certainly more directly.