The extreme dematerialization of Zen operates both externally (rituals…) and internally (concepts, representations…).
It is what makes Zen a refuge, a point to which we constantly return to breathe. It is also what makes it unbearable at other times and drives us in search of branches to cling to.
So, entangled in vegetation, sclerosed by vines and mud, we yearn for refuge.
It should be noted that every tradition of branching contains Zen elements, and Zen has its cohort of sticky mud.
©FJ June 2025
Recueils / Participation/
Notes & Silence 
It seems to me that Zen, by your descriptions generally, is the wordless, tuneless song of the wind off the boundless ocean. Just listen…
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Yes
Do not endow my descriptions with too much reliability.
In the same way I am suspicious when reading or hearing others’ accounts of what zen is.
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Let us be entertainingly and mutually suspicious…!
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It is because we have faith that we doubt.
(I mean faith as ‘deep rooting in being’ not as ‘set of external beliefs’)
I dread people who never doubt anything.
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Certainty is massively over-rated. This one of the very few things of which I am reasonably certain.
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