#norman's disadvantage : a single word name

[acapelladitty]

Green Goblin/Reader - Office Sex 📋📈 (Kinktober #2)

Summary: A lovely commission for @nygmanotnashton this fic features Norman Osborn having some 'fun' with one of his employees (w/ transmasc reader).

It all started with a mistake.

An uttering of your name through the crackling intercom as Norman Osborn, renowned businessman and your immediate boss, called you through to his office with an oddly soft and hushed tone. An error, as it turned out, on his part as his elbow had brushed the button unwittingly; a fact you were quick to discover as you scurried through the closed door to his private office and immediately found yourself face to face with the man himself, lengthy cock in hand as he reclined in his expensive leather chair to enjoy some self-pleasure.

It was difficult to tell who was more surprised, but you had to confess that his reaction time had been much smoother as you stood there with a beet red face and a shocking heat in your groin that couldn’t just be put down to shame.

“Sorry, sir! I thoug-”

“The mistake was mine. No need to apologise, but I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a disadvantage.”

“Fuck. Sorry! I didn’t mean to- I’ll just leave.”

“Wait.”

One word, the syllable dripping from his lips as a look of hunger crossed his lined face. His suit stood in disarray, the top buttons undone and tie loosened lower than would be acceptable for polite company. Handsome. But your undoing proved to be the definite twitch of his cock as he caught you glancing at it while it remained in his palm. The interest there was undeniable as he held you in place with that single word.

Wait.

To give yourself a little credit, it did take him a few more sentences to have you spread across his desk like one of the many financial paper which now lay crumpled beneath your body; the bulk of your leather shoes digging into his lower back as Norman maintained a punishing pace as he thrust himself deep within your ass.

Your fingers curling around the small jar of vaseline he kept stored within his desk drawers, his gaze is surprisingly intense as he pins you to the wood with an impressive amount of strength. His left hand pushes against your shoulder, the palm digging in to the joint, as his right hand slips up the bottom of your work shirt to grip roughly at the skin of your hip.

“Did you think when you came to work today that you would find yourself like this?” Norman asked, punctuating his words with a wicked roll of his hips as he rasped the question. “Being fucked on your bosses desk like a whore? Like one of those pretty boys that evil businessmen like to buy and use up over a long weekend away?”

“No.” You moan, tapping the back of your head against the desk as you breathe through the discomforting stretch of your mildly-prepared ass. “But I’m not complaining.”

“Damn fucking right you’re not.”

The words are a snarl, his lips tilting into a cruel smirk which makes you shudder and clench around him. It’s thrilling and dangerous and so fucking hot that you push your ass back to meet him, determined to put on a good show. His strength continues to surprise you, making you feel vulnerable in the most delicious way as he clearly finds no difficulty in keeping you locked into place as his hand drops from your hip to trail down your stomach and upper thigh, brushing the sparse hair there.

His calloused fingers stop their journey to tease the short length of your clit, the nub engorged and heightened due to the heat which flows through your veins. The sensation is almost too much and a strangled cry leaps free of your throat when his thumb brushes against the head, his cock so deeply buried within your ass that you can already feel tomorrow’s ache.

“Such a handsome boy.” Norman growls as his expression twists into something predatory, a mania alighting behind his eyes which sends a thrilling shiver down your spine. “So tight and hot around me; able to take every inch of his bosses’ cock, even as he squirms.” At the final word, he thrusts his hips flush against your ass, and you whine pitifully through clenched teeth as you adjust your hips to better adapt to the uncomfortable stretch. The vaseline helped but he was shockingly huge, definitely the biggest you’d had before, and the adjustment was only bearable due to the wicked attention he had been so willingly showing your clit and other hole.

Tension building in your core, his thrusts grew more sloppy as you clenched harder around him to pull him to his own release. The perfect employee, one who was happy to ensure the boss was pleased with his performance.

“Might keep you here.” Norman threatened, the hand which was on your shoulder suddenly shifting to wrap itself around your throat. A move which forced a pathetic moan from your lips as his rough palm pressed against your windpipe threateningly. “I could use a little toy to fuck and keep me occupied during those long, boring meetings. I could have this throat trained up in weeks, days even- if I wanted.”

