There are some basic teachings that all Buddhists share--the foundation of our practice. While it may have some appeal to go off into some of the "deeper" teachings, those teachings share the same Dharma roots: The 4 Truths, the 8-fold Path, and the 12 Links of dependent origination.
You can't do calculus without knowing (and using) basic arithmetic.
Our pervasive sense of "self" creates (and is created by) attachments. There are some that are instincts--for self preservation--that are hard to shake. Whether cultural or not, we want to be young, if for no other reasons than we're that much further from death, and are less likely to be ill. And even though we've been told that attachments are a hindrance on the path to awakening, they're just hard to shake.
But there are some other attachments that are by choice, not by instinct. Our self-righteous anger can feel really good sometimes. Our ability to elicit sympathy for being hurt is another feel-good habit. Feeling indignation about being slighted, or low self-esteem when we feel like someone has belittled us (and we believe it to be true), feeling the need to puff ourselves up by bragging, or by diminishing someone by pulling them down are all attachments we create just by thinking. They are not for survival, they're just self-made attachments that we really like. And that's OK, that doesn't mean we'll always have these attachments, since they're as impermanent as our health and youth.
But these attachments weigh us down, like the sacks of rocks weigh down Haengdal Citta's good friend Sid carries in Haengdal's Dharma talk from May 17, 2023 at One Mind Zen.
Most of us don't live in temples. As Zen practitioners, our expectation might be that if we did, we could just practice Zen 24/7 with no hindrance, no distractions, just practice, practice, practice. It's a nice idea, but only an idea. So how do we "practice as if our hair was on fire?" We treat each moment as if it were the most important moment ever--just experiencing it fully, doing whatever we are doing 100%. Sending an email? Send it 100%. Cooking a meal? 100% cooking. From moment to moment, just experiencing reality as it is without expectation of it to be different, or better somewhere else is our practice. As ZM Seung Sahn was fond of saying, "Just do it!"
Myeong Jin Eunsahn gives the Dharma talk on May 10, 2023 at One Mind Zen.
