I've been practicing Zen Buddhism since 1982. Geez, that's nearly forty years. I don't write about it. It's not my field of expertise. However, Zen provides a certain experience: a foundation for everything I know--or you may say, everything I have come not to know.

To not know anything is to begin to awaken, that is, to separate from the dream in which everyone is immersed, the nightmare of history, which many people call "reality." 

The passages below are from Suzuki, Shunryu (1970). Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Weatherhill: New York and Tokyo. The entire book is here. Highly recommended. 

Best regards,

Richard Koenigsberg

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The essence of Zen is so simple that it can be described in one short word—JUST. Just! Just this! This right here, right now…Mu! Put up no resentment, no resistance. Let us become fools who can accept this as it is-ness. The very moment you can believe in what you are doing one hundred percent is the very moment you will become enlightened.

When you believe in your way, enlightenment is there. But when you cannot believe in the meaning of the thing which you are doing in this moment, you cannot do anything. You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind.

We must awaken from the present dream state and become able to see things rightly. Abbot Muju wars us how deep is the illusion:

            In the long night’s sleep, another sleep;
            Within the dream, seeing yet another dream.

And old verse says:

            In this dream world, when he tells to another what he has dreamt,
           The telling of the dream too is only a dream.

People think they have broken the dream, but it was only the dream within the dream, and they are still dreaming, sunk in darkness, writhing about, their whole life a sleep and the end a dream-dying.     

Being in the world of illusion is called “living being,” and being in the world of realization is called “Buddha.” When deluded, a living being; when enlightened, a Buddha.

Dogen-zenji said, “You should establish your practice in your delusion.” Even though you think you are in delusion, your pure mind is there. To realize pure mind in your delusion is practice.

So when you say, “This is delusion,” that is actually enlightenment itself. If you try to expel the delusion it will only persist the more, and your mind will become busier and busier trying to cope with it. That is not good. Just say, “Oh, this is just delusion,” and do not be bothered by it. When you just observe the delusion, you have your true mind, your calm, peaceful mind.