Press & Blog

What is the Zen view of time? Most of us picture it as a line: the past behind us, the future ahead, and us walking the road between. Zen master Taisen Deshimaru taught that time is not a line but a series of now points. This post explores what that means, why the line picture feeds regret and anxiety, and three simple ways to practice living one point at a time, starting with a single breath.

In contemplative traditions, time isn't a straight line but a web, with everything we've been and everything we're becoming held together in this one present breath. This piece explores how the mind moves through past, present, and future, through memory, intention, and non-attachment, and why the deepest journey always leads back to now.

I took a Bodhisattva vow as a young man. Years later, burnout taught me what Chögyam Trungpa meant by "idiot compassion" — and that saying no can be the more compassionate act.

The Atlantic's viral feature on meditation's "dark side" documents real harm — psychosis, dissociation, careers derailed by intensive practice. The reporting deserves to be taken seriously, but its framing doesn't. Drawing on the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, the Yoga Sutras, and the Eightfold Path, this response argues meditation was never sold as relaxation, was never meant for solo practice without a qualified guide, and was never meant to be separated from the ethical traditio

Not a canonical list. Seven Zen books that have actually done work in Andrew H. Housley's practice over the years — Taisen Deshimaru's Ring of the Way, Kosho Uchiyama on Dogen, the plainspoken teachings of Kodo Sawaki, Peter Matthiessen's grief-soaked Himalayan travelogue The Snow Leopard, Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Camus's The Stranger, and John Fante's Ask the Dust. Some from squarely inside the tradition. Two by writers who never sat. All of them, over tim

I went back to the woods where Fritz is buried. A European hornet found me first. What happened next is the truest thing my Zen practice has ever asked of me.

Every year on the longest day, Andrew H. Housley leads a class through 108 sun salutations — Surya Namaskar, in the Sanskrit. A polished black stone for every rep, a tide of energy nobody is generating on purpose, and the small self quieting somewhere around rep eighty. This year the summer solstice falls on June 21 — the same day as Father's Day and the International Day of Yoga, inside Men's Mental Health Month. A yoga teacher on 108, the pivot point of the year, and what t

Take what you need. Andrew H. Housley on the slow, surprisingly difficult Zen practice of taking only what is required — and noticing how much is already here. Five practices for daily life: embracing the present moment, simplifying material possessions, silencing the mind's noise, non-attachment, and finding beauty in the ordinary. With wisdom from Shunryu Suzuki, Dogen, Ikkyu, and Basho. A reflection on abundance, appreciation, and what becomes shareable once you discover y