The threat draws another stutter whimper from you, one which rises to a strangled whine, as he presses down hard on both your throat and your clit, the pressure enough to snap that band of arousal and you come, hard. You ass spasming around him, your free hand comes to grip his wrist as it remains atop your throat as you buck against his cock. The roar of blood in your veins has your eyes fluttering shut for a moment as you moan out your orgasm, riding the residual waves of pleasure as he continues to thrust away roughly within your ass.

“Enjoy it, handsome.” Norman releases your throat slightly and his words have a teasing heat to them which is definitely pleased as he notes your enthusiastic reaction to his cock. “Because I’m not through with you yet. I haven’t enjoyed a hole this sweet in a while and I don’t plan on stopping until you’re a sobbing, fucked-out mess.”

A crack of his palm against your ass makes you cry out as you realise his threat was very real as his pleasurable assault shows no hint of slowing down.

“Let’s call it punishment for interrupting your poor boss while he was hard at work.”

#green goblin #norman osborn #green goblin x reader #norman Osborn x reader #marvel #spiderman #norman osborn x you #green goblin x you #willam dafoe #goblin

[warmdevs]

New Post has been published on https://warmdevs.com/image-focused-design-is-bigger-better.html

Image-Focused Design: Is Bigger Better?

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. We are visual creatures, and images can be a powerful way to capture users’ attention and communicate your message. As networks and devices become more capable of displaying large images, more and more websites incorporate huge, eye-catching images. Often they can’t decide on just one image, so choose instead to display several images in a carousel.

The new Southwest Airlines homepage exemplifies this trend: the focal point of the page is a beautiful landscape scene of rolling hills with fall foliage, which makes up the entire page background.

The redesigned Southwest Airlines homepage features a huge image as the page background, with the flight search at the bottom of the page.

Visceral Appeal

The rationale for this approach is that compelling images have a unique ability to inspire and engage your audience. In his book, Emotional Design, Don Norman described the powerful, visceral responses people can have to visual appearance. Websites can elicit positive visceral responses from people by displaying aesthetically pleasing images – beautiful scenery, sleek products, and attractive people. (More about visceral design in our class The Human Mind and Usability.)

But visceral appeal is not the only requirement for a good user experience. Websites also need to deliver content and functionality to users.

The image on the new Southwest design is captivating, but devoting this much emphasis to any single design element necessarily means that users are less likely to notice other elements — some of which may serve more important goals.

The entire Southwest homepage is designed to focus attention on the image: the top navigation links are small and have no background color; the search function is represented with a magnifying glass icon instead of an input box, and even the Book now call to action button is an understated outline, with no background color to distinguish it from the background. Most importantly, the flight search function is pushed several inches down, so that it doesn’t interrupt the image. As a result, many users won’t even see the button to search for flights until they scroll down the page.

Comparing the new Southwest Airlines homepage to its previous design clearly illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Like many airlines, before it was redesigned, the Southwest homepage had become cluttered with different promotions and programs. The background image was barely noticeable, because it had been so obscured with text, links, and widgets. But, the flight search tool occupied the top left corner—the first place on a web page where many users look (at least in cultures that read from left to right).

Before the recent redesign, the Southwest Airlines homepage was cluttered, but the placement of the flight search in the top left corner meant that users could easily find this essential feature.

In comparison, Southwest’s mobile homepage makes it much easier to find essential content and features. The clutter has been removed, and the 4 top tasks are one tap away, as is a travel alert (though its position and the resemblance to an ad put it at risk for being overlooked due to banner blindness). This design also uses a large background image, but the action buttons have just as much visual emphasis as the image and the size of the image does not overwhelm the homepage.

It’s much easier to see, find, and use content on the mobile version of the Southwest Airlines homepage than it is on the desktop version.

When Is Image-Focused Design Appropriate?

Deciding which approach is best for your website is a matter of prioritization. In most cases a webpage has multiple goals and multiple audiences. Getting people’s attention with attractive images certainly has value, but comes at the price of making other elements harder to see and use.

The Apple homepage also features a single large image as the focal point of the screen — but this image actually shows their newest products, and is topped by a strong navigation bar providing access to all areas of the site. The image also provides useful information to the user by clearly showing the relative sizes of the two new phone models.

The Apple homepage displays a large image of their newest products — accompanied by a global navigation bar that has strong visual weight, because it contrasts starkly with the light page background.

