Lesson
Learn about koans and how they can precipitate the experience of awakening.
Preview
Contemplation
Discover how a stubbed toe led to a stunning surprise—and not a single step taken.
Meditation
Relax into the mind that knows little, but is full of possibilities.
Practice Zen meditation posture, and inquire into the nature of your self.
Discover how ordinary experience can in fact be quite extraordinary.
Inquire into the very essence of everything you experience.
See how a single sound could knock away everything you know.
Revisit the central experience in Zen known as kenshō, or awakening.
Discover how our psychological wounds can also be the agents of our healing.
Release your plans, schemes, and ideas—and discover what's here, now.
See how ordinary activities can feel boundless, free, and fulfilling.
Discover the four reasons for practice, from a Zen perspective.
Meet a great reformer of Zen koan practice, and learn about his life.
Explore one of the most famous (and baffling) Zen koans of all time.
Sense the hidden dynamism and peace of being alive, right now.
Listen to a profound personal account of awakening from a modern Zen master.
Question if there is some level of consciousness that predates your existence.
Examine where you are right now, and see where experience is coming from.
Discover how your own internal commentary obscures the openness of this moment.
See through your sense of self and realize that it's always been illusory.
Feel into your experience and see for yourself what has always been there.
See that the world around you is in fact your very own consciousness.
Discover the various hazards and missteps associated with awakening practice.
Let go of tension in the body and relax into the felt sense of sitting.
Explore the hidden side of everyday experience.
Discover the heart not as an organ, but as an energy center.
Allow your experience to be exactly as it is, with love and acceptance.
Learn how to begin trusting your body, heart, and mind.
Fall back into your experience, with no sense of choice or deciding.
Close the distance between yourself and your experience, and see what happens.
Give up all effort and feel the downward settling of just sitting.
Learn how meditation can help end suffering—and lead to awakening.
Let go of forcing your experience, so you can tend to it like a gardener.
Become an intimate participant in the transitory nature of all experience.
Transform your ideas about awakening being a special and rarified state.
Talk
Reorient yourself to koan practice and learn the deeper purpose of practice.
Rest your mind with the simplicity of two phrases.
Drop all projects and agendas and come home to your experience, right now.
Find inspiration in an ancient story about the Buddha's enlightenment.
Listen to the crazy wisdom of Gutei, a Zen master who taught in a peculiar way.
Let the breath soften and dissolve the feeling of restlessness.
Explore the concepts of past, present, and future.
Experience the moment from a different angle, and see how it actually is.
Invite yourself to let go and trust the power of a simple phrase.
Learn how to work with suffering and difficult emotions during meditation.
Enjoy the paradoxical story of a bearded man who has no beard.
Learn about a semi-mythical figure and his fantastical story.
Listen to Henry's personal account of Zen koan practice and how it's helped him.
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Series
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Artwork by Waking Up In House