Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset once remarked: “Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.”

A capacity to pay attention grows as we continually practice being receptive to what is happening within and around us. How do you pay attention to life? What holds you back from fully receiving reality as it is?

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei emphasizes the important of attention and the way of awakening.

Too often, he says, we indulge the thoughts, fantasies, excuses of our small minds instead of being receptive to what is directly available to us.

This overindulgence keeps us from actually changing and truly experiencing freedom. Maturity means taking responsibility for how we are participating in life.

We can learn from our Soto Zen ancestors how to live an expansive life, not a little one; how to ask big questions and practice unbounded receptivity to this vibrating, excruciating, beautiful, ordinary, and wild life.