The homepage for Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is another example of extreme focus on imagery, with its ever-changing backdrops. But a site devoted entirely to search has quite different design constraints that most websites. The top priority on this page is to show people the search box, and there is very little need for the design to emphasize other elements. This page works because the huge white search box does clearly stand out from the background image.

Microsoft’s Bing homepage features a huge image as the page background.

A Balanced Approach Works Best for Most Sites

Most sites will do best with a balanced approach: images that support the brand, without obscuring other important content. For example, the StateFarm homepage presents a large image representing driving, a critical part of their business. But this image is balanced by strong navigation elements and starting points for common tasks including logging in, requesting a quote, and handling insurance claims.

The State Farm homepage presents a compelling image but also prioritizes key features.

How to Ensure that You Use Images Appropriately

Follow these steps to make sure you have the right balance of elements:

Identify and prioritize all the goals of the page — both the user goals, and the business goals (including brand goals.) Is the page primarily a marketing vehicle to build your brand? Or are most visitors already familiar with your organization (or at least your industry vertical), and now need specific content or functionality?

Define how each design element relates to the page goals. Images are usually decorative, and support branding goals. Navigation and structured search relate to specific user tasks.

Assign visual weight based on goal importance. If a design element supports a high priority goal, it should have more visual emphasis; conversely, design elements related to secondary goals should have less emphasis. (This guideline sounds obvious, but is often completely disregarded, or gets lost along the way to creating a ‘modern’ looking website.)

Select images that have a strong relationship with brand goals. Remember, the purpose of your site is not just to showcase images (unless you’re Flickr). Instead, the images you select should showcase the purpose of your site.

Choose striking visuals that capture attention. Once you’ve identified the goals of your images and their relative importance among other design elements, and you’ve determined what types of images relate to these goals — only then should you focus on selecting the most compelling images you can find.

Be selective about which trends you embrace when ‘updating’ your site. For many redesign projects, creating a site that looks ‘modern’ is an important goal. But there are many ways to accomplish this goal. Typography, layout, and brand colors — just to name a few—can all be effectively used to create a modern look and feel, while still providing appropriate emphasis on critical site functions.

[grifalinas]

By the time I reached Rustboro, I was getting impatient, and all I could think about was taking on the gym. I took my Pokemon to the Pokemon center to rest, and while I ate lunch and Nurse Joy tended my Pokemon, I asked around for any information I could get.

The gym leader, I was informed, was a young woman named Roxanne, who specialized in Rock-types. At this point I should have put the breaks on and gone to train more, or catch something new to add to my team, but as I said, I was getting impatient. I’d been in Hoenn for days and had yet to have a single gym battle; Norman hadn’t even been willing to give my status credit for a friendly practice match, and I’d dawdled on the road here in order to train my team.

Besides, at that point I’d won every battle I’d fought, and I was getting cocky.

So I retrieved my now-rested Pokemon from the Nurse and headed to the gym, where, I hoped, my team were strong enough to overcome their, er, disadvantages.

At this point I imagine you’re thinking how foolish it was of me to try to take on a Rock-type specialist with a Flying type, a Bug-Flying type, a Dark type with no special attacks, and my only type advantage in the hands of a Pokemon that wouldn’t even listen to me.

And you are absolutely right in that assessment.

To put it short, Roxanna smashed me. To put it longer: Contrail made quick work of her Geodude, but then she sent out a Nosepass and all was lost. He fell, and De la Noir lasted a turn before he, too, was trounced. Spooky managed to last a few rounds, and would have in fact won if not for Roxanne using a potion to restore her Pokemon’s health.

(A lot of people consider this unfair play, but they don’t realize that it’s part of the challenge. Besides, there’s rules in how the defending trainer can use items, and challenging trainers lack such regulations- if I’d felt like it, I could have spammed potion after potion to whittle down her Nosepass’s stamina. But that is unfair play at its finest.)

Spooky was taken out not long after that. I recalled him and sent Coco into the ring, sending up a silent prayer to Uxie that she would listen to me, and called out my first order.

“All right, Coco, we need this done in a couple of rounds,” I said. “Give it an Ice Punch!”

Coco looked over her shoulder at me, then over at the Nosepass. Her ears twitched in thought, and she-

-sat down in the dirt and started piling it up. I buried my face in my hand.

“Coco, come on!”

Well, it’s not hard to imagine what happened after that. Nosepass dopped a ton of boulders on Coco, who lay under the pile in an unconscious daze. I recalled her without a word and sat down, crossing my legs in front of me and leaning on one arm. Roxanne came over to speak with me.

