I’ve come to understand that the Way isn’t a destination located far from the world, reached only by force of will or sudden insight. It unfolds through steady, daily practice. What Zen offers is quiet, strange and radical: a form of engagement that begins almost imperceptibly but can grow into something truly transformative.

As Suzuki put it, if you walk through fog long enough, you’ll eventually be soaked. Slowly, you begin to inhabit the texture of your own life more completely. Eventually, you stop trying to be elsewhere. You begin to realise the Way was never hidden up a mountain. It’s right here, buried far beneath your own ideas about who you should be.

From the essay: A Life in Zen by Anshi Zachary Smith
Photo: my Rakusu, a small bib-like cloth hand-made by zen practitioners who have taken the zen precepts.