The Magic of Two Simple Words

Hello Friends,

When I was living in a Zen monastery years ago, the phrase I practiced with most often was, "just this."

Sitting in meditation in the blue-black of the morning—just this.

Bowing to the Buddha—just this.

Cutting an onion—just this.

Only two words. But as I held them in mind, day after day, and then over years, they revealed a world to me.

A world of stillness, that was simultaneously in dynamic play.

An embodied world, made vivid with awareness, the immediacy left over when everything extra is sloughed off like a heavy weight.

Just this.

Just this sound. Just this moment. Just this breath, and then the next, and the next.

These days, I don't live in a Zen monastery. I haven't practiced Zen in ten years or more.

But as we move out of our yearlong retreat and into engagement, I find myself coming back to the simplicity and power of these two words, to the wide territory they reveal.

Just this—as I schedule another Instagram post.

Just this—as I pour my awareness into a dharma talk.

Each moment fresh. Can I meet it?

Each eye blink a revelation, if I remember to let it wake me from the dream.

sending good wishes,
nico hase

*join me for an online daylong meditation retreat on March 11th on the topic of "Wisdom," that quality of the heart that knows what to do.