Everyday Zen

Today my sangha had a one-day retreat in our little urban Zen center. Our meditative silence was accompanied by birdsong, traffic noise, cheers -- I'm guessing some guys were watching the Mets play the Rockies -- and the jingle from a Mr. Softee truck.

This is as it should be. Practice is everyday life. If Zen is only for hermitages on mountaintops, what good is it? (Unless, of course, you're a hermit living on a mountaintop.)

Let the monks at Ryoanji rake their rock garden. For our care taking practice, we swept cigarette butts and broken glass out of an alley the Zen center shares with an art shop and a sports bar. I wouldn't have changed a thing.