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If you are carving your own dragon, says Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, you will never see the real one. That’s why true zazen requires giving up your personal style of practice. Dogen Zenji says, “Don’t practice your way like a blind man trying to find out what is an elephant.” A blind man touching an elephant may think an elephant is like a wall or a robe or a plank. But the real elephant is not any of those. And he says, “Don’t be suspicious of the true dragon, like Seiko.” In China there was a man named Seiko; he loved dragons. All his scrolls were of dragons. He designed his house like a dragon-house and he had many figures of dragons. So a real dragon thought, “If I appear in his house he will be very pleased.” So one day the dragon appeared in his room, and he was very scared of him, and almost drew his sword to cut him. The real dragon said, “Oh, my!” and he hurriedly escaped from the room. “Don’t be...

Lion's Roar Shikantaza is Understanding Emptiness Shunryu Suzuki 2 months ago Suzuki Roshi explains that the purpose of Shikantaza — a practice commonly known as “just sitting” — is to actualize emptiness and move beyond our interpretations of reality. When we remember there is another world beyond our limited experience, we can empty ourselves of preconceived ideas and accept things as they are. Photo by Masaki Komori. Shikantaza is to practice or actualize emptiness. Although you can have a tentative understanding of it through your thinking, you should understand emptiness through your experience. You have an idea of emptiness and an idea of being, and you think that being and emptiness are opposites. But in Buddhism both of these are ideas of being. The emptiness we mean is not like the idea you may have. You cannot reach a full understanding of emptiness with your thinking mind or with your feeling. That is why we practice zazen. When you see a plu...