What Is Sitting?

In The Practice of Life, celebrated Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck (1917-2011) explores how we tend to avoid what is right in front of us: the beauty and simplicity of this ordinary moment, right now. In seven archival recordings, from various points throughout her teaching career, she describes—often in humorous, brutally direct detail—how, when we run away from the problems of everyday life, we ignore the very doorway to our own freedom.

“We’re always looking for something, waiting for something—for the time which will be perfect, peaceful, better, different, happy,” she says. “But we’re not suddenly going to find some mysterious place where all our troubles disappear. Our great life truly is just what we are at this very second.”