“Are you okay?” she asked, holding out one hand to help me up.

“I’m fine.” I took the offered hand and stood. “I’m out of practice at losing, is all.”

“It was a... well-fought battle?”

“It was a terribly-fought battle,” I corrected her sternly. “You don’t have to sugar-coat for me, hon, I know what a bad battle looks like.”

“Well... yes...”

“Thank you for the battle,” I said, and bowed politely. “I’m going to go nurse this lot and my ego back to health. I’ll be back- at some point. It won’t be long. I’ll win, next time.”

“I look forward to it!”

#pirate writes pokemon fanfiction i guess

[viktoriaanabel]

What Is Zen Buddhism and How Do You Practice It?

Zen teacher Norman Fischer takes you through the principles and practices of the major schools of Zen. Includes specially selected articles for further reading.

Norman Fischer. Photo by Laura Trippi.

What does “Zen” mean?

The word “Zen” is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese “Ch’an,” which means “meditation.” Ch’an came to Japan and became “Zen” around the eighth century. Today, the word “Zen” is in more general use in the West.

What are the characteristics of Zen Buddhism?

Zen is a stripped-down, determined, uncompromising, cut-to-the-chase, meditation-based Buddhism that takes no interest in doctrinal refinements. Not relying on scripture, doctrine or ritual, Zen is verified by personal experience and is passed on from master to disciple, hand to hand, ineffably, through hard, intimate training. Though Zen recognizes — at least loosely — the validity of normative Buddhist scriptures, it has created its own texts over the generations. Liberally flavored with doses of Taoism, Confucianism, and Chinese poetry, and written in informal language studded with Chinese folk sayings and street slang, much of classical Zen literature is built on legendary anecdotes of the great masters. The Buddha is rarely mentioned. Here are four Zen dicta, ascribed to Zen’s legendary founder Bodhidharma, which are always quoted to illustrate the essential Zen spirit: A special transmission outside the scriptures. No dependency on words and letters. Pointing directly to the human mind. Seeing into one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood. This shoot-from-the-hip Zen spirit appeals to the American mind, which is as iconoclastic and anti-authoritarian as it is religious. It has also appealed, over many generations, to millions of Buddhist practitioners in the Far East, who, conditioned by the Taoism and Confucianism that had been imported everywhere from China, could relate to the Zen message and style

What are the methods of Zen practice?

ZAZEN, OR ZEN MEDITATION Although Zen eventually developed traditions of study and ritual, its emphasis on personal experience has always made it a practice-oriented tradition. The practice is meditation. “Sitting Zen” (Japanese: zazen) has always been central in Zen training centers, where monks rise early each morning for meditation practice and do long retreats consisting of many, many silent unmoving hours on the cushion. What is Zazen? It literally means “sitting Zen.” Put simply, it’s “seated meditation” as done in the Zen style — upright in good posture, paying careful attention to breathing in your belly until you are fully alert and present. Zazen is an intensely simple practice. It is generally taught without steps, stages, or frills. “Just sit!” the master admonishes, by which he or she means, sit upright in good posture, paying careful attention to breathing in your belly until you are fully alert and present. This sense of being present, with illumination and intensity, is the essence of zazen, and although there are many approaches to Zen meditation, they all come back to this.

Photo by David Gabriel Fischer. In the Zen monastery, life is entirely organized around sitting in the meditation hall. But zazen is also understood to be something more than this sitting. It is conceived of as a state of mind or being that extends into all activities. Work is zazen; eating is zazen; sleeping, walking, standing, going to the toilet — all are zazen practice. In Soto Zen, the Japanese school practiced extensively in the West, there is an especially strong emphasis on this “moving Zen.” Soto monastic life tends to be highly ritualized, so as to promote concentration in all things. There is, for instance, a special elegant and mindful practice, called oryoki, for eating ritualized meals in the meditation hall.

