As a long-time Zen student, I applaud Mary’s zesty, contemporary approach to making The Great Way available on-line by blog. I find her insights and teachings well-considered, inviting and applicable. For me, the dry dusty classical texts and case studies are no longer meaningful. How do we enter each moment with a fresh gaze? Bring on the playful, the zippy, the juicy, I say!

I find the comment “it has nothing to do with zen” very interesting, as I can find no such division in my life.

What brought me to zen and what keeps me here is the desire to pull down those curtains that keep me separated from the world.

I appreciate this blog as another tool to give me insight and another perspective on life. Just as I read a wide range of buddhist magazines and books, as well as internet sites and blogs.

I have a very stressful work life and one where I have to read a lot of legislation and policy documents. Out of work, I like to read some serious zen books, but there are many days when I have no energy or “brain power” to sit with a “text”. Instead I want to pick up something more easily accessible. this is when I turn to magazines and blogs. This may be heresy to some, but it is part of the modern world we live in.

I find Mary’s blogs accessible but not “trivial” and I have found no “danger” in these blogs.

Where they do not resonate with me – I leave them, just as I do the myriad of other books and magazines I read.

For guidance in my practice I go to dokusan. Unfortunately, not living in a monastery, dokusan is not always readily available and there can be a long time between sesshins. What should we do then? Should we read only “approved texts” ? Who approves them?

I appreciate Mary stepping out of the dokusan room and connecting to us in other ways.

Without diluting the message we must make buddhism relevant to people in their living rooms.

As a Buddhist who does not follow any particular path more than another, I think your blog is excellent. It is very insightful and gives me things to think about everytime I recieve my rss feed.

I saw a comment about a similiar thing on Zenhabits a while ago.

I have only been a Buddhist for the last few years, but I am not sure why people feel the need to constantly seperate different Buddhist paths, which to ME seem to promote the same things. Surely any novice Buddhist or anyone interested in Buddhism would be turn off of the idea by comments such as these. Blog’s such as yours Mary are great! As stated in your About You section “Goodlife Zen is a place to find inspiration for life”

People who comment saying that blog’s like yours aren’t Zen enough or whatever make me think of the Noble Eight-Fold Path, in particular the idea of Right View. Surely if people view this blog for what it is then they will understand why you blog and the true purpose of your posts.

Please keep blogging Mary, you inspire me and enthuse me!

For myself, I want to incorporate my practice of Zen into every part of my life, not just the “Zen Buddhist” part. (”I am vast, I contain multitudes”!) And I’m not Japanese, nor Indian nor Chinese, nor do I even remotely resemble a monk. So it seems to me Mary that this blog is more relevant, practice-inspiring, and thought-provoking to me, a kiwi in a 21st century western culture, than reading piles of old sutras (not to discredit those wonderful old texts of course.)

As long as discourse welcomes and promotes critique, question, reevaluation, and of course that fiercest and finest of teachers, doubt, I fail to see how anyone could be “lead astray”. A Zen student is no sleepy sheep, nor flinching mouse!

Don’t stress about it mary!

I think
A) due to the nature of the internet, people easily misunderstand your writings. Sorta like that thing…whatchu call it…chinese whispers.
B) people probably only scan thru articles and miss the full meaning
C) they just like dividing and arguing

Greetings Mary! =)

I wanted to say that I think Goodlife Zen is simply wonderful. Not only may your writing inspire people to look into Zen for the first time, or to strengthen their practice, but your writing also speaks to anyone who wants to dip a little deeper into this luscious life.

Take your latest article on Play. Perfect Zen, but also tangible for someone who just wants to remember what it was like to not take everything so seriously.

Bravo!

Sweetwater,
Kenton

Your Zen colleague doesn’t think your blog is the real thing and that it leads people astray. I’m new to reading your blog, Mary, and amazed at what you write and the dialogue springing up in response–it is so fresh, free and personal. I think it is a return to the real Zen, not a departure from it. Zen wasn’t ponderous or impersonal in the hands of the old masters–going by the old stories it was passionate, intensely personal and always seized the moment in order to awaken someone who was stuck.

