Author: Ian

Consistency is the quiet power behind zazen. Not because Zen is a self-improvement program, and not because sitting every day earns you points with the…

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In Zen, the paramitas (often translated “perfections,” but more helpfully “ways of crossing over”) are not a ladder you climb to become holy. They’re the…

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I am Jewish. Not as a costume, not as a mood, not as a vague ancestry note on a family tree. I’m Jewish in the…

View More I’m a Buddhist—and I’m still Jewish

Zen talks about emptiness the way a seasoned sailor talks about wind. It isn’t an abstract theory, and it isn’t a poetic garnish on top…

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The Four Noble Truths point with gentle clarity to what hurts, why it hurts, what relief feels like, and the way of living that supports…

View More The Eightfold Path: A Gentle Way of Living That Leads Beyond Suffering

In the Buddha’s first great teaching, the Four Noble Truths were offered not as a creed to believe in, but as something closer to a…

View More The Four Noble Truths – A Brief Introduction

Zazen has never been a hobby for me. It has been closer to a long, quiet marriage with something that doesn’t flatter, doesn’t rush, and…

View More My Zazen

Rohatsu arrives in the Zen world the way winter arrives in the body: not as an idea, but as a change in the air. In…

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