I feel good that I was able to practice a formal period of sitting today. I didn't feel like sitting. I just went into the bedroom, bowed to the wall, turned, bowed to the opposite wall, turned, got situated on my zafu, started the mediation timer and then just sat. Trying to give up everything, I just sat.

When you are just sitting there on your zafu, there is nothing to do but sit. You learn quickly what it means to surrender your ego-concerns. That thought, that itch, that twinge of pain in your back, the dog barking downstairs, you just acknowledge them and let them go. Surrender them to the present moment, then flowing from the present moment straight into the next without brining anything along with you.

I've been reading too many dharma books, magazines and web sites, I think it's time I give myself the experience of just sitting staring at the blank wall. Here's how the founder of our tradition, Zen Master Eihei Dogen, put it in his instructions on how to meditate:

"You should...cease from practice based on intellectual understanding...and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest....The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the...gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality."