By Dongmin
I enjoy coming here on Sunday mornings. There’s always lightness and clarity after the session, and just being here feels like a way of taking care of my mind. Today I wanted to share a bit about my experience with thoughts over the past year.
When I first started, my mind felt like a hailstorm. Thoughts just coming nonstop for the entire session. At one point, I actually enjoyed observing them. It felt like peeking into my inner world— seeing what I worry about, and sometimes even discovering creative ideas.
But later, I formed this belief: a “successful” session means having no thoughts at all. And that made things harder. When my mind was busy, I would get frustrated. Sometimes I even left feeling like I had wasted 45 minutes trying to fight my thoughts.
I remember talking to Kaz, Ann, and Lakshmi about this. The answer was simple: just gently come back to the breath. And we all know how hard that is. 🙂 I tried different ways to help myself: labeling thoughts, imagining placing them somewhere in different bucket, etc
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with a simple way of noticing, inspired from one of my chat with Lakshmi — rotate my focus from noticing breath, to sound, to feel, to smell, then come back to breathe. It’s not something I try to follow strictly. More like a soft way to stay present when the mind is active. Through all of this, something has shifted.
I’m a little better at:
- noticing thoughts without getting pulled in
- letting them come and go
- and returning, gently, to just sitting
I’m still exploring what Zazen means to me. But I’m starting to see what it is NOT:
It is not:
- solving thoughts
- or controlling them
- or having a “perfect” session
It’s more like:
- not interfering
- letting go of control
- and seeing the mind as it is
I’m still learning… but I’m beginning to trust that just sitting is already enough.
Hakone Zendo 