Oroyoki set. Photo by David Gabriel Fischer. KOAN PRACTICE In koan Zen, contemplation of a koan begins with zazen practice. The practitioner comes to intense presence with body and breath, and then brings up the koan almost as a physical object, repeating it over and over again with breathing, until words and meaning dissolve and the koan is “seen.” This practice is usually done in the context of an intensive retreat led by a qualified Zen koan teacher, whom the practitioner visits for private interviews. The student presents their understanding of the koan (however lame it may be) and receives a response from the teacher (however understated it may be) that reorients the search. Eventually, with luck, diligence and a few judicious hints, the koan’s essence is penetrated. Like all systems, the koan system can degenerate into a self-protective and self-referential enclosure. It’s the teacher’s job to see that this doesn’t happen, but sometimes it is not preventable. There are many different systems of koan study, but most of them emphasize humor, spontaneity, and openness. The koan method is, at its best, a unique and marvelous expression of human religious sensibility.

How did Zen Buddhism come to be?

Through the centuries, India, the first Buddhist country, gradually spawned hundreds of sects and sub-sects, and thousands of scriptures, and tens of thousands of commentaries on those scriptures. When Buddhism spread over Central Asian trade routes to China, all this material came at once. The Chinese had long cherished their own twin traditions of Confucianism and Taoism and were resistant to ideologies introduced by barbarians from beyond the borders of the “Middle Kingdom.” There was also a severe linguistic challenge for the Chinese in digesting the Buddhist message from abroad. The Sanskrit language was so different from Chinese in sensibility and syntax that translation was almost impossible. Gradually, Indian and Central Asian Buddhism began to be reshaped by its encounter with Chinese culture. This reshaping eventually led to the creation of Zen, an entirely new school of Buddhism, which eventually became by far the most successful school of Buddhism in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

If Zen is its own school, who was its founder?

Though we can’t be sure if he truly existed, Bodhidharma is the legendary founder of Zen in China. He is said to have arrived in China about 520. (Buddhism had by then been known in China for about 400 years.) He was soon summoned to the emperor, who had questions for him.

Chan Patriarch Bodhidharma. 17th century China. Porcelain with ivory glaze. Via The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “According to the teachings, how do I understand the merit I have accrued in building temples and making donations to monks?” the emperor asked. Bodhidharma, usually depicted as a scowling, hooded, bearded figure, shot back, “There is no merit.” “What then is the meaning of the Buddha’s Holy Truths?” the emperor asked. “Empty, nothing holy,” Bodhidharma replied. Shocked, the emperor imperiously asked, “Who addresses me thus?” “I don’t know,” Bodhidharma replied, turned on his heel and left the court, to which he never returned. He repaired to a distant monastery, where, it is said, he sat facing a wall for nine years, in constant meditation. A single disciple sought him out, and to test the disciple’s sincerity, Bodhidharma refused to see him. The disciple stood outside in the snow all night long. In the morning he presented Bodhidharma with his severed arm as a token of his seriousness. The monk became Bodhidharma’s heir, and thus began the Zen transmission in China. So, at least, the story goes.

Zen schools

Zen schools are more or less divisible into those that emphasize a curriculum of verbal meditation objects — like koans — and those that do not. Emphasizing daily life practice as zazen, Soto Zen centers generally do not work with a set koan curriculum and method, though koans are studied and contemplated. Because of this, Soto Zen has sometimes been criticized by the koan schools (the best-known of which is the Rinzai school of Japan) as dull, overly precious, and quietistic, in contrast to the dynamic and lively engagement of the koan path. But the koan way also has its critics, who see the emphasis on words, meaning, and insight as working against real non-conceptual Zen living. Koan training systems also have the disadvantage of fostering competition and obsession with advancement in the system. It is remarkable how essentially similar the various teachers within a particular Zen “dharma family” can be in personal style and mode of expression, even though, paradoxically, each one is quite distinctive and individualistic. Zen has had a long and varied history in several different Far Eastern cultures. Each culture has produced a tradition that is recognizable as Zen, but differs slightly from all the others. Vietnamese Zen is the one most influenced by the Theravada tradition. It tends to be gentle in expression and method, to emphasize purity and carefulness, and to combine Zen with some Theravada teaching and methodology. In China, Zen eventually became the only Buddhist school, inclusive of all the others, so contemporary Ch’an includes many faith-based Mahayana practices that existed initially in other Buddhist schools, especially faith in and repetition of the name of Amida Buddha, the savior Buddha who will ensure rebirth in an auspicious heaven to those who venerate him. Especially stylized, dramatic, and austere, Korean Zen includes prostration practice (repeated, energetic full-to-the-floor bows of veneration) and intensive chanting practice, and has a hermit tradition, something virtually unknown in Japanese Zen. Within each of the Asian Zen traditions there are several schools, and within schools the styles of individual teachers often differ greatly. Still, it is remarkable how essentially similar the various teachers within a particular Zen “dharma family” can be in personal style and mode of expression, even though, paradoxically, each one is quite distinctive and individualistic. This uncanny fact — radical individuality within the context of shared understanding — seems to be an indelible feature of Zen.

