Having thus regulated body and mind, take a breath and exhale fully. Zazen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Dogen, the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen, wrote:įor zazen, a quiet room is suitable. The principles of zazen are remarkably simple.

When I look at it, I see the face of God.Īfter my mission, I decided to turn my escapist fantasies into practice by starting a zazen practice: sitting meditation. It represents both enlightenment and the void, the universe and nothingness. The figure is simple-a circle, drawn in a single, usually swift stroke of the sumi-e Japanese calligraphy brush. The most well-known visual symbol of Zen Buddhism, the ensō is, to me, one of the most sublime and beautiful images I’ve encountered. In answer, I would simply point at the ensō. “What about it draws you in so powerfully despite your love of The Book of Mormon and Joseph’s sweeping revelations of an eternally expanding heaven of linkages and relationships between all of humanity? If you believe in the gospel, if you love the Savior, if you cherish the doctrines and scriptures, what else do you need?” “Out of all the religions in the world, why Zen Buddhism?” you might be asking. As I wandered aimlessly from major to major trying to find something that captivated my attention in the same way that staring into the eternities did, the image of the Buddhist monastery loomed again in my mind. I started half-wondering if I should contact a few old investigators and take them up on the youth pastor position they had offered me. I went to BYU, where I floundered went on a mission, where I thrived and then returned to BYU, where I floundered once more, realizing much too late that not only did BYU not offer a degree in theology but that the Church offered no reliable position as clergy.

There was no particular point where I decided against the monastery I simply took the path of least resistance. And so why not run away, become a Buddhist monk, and live the impractical theological life that Mormonism so explicitly denied me? I had built my identity around being “the Mormon” in my social circles, but what would such a thing mean when surrounded by Mormons? Faced with this existential crisis, I entertained the idea that if I had to lose my identity I might as well lose it doing something I actually loved-and at the time, I was in love not with BYU, Utah culture, or even the prospect of mission life, but with Zen Buddhism. In fact, to my exasperated Asian parents who wanted me to major in something more reasonable like law or medicine, I was a little too in love with the gospel.īut on the inside, I was terrified of losing myself. On the outside, I was a solid Mormon boy who loved to study the scriptures and live the gospel, who wanted to become an academic by earning a degree in theology-because I loved religion that much. I would be forced to immerse myself in the Church, and this prospect terrified me. I would have to abandon my circle of friends-most whom would be attending the University of Washington together, developing further bonds without me-and find new friends in a familiar-yet-foreign culture where I was no longer very special at all. My teenage heart felt that once I stepped out of that high school for the last time, I would be leaving a comfortable world behind forever-a world where most of my friends were not members of the Church, where I could be the only Mormon, where my social life and church life would rarely intersect, if ever. I was finishing my senior year of high school and would soon depart for Brigham Young University-a university I did not have my heart set on but one my parents wanted me to attend-and then I would leave on a two-year mission. It was a conflux of events that led to this secret desire. When I was 17 years old, I almost ran away to a Buddhist monsatery.

Lds scriptures for comfort