When I look at my practice these days, what feels most important to me is very simple: Authentic experience.
In my life, that’s the thread that keeps everything honest.
I first came to practice about six years ago, when the thought of losing a parent shook something loose in me. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was enough to make me sit down and look more closely at my own life. I didn’t know what I was looking for, only that something in me needed to stop running.
Life changed again when I gave up my career in hospitality to become a stay-at-home father. It was the right thing to do, but the loss of that life, the pace, the creativity, the freedom, weighed heavily. I often wished things could have stayed different. Practice didn’t offer solutions then; it simply waited in the background of my days.
For a long while after that, I collected ideas about Zen: I read books, listened to teachers, and measured my sitting against what I imagined it should look like. Nothing about my practice felt steady at that time. If anything, I was erratic. I would sit for a while, stop for a while, start again, drift off again. Most of it stayed in my head, and the whole thing felt more like circling than settling.
Over time, something softened. With the kind of effort that feels right to me these days, steady but not forced, authentic moments began to appear quietly, without me trying to make anything happen. I noticed the ache in my knees and didn’t try to escape it. A thought wandered through, and I let it drift away. When the bell rang, I didn’t rush to stand. I just listened to the sound fading, breath arriving on its own. These small, ordinary moments felt more real to me than anything I had tried to manufacture. As things have unfolded for me, they sometimes bring simple recognitions that show me how practice might move into the rest of my life. They reveal, in their own quiet way, how things feel when I stop trying to manage them.
As my practice has settled into my life, the cushion has spilled into daily routines. Helping my neurodivergent child with everyday tasks, getting dressed, brushing teeth and eating breakfast has become one of my clearest teachers. Mornings can be slow and full of resistance. In the past, I would push, hurry, or tighten when things didn’t go smoothly. Now, as I’ve come to see it, resistance is simply resistance. Delay is simply delay. I try to stay present with my own rising impatience and with their pace, without forcing a different story. These small tasks feel like a kind of shared practice, raw, ordinary, and alive.
In my life, Zen practice has helped me accept things as they are, not as I wish they were. The career I left behind, the slower rhythm of family life, the daily challenges of supporting my neurodivergent child, all of it is met more gently now. Frustration still comes, but it passes more lightly. Patience appears more naturally. Small victories and setbacks land with a quieter heart. From where I stand now, these shifts feel true.
In these shared moments, practice stops feeling like something I do alone on a cushion. It becomes something we are together, breathing, waiting, persisting, softening. One life, not separate pieces.
What helps me stay close to this, in my own life, is mostly very ordinary. I find myself returning to the present, again and again. I notice the mind that wants to check whether I’m doing it right, as a parent or as a practitioner, and sometimes it loosens. I try to trust my own direct experience, whether it’s sweet or difficult. And I do my best to carry the same quiet presence into helping with tasks, answering questions, or walking together.
At the heart of it, what matters most to me now is how the practice actually lives in my daily life with my family. I notice when it helps me be a little more present, a little more tender, a little more courageous with whatever arises in our days. When even one breath feels clear and undivided, whether on the cushion or during a chaotic morning routine, I sense that, for me, the practice is working.