Zen teachers and teaching lineages

A key Zen story, shared by all the schools: Once, the Buddha was giving a talk on Vulture Peak. In the middle of the talk he paused and held up a flower. Everyone was silent. Only Mahakasyapa broke into a smile. Buddha then said, “I have the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, the ineffable mind of Nirvana, the real form of No Form, the flawless gate of the Teaching. Not dependent on words, it is a special transmission outside tradition. I now entrust it to Mahakasyapa.” This story, however historically unverifiable, represents the beginning of the Zen transmission, said to start directly with the Buddha. The story tells us two things: first, although the Buddha taught many true and useful teachings and techniques, the essence of what he taught is simple and ineffable. Holding up a flower is one expression of this essence. Second, the very simplicity and ineffability of this essential teaching requires that it be handed on in a lineage from master to disciple in mutual wordless understanding. There can’t be a Zen training program with exams and certifications, with objectives, goals and demonstrable, measurable mastery. (Though wordless understanding may seem a bit mystical and precious, it’s not really so strange. We are all familiar with the transformation that takes place in apprenticeship and mentorship relationships, processes that involve a wordless give and take between individuals, and in which something quite hard to define is passed on. My own teacher once made me a calligraphy that read, “I have nothing to give you but my Zen spirit.” Although the “Zen spirit” may be hard to define, measure and explicitly verify, it can be appreciated when you feel it.) That the teacher is to be appreciated as a realized spiritual adept and at the same time as an ordinary individual with rough edges and personality quirks seems to go to the heart of Zen’s uniqueness. While Zen practice can be done without benefit of a teacher, having a teacher is important, and, in the end, crucial if one is to realize the depth of Zen practice and make it completely one’s own. Although the Zen teacher must embody Zen and express it in all their words and deeds, a Zen teacher is not exactly a guru, a Buddha archetype at the center of a student’s practice. To be sure, respect for and confidence in the teacher is essential if one is to undergo the transformation in consciousness that Zen promises. But the Zen teacher is also an ordinary, conditioned human being, simply a person, however much they have realized of Zen. This paradox — that the teacher is to be appreciated as a realized spiritual adept and at the same time as an ordinary individual with rough edges and personality quirks — seems to go to the heart of Zen’s uniqueness. Through the relationship to the teacher, the student comes to embrace all beings, including himself or herself, in this way. It was typical in the early days of the transmission of Zen to the West for teachers of different lineages to be scornful of each other. There were centuries of tradition behind this prodigious failure to communicate. In Asia, lineages through the generations tended to be separate and usually of opposing congregations. Thankfully, in the West there is now much more sharing between the various lineages. In recent years in America, two organizations have been created to promote warm communication between the Zen lineages: the American Zen Teachers Association, which includes teachers from all lineages, and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, which is made up of teachers of the various lineages of Soto Zen, the largest Zen tradition in the West.

Zen comes to North America

A Zen wave broke on North American shores in the middle of the twentieth century. It probably didn’t begin as a Zen wave at all, but rather as a reflex to the unprecedented violence the first part of the century had seen. After two devastating world wars, small groups of people here and there in the West were beginning to realize, as if coming out of a daze, that the modernist culture they had depended on to humanize and liberalize the planet wasn’t doing that at all. Instead it was bringing large-scale suffering and dehumanization. What was the alternative? In the early 1950’s, D.T. Suzuki, the great Japanese Zen scholar and practitioner, arrived at Columbia University in New York to teach about Zen. The people who met him, attended his classes, or were otherwise influenced by his visit constitute a Who’s Who of American cultural innovation at that period. Alan Watts, whose popular books on Zen were hugely influential, was there. So was John Cage, who from then on wrote music based on chance operations, on the theory that being open to the present moment, without conscious control, was the essence of Suzuki’s — and Zen’s — message. Cage influenced Merce Cunningham, the dancer-choreographer, who in turn influenced many others in the performance art field. The Zen-derived notion of spontaneous improvisation became the essence of bebop, the post-war jazz movement. For Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and the other Beat-generation poets, Zen was a primary source, a sharp tool for prying the lid off literary culture as they knew it. Within ten years, lively Japanese Zen masters were coming to America to settle. With the 1960’s and the coming of age of a new generation radicalized by the Vietnam war and psychotropic drugs, what had been churning underneath for decades broke out in a glorious and exhilarating spray. The first Zen centers in America were bursting with students willing to make serious commitments right away. It was an exciting and confusing time, perhaps unprecedented in the history of world religions. By the mid-1980s, the Zen traditions of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam had all been transmitted to America.

