Practice Instructions

Originally appeared July 2025

Empty and desireless, cold and thin, simple and genuine, this is how to strike down and fold up the remaining habits of many lives. When the stains from old habits are exhausted, the original light appears, blazing through your skull, not admitting any other matters.

While the tone of Hongzhi’s Practice Instructions is lyrical and evocative, surpassing the ordinary “instructions,” this is a voice rarely heard in a teaching hall and is immediately transporting.

Read the Journal while listening

The Daily Zen Teisho
The Daily Zen Teisho
Practice Instructions
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