Why are we here in the zendo this evening? Why do we do this? I think it is an important question for two reasons. First, just like institutions and organizations, we humans can get lost when an initial impulse becomes muddy, when the original spark, the essence of why we embark in the first place, gets somehow lost in the form. So we need to re-direct ourselves. And it is also an important question from another point of view. A new spark, so to speak, may have ignited and we may not yet be aware of it; we may still be clinging to the old way through habit, just as we cling to relationships that are past their times or to jobs that no longer fulfill what they used to fulfill. So to ask such a question from time to time can be very helpful.

We would have to be living in a very deep fog if we were not aware how world events were pushing our individual lives into deeper and deeper levels of uncertaintywith no end in sight. It is the fact of where we are, whether we admit it or not, whether we choose to worry about it or ignore it. Our life, always fragile, is more fragile than ever.

The purpose of Zen practice, or Zen training as it is sometimes called, is to wake up. And because waking up is not a fixed "thing," is not an idea or a concept, Zen, therefore, is not a philosophy or a religion or anything. It is waking up. What of course we are waking up to is life. "Choose life," says Yaweh. Wake up. And because life keeps moving on, there is no end to waking up. So one of the most important aspects of Zen training, and one of things we all struggle to realize, is that there is no "end product" in Zen.