Just Get Out of Your Own Way

If your mind is straightforward, without deviousness, then what difficulty is there to Buddhism? It is just because students do not rely on the straightforward mind that they erroneously produce judgments. This is why there are so many obstacles.

—TOREI ENJI, 18TH-CENTURY ZEN MASTER

to meditate, I lived 1,500 miles away from my teacher and his practice center in California. Oddly, I never viewed the distance as a difficulty. Buoyed by a beginner’s enthusiasm and open to any possibility,