Ram Dass is quoted as saying “We’re fascinated by the words, but where we meet is in the silence behind them.” This has been my experience with Zen.

I wake up each morning, reach for my phone, and before anything else (practically speaking), I read the quote on Daily Zen. This has been my routine, my practice for the last 9+ years.

A lifelong restless sleeper, my mind is often quite full when I awake from sleep. My dreams are scattered, frantic, and unpredictable. My mind is a muddy puddle. Reading the quote on Daily Zen each morning restores my calm, and my center…and for me, that center is found in the space between what is written and what is said.

There are days where the water is too muddy…is it deep or is it shallow?…and I cannot see past my own thoughts, but on most days, after quiet reflection, I find myself walking within the space between the words…the implied versus the shown. That is where I find my center.

I found Zen in a garden hidden in plain site, on the outskirts of what society has told me… in the field of existence…with flowers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Rumi, and so many others blooming and sustained by the flowing Tao.

Though I stop from time to time to enjoy the beauty of each, I largely spend my time walking between them, and enjoying the fragrance that for me becomes more and more fragrant as they meld and compliment each other when they meet along the middle way.

Jason E.