Practice Leader Lisa Gakyo offers reflections on embodiment and Zen practice and a reading from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1836 essay “Nature."

When we first start a meditation practice, we might find ways to fit it into our life — figuring out a schedule for sitting, reading books about zen, attending dharma talks when we are able. Eventually, zazen becomes the place where we start to truly, directly encounter ourselves. We let go of our ideas about practice. Our desire for things to be different starts to dissolve. We begin to soften physically and emotionally. Our curiosity opens up. And we come home to our own wild self.

Read the excerpt from “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson