My Brush on Zen.

Zen Buddhism as i found it happened while I was at the University in Wisconsin and while being a librarian as a part time job I stumbled upon "The Way of Zen" by the late Alan Watts, (whose remains I used to visit with a few Zen buddies and a bottle of sake; the memorial to Alan Watts is located on the hill slope at green Gulch Farm. Along side of it lies the  memorial site for A young adult who was stabbed to death in an alley in the Downtown San Francisco area.. He s was the son of the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance " If I am not mistaken the kid was seventeen when he was stabbed. So I came upon Zen Buddhism when I read Alan Watts's books from then on, Zen intrigued me and I felt it was worth to take up as a practice towards healing myself. The essence of Mahayana teachings, the Rinzai and Soto schools of Zen Buddhism for me epitomizes the clear cutting edge of the Sword of Wisdom of Manjushri which is said to severe all attachments to this delusional existence and awaken to the light of wisdom and compassion.
The reason I am bringing the subject of my Zen training is because i feel the need to clarify to myself the amount of knowledge that i have accumulated on the matter of Zen in my life. I don not wish to be said to merely copy and imitate others on the subject alone which I do in any case but I do pick and choose what i use.as my references.I do not wish to sound off like I really have a grasp on what is Zen at least intellectually if not in practice. Through Alan watts i was exposed to the works of D.T.Suzuki and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, whose book, Zem Mind Beginner's Mind became one of my back to the drawing board reference book. I read Kapleau and Fritjof Kapra, the works of Norman Firscher, the works of Dainin Katagiri Roshi and more on the subject. I spend most of my free time either wandering the hills of  the Marin Headlands across the Bay from San Francisco or in the Green Gulch Library, I read just about every book on the shelves that had to do with Zen, I sat in Zazen  meditation three time a day in the Zedo at the Green Dragon Zen Temple for almost two years while working at the Green Gulch Farm and being a Zen Practice Student. My Instructors include  Lou and Blanch Hartmanm,, Norman and Cathy Fisher, Paul Discoe and Edward Brown, I worked under Peter Rudnick and Wendy Johnson in the organic farm and gardening at Green Gulch. Where i also met many strong practicing Zen students like David Chadwick and his wife, David Carlson and David Lueck, Jim Abrams and Terry Sutton and many others from whom I learned what being a Zen student in the United States was all about. Zen bloomed in the United States and California was its breeding ground.
If I am asked up front what is Zen, I would have not way to say a word about it, even before i open my mouth i have failed to explain it. Hence Zen Mind Beginner's mind, Then I would offer a suggestion that you read Way of Zen and so forth and this would be Zen too. Zen in Japanese is a way of saying Chan in Chinese and a way of saying Dhyana in Sanskrit; the Way of the Buddha's Meditation.on Emptiness and forms, my understanding only off course, i could be wrong and this too would be Zen. It is okay no right or wrong way only the Way. The way of breathing, the way of chanting, the way of sitting meditation, the way of work with a complete awareness of every move and actions as in a ritual ceremony or making the compost.
This is the art of rambling. A way of the the non doing doing, or inactive action to sound more in contemporary on the subject, Wu Wei as the Chinese originally used it in Chan practice. Being completely present in your breath you hear the pattering of rain outside your window, you are in a Zen like meditation or as Trungpa Rinpoche calls it Meditation in Action. Two nights ago my Indonesian companion,  Shawal brought a good size Tilapia fish caight from the pond and he wanted me to cook it for dinner, The fish was still very much alive when I had it in the sink and cutting of its fins and last pulling off its gills and it was still alive. I felt it in my hands. The tilapia is red in color and beautiful to look at and all the while I was preparing the fish using a scissors, I felt doubts and remorse at what I was doing and i thoguht of the Bhagavad Gita's story about the fact that there is no doer or the one done to only action detached and impersonal, no ego. Thinking of what to express, i whispered, " May you become a Buddha in the next life." and this too I did under my breath as thoguht i was afraid of expressing my remorse at taking a life so vibrant and forceful, this is going to stay with me for a long time as another deep rooted Karma. This sound as it may, naive, it would not be so had I not been standing in the middle of nowhere but forest around me, like a boat surrounded by darkness in the ocean, and if I had not been doing my practice as intensely as I was at that moment, the whole episode would have been normal. But being out there in the foot hills of Lintang at the Organic farm just my friend Shawal and I, one would be extra cautious spilling blood and taking of life without a sense of compassion and acceptance, this too is Zen.
This is my Zen scatology, my shit bucket, the job of cleaning and removing the waste every moment of my time for so long as I am thinking and doing and making sense out of it all, untangling the tangle.This is a part of my Zen practice on a daily basis, just simply rambling my mind off in every directions, past present and future. Effortlessness is rest, this is how I envision my way of Zen. Whenever I stray from my path I try to return to this state of effortlessness in being, in time and the moment without any mind or mental projections or attachment from all phenomenal worlds. Like plucking the lotus without wetting your fingers. I am far from being successful in my efforts at becoming effortless in all that I do but I keep trying to get closer to the idea as I can. Wu Wei or Inactive action or detached involvement call it by what other names is the way of Zen in my mind. But if you ask me what is Zen, I will have no ready answers or you get a slap from me. (old Zen joke!).
What I understand of Zen in writing or practice is basic to say the least for to have a Zen mind one has to also have a beginner's mind, not a mind so filled with knowledge, or thoughts and ideas, a mind filled with perceptions and visions; a quiet mind to begin with. Zen Practice is to acquire this state of mind. Sitting in Zazen or sitting meditation is the posture one adopts to reach this quietness in the mind. It is said that Gautama sat for forty days and nights in Zazen before he was awakened or able to complete transcend his mind; No mind is Buddha's Mind., form is emptiness and emptiness is form...the same is true of feelings and  perceptions, impulses and consciousness...O Sari Putra...All Dahrmas or phenomena are marked with emptiness- From the Heart Sutra..The Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom, Heart Sutra is the main text of the Soto Zen Tradition and it is chanted daily in the morning and evening services. The content of the Sutra can be mind blowing if it is carefully put to practice or at least fully understood.
..
That in a nut shell is the extent of my getting to know what is Zen as i at one decided that my life was running in ten different directions and i was nowhere to be seen. I discovered Zen by chance and by chance and am today am more confused than ever, but that is zen too.