August 13, 2026

Leave No Trace

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Shunryu Suzuki was a Japanese Zen priest who moved to San Francisco in 1959 and founded one of the first Zen practice communities in the West, teaching mostly young Americans unfamiliar with formal Buddhist training. This line comes from talks later gathered into Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, where he describes right effort as giving an activity your whole self rather than a divided mind. To burn completely means the cook is only cooking, the walker is only walking, with no leftover thought reaching toward the next task or back toward the last one. Zen practice trains this through zazen and through ordinary chores, treating dishwashing or sweeping as the full expression of practice rather than an interruption of it. Present-moment awareness in this tradition is not a special state reserved for the cushion but the willingness to be entirely where the body already is.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Present-Moment Awareness →