Thinking, Concepts & Zazen

     "In zazen, our practice is to let go of our fabricated mental map, to open the hand of thought, and thereby sit down on the ground of reality. Thinking can only produce a distorted mental copy of the world, and this copy is based on karmic experiences. 
     But when we let go of thought, we understand that the copy in our minds is not reality itself. Then we no longer have to blindly trust our thoughts and we can instead inquire further into the nature of reality. 
     Our zazen is not a method of correcting the distortion of our ‘conceptual maps.’ Instead we just let go of the map and sit down on the earth of reality."                           Shohaku Okumura

Gaspe, Quebec, Canada