I wish the colleague would say what he or she means. I take it as a powerplay when someone uses the strongest condemnatory language without explaining their reasons. Perhaps what offends your colleague is that the blog is so egalitarian, so much a co-creation? Yet again the problem of authority in Zen rears up!

The position your critic is taking seems to be that Zen is handed on from master to disciple exclusively, so people sharing their experience will merely lead one another astray. I’d say experience carries its own ring of truth, as does a person’s weight and depth of experience, such as your own, Mary, and the wonderful voices of those who have joined in.

I find the articles in your blog Mary so natural and honest that I was truly dumbfounded how anyone could attack them on the grounds of leading people astray.
When I started practising zen it did seem to be a thing apart from my everyday life. Practice eventually brought that truth directly into my daily activities. It would have been very easy for me, when I was starting on the path, to read negative comments such as the one you received Mary, and then believe that, yes, it is wrong to ‘lower’ zen to the everyday and natural. Surely this is to be truly lead astray!

Mary I love your blog, and I love the vision that you have for your blog, especially the encouragement and inspiration. I think that this blog is important. After my first retreat with you I remember feeling so happy that I had I’d found a teacher who bought so much warmth and accessibility to the teachings, it made such a difference for me. I am really glad that people outside of the immediate sangha will be to experience this too.

Hi Mary,

You have a wonderful voice, it’d be a shame to give up such beauty to the world. May it be a light for all who are in need. This is the age of the technical six realms of existence, and the age of the technical bodhisattva. No longer with books, but keyboards, no longer spears, but websites. This is our modern voice. To not update our message on the mediums and cultures of our time is to let it die. It is to live in Dogma, instead of in the present.

Gassho,

Wade

hey mary
nice blog
really nice stuff

Hi Mary,

It’s been a busy few months for me, travelling in and out of monasteries around the US, as well as trying to keep my online world running, and flying back to Australia.

For me, the online medium is fantastic. I’ve made a lot of great friends, and feel that we are together developing what I call an eSangha. There’s a network here of Buddhist bloggers that are helping each other, supporting each other’s practice.

Every few days I’m chatting to a fellow BB, talking about our practice, how we’re going, and it’s fantastic to have that outlet. I think for many of us, we don’t have access to practice centres, and this is our way of meeting up. It’s also been a great investigation to read about others and how their practice is going, an almost guide sometimes, of what’s going on.

Disadvantages? Time, but everything in this world takes time, so that’s no disadvantage at all. It’s a pleasure to write and to network, time doesn’t exist in the moment

Gassho,

Wade
http://themiddleway.net

Hello Mary,

A couple of weeks ago I discovered your website with a lot of encouraging texts in it. The teisho’s on YouTube helped me a lot with some sticky things, as I never before came to any teisho, only the paper ones. And now I found your more ore less personal blog, witch gives me the opportunaty to thank you for your beautiful initiative to put some stuff online.

gassho

When people adopt dogmatic opinions of Zen, they loose the essence. Zen is simply experiencing life deeply and completely. If you are able to avoid “freezing” your perceptions into judgments, then you have a chance to experience Kensho and beyond.

Blogging is exactly where Zen should be seen and practiced. Blogging gets meditation into the mainstream more easily. People need more varied approaches to learn core meditative skills. It is up to them how far they take them. Traditional practices are great, but there is a value to easing people into a practice in unconventional ways.

Discipline is learned gradually, and at first, perhaps through soft approaches to meditation; after that discipline becomes its own reward.

Good stuff
John

Thank you Mary,

You have a wonderful site here. It is such a good resource. It will be a pleasure to visit often.

Thanks so much for the link Mary. The interconnectedness of the internet fascinates me. It is also a good metaphor for life. And a great reason to blog about Zen

John