Why do we sit? I’ve sat for years with different styles, but after reading Living by Zen (by D.T. Suzuki), I sat with the idea of finding satori (enlightenment). But later, when I read Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (by Shunryu Suzuki … no relation), he said to not worry about attaining enlightenment, but just to sit. Quote: “You do not meditate to gain enlightenment, you meditate because you are enlightened” (see my other thoughts).

Found another great quote by Shunryu Suzuki in his book, Not Always So (page 56-57):

When you want to escape from your difficulty, or when you try to improve you practice, you create another problem for yourself. But if you just exist there, then you have a chance to appreciate your surroundings and you can accept yourself completely, without changing anything. That is our practice.

So we don’t practice zazen to attain some big enlightenment that will change our whole being or solve all our problems. That is not the right understanding. That may be what people call “Zen,” but true Zen is not like that.

So why would anyone practice is there was nothing to attain? Obviously, no one would just sit if there wasn’t the idea that it would improve our life.

Clearly our monkey mind would have that idea when he sits us down, but once we are sitting, we need to stop worrying about improving, or even “having a good session,” and just sit and enjoy the view.