I cannot say that what I do is better than what anyone else does. I cannot say that my life is an example.
I can only live my life in the way that feels right for me, in the way that makes me happiest. I believe this happiness comes from moments of reflection, meditation, and experimentation.
Perhaps I shouldn’t share anything at all. That too would be freedom.
But I like sharing: it makes me feel alive, part of this journey we all call life. I can share my experience with my fellow travelers… not as an example, but as one of many paths that each of us takes.
Many people struggle to see how thoughts, experiences, culture, and everything around us have solidified our sense of identity, making us someone or something fixed. This creates stress: expectations, roles, ideas, judgments accumulate on the persona we’ve constructed.
When we slowly open the fist that holds this persona, we begin to see who we really are… and the freedom we have always had.
It starts with a small pause, a stop in our endless race. We sit for a while and let ourselves be touched by what is happening, without reacting—or trying not to react. Without judging, without blaming, without stopping or changing anything, completely open to what is happening.
Gradually something breaks through in us: the awareness that we are not these thoughts, nor the passing things that cross our minds. Everything arises and everything passes spontaneously. What we do not feed dies, it goes away.
So, what do we have to do with the many ideas that cross our minds? We can use them consciously, recognizing what is constructive. Likewise, if we see something negative, judgmental, or unhelpful, we have the freedom—and, I believe, the duty—to let it flow away consciously. It does not belong to us.
Zen is curiosity: transforming life into a laboratory, an experiment in constant motion.
Accepting everything as truth would mean closing the laboratory and throwing away the keys. Who are we really? Which thoughts truly belong to us?
Every fixed answer is gasoline on the fire of the laboratory. Studying Zen gives us tools: to try, to experiment, to understand…
This does not mean denying some things and accepting others. For me, it means understanding what kind of life we want to build for ourselves, how we want to live it, how we want to give it at least a direction. Not a goal—the goal is an illusion, life often takes us elsewhere—but a direction.
Direction is our intention, our compass, indicating at least the possibility of happiness. The real goal is here, in this moment, when we are attentive and aware of how we want to relate to and interact with the present.
Zen means meditation. Taking a deliberate pause. Patience, resilience, consistency, curiosity, openness…
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 