Washing the Rice... Just Practice

In this excerpt from a new, 2022 interview, Zen Buddhist Abbot Shohaku Okumura explains how the practice of zazen functions in our daily lives. Encounter this next: • Facing the Wall - The ...
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Many thanks to the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana: www.sanshinji.org/
The cinematic art forms of Interior Mythos Journeys are an effort to reacquaint us with the practices and exercises that have the possibility of delivering us into an encounter with the timeless deep place that is forever with us, but that we have become very skilled at not noticing. Please encounter: Washing the Rice... Just Practice
Our Mission: The curriculum of Interior Mythos Journeys is a quest to explore contemporary mythic language that is in harmony with the 21st Century, Global, Quantum Scientific, and Universal Reality in which we all actually live. Learn more at interiormythos.com/
As we solitarily and collectively claim the force of a relevant contemporary mythos, we are delivered to the possibility of life-lived-in-depth, the possibility of authentic life. This is the path beneath the surface.
The Transformative Encounter: The Practice of Contemplation
In the current age this transformative encounter, as well as the practices that deliver us to this encounter and the personal connection that flows from this encounter, is seldom the focus of our lives. Many of us wander disoriented through life, often on a self-destructive path, in a world seen, understood, and measured primarily by the external environment. We are disconnected from the Connecting Myth. We are disconnected from the interior depth to which the Connecting Myth might deliver us. Ironically, we have come to understand myth as a lie rather than a symbolic and metaphoric gateway to a deeper truth.
#interiormythosjourneys #zazen

[@Zdzirak]

Thank you for posting. At 8th minute he says "50 minutes of meditation" but subtitles say "15 minutes". It's 14 periods of 50 minutes each during a day. Just to clarify :)

[@Fedaalis]

I am 37 and I saw Okumura Roshi in another video & was just watching it, but I registered in my head that he must be younger than me, his mannerisms have a lightness/levity typical of a person younger than me. Needless to say I was blown away to find out he is/was 74 years old at the time the video was recorded. Says something about the value of his practice.

[@bartfart3847]

"keep the life simple and wholesome" - Yes Sir

[@neil6477]

Qu: Why do we have to practise? . . . . . .Ans: Just practise. . . . . . .🙏

[@TeddehSpaghetti]

All these rituals sound quite serious and prescribed. My affinity for Zen is largely because it is not so serious, and the only perfect life is one lived spontaneously. But that is an insight from my years of studying Alan Watts. I could be missing the point of Zen entirely and am instead staring at the moon. On that note, I wonder if his son ever made it to culinary school?

[@SuviTuuli78]

Thank you for shearing🌪🤍🦋

[@Heopful]

Thank you for the video.

[@txusreigosa9589]

Wise words. Thanks.

[@richardofhearts3190]

I appreciate that his idea of practice being about deepening or enhancing what you are doing with your life, whether it is being a cook, a sports star, or something other. Much of Western spirituality has lost that way and tries to enforce some doctrine that may be arcane and not apply to all.