A short glossary

Often translated as “non-action.” It does not mean doing nothing. It points toward action without forcing — movement without inner violence.

“Not,” “no,” “without.” In Zen practice, less a denial than a way of stepping out of fixed categories.

Not vacancy. The recognition that things arise interdependently, without a fixed, separate essence. Spaciousness, rather than nothing.

Not indifference, and not the refusal to care. The capacity to hold what arrives — and what leaves — without clinging.

A mind unobstructed by its own commentary. Attention without a manager.

Things as they are, before interpretation. Often associated with tathatā in Sanskrit.

Commonly understood as the recognition that nothing stays in the form it arrives in — including the one who is looking.

An image from the Tao Te Ching. What is, before being shaped into a use or a name.

Pointing at the heart of the matter without the intermediary of doctrine. Traditionally associated with Bodhidharma.

Not the absence of sound, but the ground in which sound becomes audible — and in which one can finally hear one's own thinking quiet down.

Tao in Chinese, Dō in Japanese. Less a destination than a manner of walking.

An attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions, even at an advanced level. Often associated with Shunryū Suzuki.

Zazen, in the Japanese term. Not a means to an end. The practice and the realization understood as one act.

A life arranged around silence, study, and a few simple tools. The hermit as witness, not as fugitive.

“Ordinary mind is the Way.” The teaching that what is sought is not elsewhere, but in the simplest acts, attended to.