Zen avoids making general prescriptions (although thousands of books make it seem that Zen is brain surgery). It's personal. Unique to each person. So in discussing my personal performance, the "art" of living, I need to be myself: to "ring my own bell". I consider the 8 fold path as great advice, though I update it considerably for the 21st century.  It's a set of "alarm bells" that go off when I have somehow wandered off the path of Zen. The classical image of a Zen master is one who doesn't care at all about appearances. He makes no effort to bridge the gap of understanding between himself (always male) and his students. Yet he *must* be presenting himself to his students and *must* convey the art of Zen by example  more  than words. Zen masters turn out to have a striking presence after all, deliberately intended to convey what will "go over" with their followers. OSHO - One of my early teachers For some of these guys, the image ...

"Zen is not a philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity .. Here we encounter the purest form of existence. It is the hushed silence of the snow-clad Himalayas. Or it can be likened to the eternal silence of the fathomless depths of the sea" KATSUKI SEKIDA " Guide to Zen " OSHO  " Creativity " You can also watch Osho for hours on you-tube. You can download all you have time to read in PDF form here . SHUNRYU SUZUKI " Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind " JAMES H. AUSTIN Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness Sekida gives us a more traditional guide book, 50% concerned with how to sit and breath and 50% concerned with a pretty detailed analysis of "samadhi" -- the state of mind to be achieved in Zen meditation. With great reluctance, I will steer clear of the easy jokes about the professors of nothingness like Osho and Sekida.  While it's easy to get bogged down ...