Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Zoketsu Norman Fischeris an American Soto Zen roshi, poet and Buddhist author practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988. After having served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1995–2000, Fischer founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of sanghas with chapters in Canada, the United States and Mexico. He has authored several essays on interreligious dialogues, and to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
CountryUnited States of America
When we know something and rest in that knowing we limit our vision. We will only see what our knowing will allow us to see. In this way experience can be our enemy.
Whether you are a genius or an idiot, a thief or, like me, a Zen priest who has cultivated the mind for 30 years - the mind anyway is subject to conditions.
We all need to have a creative outlet - a window, a space - so we don't lose track of ourselves.
Years ago I went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and did what all tourists there do: wrote some words on a scrap of paper that I tucked into a crevice in the wall. When I closed my eyes and touched my head to the warm stone, it came to me: "All language is prayer." This must be so. Who is it we are speaking to when we speak to anyone? To that person, and also past him or her to Out There. If there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, being loved. And reaching out to be heard, met, or loved is a holy act. Language is holy.
The student ends up lusting after time with the teacher, hanging on her every word, and forgetting that this is about him or her, the student, not the teacher.
There may be a long list of things to do, but really, there is just one thing on the list at any time. If you think of it like that, the whole world looks different and you can stay quite calm. Maybe everything will get done eventually and maybe not. You can always have hope.
Okay, here is the uplifting part: Your life isn't and has never been about you....about what you accomplish, how successful you are or are not, how much money you make, what sort of position you ascend to,...or how much good you do for others or the world at large. Your life, like mine, and like everyone else's has always been about one thing: love.