Taking the path of Zen in the West

I’ve said above that Zen is essentially monastic and depends on the intensive practice of sitting meditation. In the West, however, most Zen practitioners are not monastics. While this may seem strange, it is not at all strange if we consider “monastic” to be an attitude and a level of seriousness, more than a particular lifestyle. Unlike Zen laypeople in Asia, whose main practice is often to support the monastic establishment, Western Zen lay practitioners wish to practice it, regardless of what their life circumstances may be. In this sense, all Western Zen students are “monastic,” regardless of their life circumstances. All of them do some form of monastic-style training within the context of their lay lives: they sit meditation regularly, either at home or at a local temple, attend retreats and live their daily lives with full attention (or at least coming as close to this as they possibly can). They take lay or priest vows, and even sometimes enter monastic training at one or more Zen centers for periods of time. While there is a great deal of variety among the many American Zen centers, in general their programs are open to the public, encouraging all who want to practice Zen at whatever level they wish to practice, but emphasizing committed, ongoing practice — gradually entered into — as the main road. TAKING UP A ZEN LIFE: A ZEN TEACHER’S VIEW OF WHAT TO EXPECT For someone who is interested in taking up Zen practice in America, the approach is not difficult: surf the web or the phone book, find the location and schedule of the Zen establishment nearest to you, show up, and keep showing up as long as it suits you. Eventually you will learn the formalities of the local Zen meditation hall (most groups offer special instruction for beginners), and if you feel comfortable you will continue to attend meditation when you can. Eventually you will sign up for dokusan (private, intense, formal interview with a teacher). At some point you will hear about a one-day sesshin (meditation retreat) and you’ll try it out. You’ll no doubt find it a daunting and at the same time uplifting experience. After some time you’ll be ready to attend a seven-day sesshin, and that experience will feel like a real breakthrough to you, regardless of how many koans you do or do not pass, or how well or poorly you think you sat. Sesshin is a life-transforming experience, no matter what happens. What will all this effort do for you? Everything and nothing. From there, if you continue, you will deepen your friendships with other practitioners. These relationships will seem to you, oddly, both closer and more distant than other relationships in your life. Closer because the feeling of doing Zen practice together bonds you deeply, and more distant because you may not exchange personal histories, opinions and gossip as you might do with other friends. As time goes on you will establish a relationship with one or more of the local Zen teachers, and you will find these relationships increasingly warm and important in your life, so much so that perhaps some day you will want to take vows as a lay Zen practitioner, joining the lineage family. If you go on practicing, as the years go by you may attend monastic training periods at one of the larger centers. If your life permits, you might want to stay at this center for a while — perhaps for many years, or for the rest of your life, eventually taking on the teachers and lineage there as your primary lineage. Or you may come back home and continue your ongoing practice, going back to the larger training center from time to time for more monastic experiences. Or, if it is impossible for you to get away from your family and work life for longer than a week at a time, or if you do not want to do this, you will continue with the practice of week-long sesshin, and that will be enough. It is also possible that you do not ever want to go to week sesshin, and that Zen classes, one-day retreats, meetings with the teacher from time to time, and the application of all that you are learning to the daily events of your life is the kind of practice you really need for your life, and that nothing more is necessary. What will all this effort do for you? Everything and nothing. You will become a Zen student, devoted to your ongoing practice, to kindness and peacefulness, and to the ongoing endless effort to understand the meaning of time, the meaning of your existence, the reason why you were born and will die. You will still have plenty of challenges in your life, you will still feel emotion, possibly more now than ever, but the emotion will be sweet, even if it is grief or sadness. Many things, good and bad, happen in a lifetime, but you won’t mind. You will see your life and your death as a gift, a possibility. This is the essential point of Zen. Read the full article

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