I've been trying to learn about Zen Buddhism, but even beginners classics like [b:The Way of Zen|514210|The Way of Zen|Alan W. Watts|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348297121l/514210._SY75_.jpg|1223062] are hard for me to grasp.

This book, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, helped me immensely. It is not straightforward, this is part of what makes Buddhism so difficult for us Westerners. But I was delighted to find that by the end of the book I understood many important things.

For Suzuki Roshi, sitting zazen, and living zazen, the practice of being wholeheartedly committed to the present activity is Buddhism. "Philosophical discussion will not be the best way to understand Buddhism. If you want to be a sincere Buddhist, the best way is to sit... Just to sit, that is enough." And, "For us there is no need to understand what Zen is. We are practicing zazen. So for us there is no need to know what Zen is intellectually. That is, I think, very unusual for American society."

So, I decided to start sitting zazen. It's hard still, but I find value in it because of the concepts I learned in this book.

Some concepts are easy because they are very similar to Christian ideas. For example, contrast this statement with God's description of themself (make no graven images, "I am"): "I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color—something which exists before all forms and colors appear."

Or this idea compared to the Trinity: "So it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. But I do not mean voidness. There is something, but that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form, and it has some rules, or theory, or truth in its activity. This is called Buddha nature, or Buddha himself. When this existence is personified we call it Buddha; when we understand it as the ultimate truth we call it Dharma; and when we accept the truth and act as a part of the Buddha, or according to the theory, we call ourselves Sangha. But even though there are three Buddha forms, it is one existence which has no form or color, and it is always ready to take form and color."

Other concepts, like non-duality ("Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty; difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different; in essence they are the same."), or the re-appropriation of certain terms like emptiness or nothing are still hard to understand.

But I'm sure I will understand it eventually, with practice. That sense that we don't have to get everything on the first pass, that we don't have to consume everything and move on to the next idea, is pleasant.