The Role of My Home Zendo

August, 2026

Over the years, the role of my zendo has changed.

There was a time when it was simply where I practiced. My life was held by many things: my teacher, my sangha, retreats, koans, interviews, and the companionship of others walking the same path.

Today much of that has fallen away. What remains is my zendo. My garage has become the container of my life.

Every morning I open the door. I bow. I light the candles and the incense. I ring the bell. I sit. Every evening I return.
I bow once more in gratitude before closing the door for the night.
Nothing special happens. I just show up – every day.

The moment I enter and make my first bow, it all begins to fall away. The worry. The need to control. All the analyzing and strategic thinking.
I light the candles and the incense, make my bows, and sit in the silence.

I feel the presence of the ancestors, all those human beings standing on one another’s shoulders, from Shakyamuni Buddha to this moment. Generation after generation, they gave themselves to something larger than their individual lives. They understood, not only with the mind but with every cell of the body, that we are one.

Here, I let go. I surrender.
Life is exactly as it is.

There is pain and there is joy. There is suffering, complication, and simplicity. It all comes and goes. And somehow, within the larger picture, it is all perfect in the way it unfolds.

My zendo brings me back to this.

It brings me back to the simplicity of being human, this organic life that we are. The less I grasp, hold on, and try to control, the easier it becomes simply to be this.
Just a human being. Just this life.

Maybe that is the deepest role of my zendo.
Not to protect me from life, but to give me a place where I can stop resisting it.
A place where devotion becomes ordinary and where everything belongs.

I sit with a small group in Waldport on Sunday mornings, 9:00–10:30, and work one-on-one in person and online.
If something here spoke to you, you’re welcome to come sit.