In this reflective Dharma talk, Roshi Angie Boissevain shares personal stories and insights about Zen practice. She begins with an anecdote about her love of poetry and a teacher’s encouragement to keep it, illustrating how Zen does not require abandoning one’s authentic self. She then explores the nature of the ego, describing the self as a mutable story that changes over a lifetime, and explains that Zen practice—especially long sitting—helps us become intimately familiar with this constructed narrative. Boissevain emphasizes the simple act of sitting quietly, noting how the mind’s incessant chatter (the "yakety‑yak") gradually settles like muddy water, allowing old stories to fade. She connects this inner work to a broader philosophical view of inter‑being, citing Martin Buber’s I‑Thou relationship to illustrate how recognizing others (and even stones, grass, chairs) as "thou" creates a living, mutual connection. Finally, she describes the ritual of bowing to the chair and the room as a concrete expression of respect and the creation of shared space. Throughout, her tone is conversational and contemplative, with a warm, appreciative sentiment toward the practice and its mysteries.
Chapters
I loved poetry and wrote a lot of it. And when I was new to Zen, I said, "Oh, Kobun, I guess I must give up poetry. What a shame." And he looked at me and he said, "No way!" He said, "That's you." Now I think that Zen is, with long sitting and long practice, a way to boil down into the essence of who we are. It isn't that we throw away the ego. Steve didn't do that. He was notorious for not throwing away his ego. And he did very well by that. Excuse me. But it does mean getting to be very, very familiar with what it is. That this that we think of as me is a kind of made-up story. If we look back into our life, we see that it's been a changing story. The story that we thought of as me when we were 7 years old isn't the same as when we're 42. Even though something stays the same. I wonder what that is. Some little thing stays the same even though we keep changing and changing constantly all the time. Studying the self Becoming familiar with what goes on in our mind is what meditation offers us. So when we talk about Zen, it's— and these days it sounds like a face cream or a kind of drink or a motorcycle. Anything can be Zen now. But what Zen really means is simply sitting down, as a friend of mine said, and shutting up. Just to sit down and be quiet. It's the one thing that we don't tend to want to do. Some of it's because of anxiety. Sometimes we think if we just keep talking and keep presenting ourselves that we'll feel more comfortable. Real comfort comes when we come step back a bit and put our hands together and just be quiet. Of course, in the beginning of a quiet there's an awful lot of yakety yak that keeps that keeps on going in our brain. And that's something that this Zen practice gives us an opportunity to become familiar with. It's a lot of— it's very tiresome. We begin to see how it keeps coming up over and over, the same old stories. What he said and I should have said. What I could have done and didn't do and all those stories. When it's over, whatever those stories are about, they're over. They're old. And as we begin to see that, we begin to forget about them. There's no point in bringing them up over and over. And as we settle down into a quiet place, those stories just begin to settle down too. Sometimes they say it's like muddy water, the mud just settles down to the bottom of the jar. It's odd, but it's how we're made. We're made very strangely really, this human being. That is a mystery to us in many ways. We think we understand who we are and what we are, but when we really sit down and start to listen and look, more and more begins to open up in new ways, new ways of understanding what it is that creates this situation called me and creates this situation called you. And the mystery of how I am alone in this world, really just looking out of my eyes, am completely connected with You. What is that? How can that be? And yet, here we are. So Zen is a deep study of this mystery. Martin Buber wrote about it many, many years ago, not being a Zen person at all, but a great philosopher. And he talked about the difference between saying "I and you as a thing." You're just a thing in my world. Or "I and thou." And if we say "thou," there's a connection. A willing connection. And he always emphasized developing that with every connection, every, every time we meet someone, that we say thou, including blades of grass and stones and trees, that indeed all things are not things at all, but a part of this great living being that of which we are a part, of which we're a nubbin of a part really. We're just a tiny bit, and yet it's huge. Our life itself is huge in the hugeness of this living being of which we are so mystified and grateful for. We're actually held by everything. We're held by the chair that is holding us. In Zen, we bow to the chair before we sit down, and we bow to it after we get up. Thank you very much. We bow into the room, and it's bowing to everyone, not only the people who are there, but to all the unknown people who are all around, saying, bow. Creating a space for others.
