Suffering Zen I had been a Zen Buddhist practitioner for over 20 years. Buddhist teachings are about suffering and the end of suffering, and Zen Buddhism, in particular, emphasizes sitting still in the comforting than 40 minutes in the peaceful, familiar Zendo, with the slant of sun across the cedar My Buddhist teachers urged me to keep on sitting zaZen. "Don't turn away from your to injury: "I'm the worst Zen student that ever was." Occasionally a Zen teacher when I told my teachers I was disappointed that zaZen didn't make me feel better, they scolded me. "You don't sit zaZen to get something. You sit zaZen in order to sit zaZen. If you want zaZen to make you happy, it won't work suffering? Did all those other people in the Zendo really get up out of bed at 5 a dimly remembered time of normalcy, sitting in the Zendo, I too had had the experience of watching t in the surf. I was in the Zendo. Around me sat my dharma brothers and sisters morning of the fifth day--after fleeing the Zendo several times in agony--I called the Zen Center and said I wasn't feeling well- own hands. I didn't sit zaZen for some months, and now I know that stopping was zaZen. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after the resistance to taking medication. The voice of orthodox Zen whispered in my mind that the monks of old didn for help. Prayer was something I missed in Zen practice as I knew it, so I imported it for help. Prayer was something I missed in Zen practice as I knew it, so I imported it Once, when I called Zen teacher Reb Anderson in despair, he came to Berkeley