Zen means no separation.

Our individual selves can be beautiful and ridiculous, but ultimately we are part of something bigger.  The air, bugs, dirt, trees, birds–and the vast space containing it all–is an ecology, an ecosystem containing us as well.

What is our role in this?
Awareness and participation, reverence, wonder and awakening from our numbness.  Consciousness becoming conscious of itself within and through the cycles, breath, growth and death of nature.  All life is alive: everything breathes.

Go outside, breathe real air.  Place your awareness on the parts and the whole of this living system. Nature is another word for vast, living world.  Mentally reside in gratitude for Life.  Play outside.

For a mud ball dropped in water
big plans make no sense
for a fragile dreamlike body
a hundred years are rare
unable to ponder deeply
and claiming they’re immortal
people steal a ton of gold then leave it all behind

Han Shan (Cold Mountain)

Czesky Raj Bohemian Forest Swamp, Taimu Shakuhachi Improv 2016

Giant Sequoia, Taimu Shakuhachi Improv [Calaveras State Park] 2013

Hoh Rain Forest-Hall of Mosses, Taimu Shakuhachi Improv 2011