Zen Is Right Here

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114 - thesis

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I was laboring to finish my Ph.D. thesis. My job was to go straight to my desk first thing every morning. Once in a while, from peer pressure or an unwillingness to face my typewriter, I would wander over to Zen Center and sit in the zendo.

Invariably, Suzuki Roshi would come up and tap me on the shoulder, wrinkle his forehead, point toward my apartment, and whisper, "Why aren't you over there writing the thesis?"

p.117. J.J. Wilson, Sokoji, circa 1968.