Reddit reviews What More Do You Want?: Zen Questions, Zen Answers

I think this is the first week in a long time that I have done formal sitting meditation every single day. Usually I do formal meditation 5 or 6 days a week and generally try to keep my daily life mindfulness up all the time.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that though my root meditation practice is Vietnamese zen, I have been listening to and reading a lot of Theravada teachers the last four or five years. There is nothing wrong with this, and I have benefited from it greatly, but I realized I have been neglecting getting more acquainted and diving deeper in to the zen tradition as a whole. So I have been listening to talks from The Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkely CA (Korean Zen) as well as relistening to Breath Sweeps Mind by Jakusho Kwong-roshi in my car (Japanese Zen) and slowly working my way through What More Do You Want? by Albert Low who was a student of Philip Kapleau and teacher at the Monteral Zen Center. It has been very gratifying to really start to get a sense of how large and alive the zen community is and how much of the variety in the tradition as a whole is cultural and fairly surface. It has given me a feeling of support from the zen sangha as a whole in my practice and that I am not crazy or totally off in how I understand what my teacher is trying to transmit this tradition and it's fruits to me.

My sits have become more open and easeful and I am feeling some more spaciousness in my daily life the last week or two. I also held my first mindfulness class at my library. I had only one person show up, and she really enjoyed it, so next month I am going to have it at lunch time every Friday and promote it more. I have been a librarian at this library for five years as of yesterday, but have been reluctant to hold mediation classes/session for a number of professional and personal reasons but the director requested I go a head and give them so I am. Which is really want I have been wanting to do anyways to tell the truth despite aforesaid reasons. Sometimes we all just need a little push.