Today is Sunday, June 30 2024. And this morning, I'm going to look at the simplicity of Zen practice. It's often said, that practice, whether you're doing a breath practice, or koan work, or shikantaza. Practice is incredibly simple. What complicates it. And what makes it feel difficult is squandering our attention. When we miss use our mind by pursuing thoughts. And that includes piling on more thoughts. Thoughts about how the practice isn't working. Nothing's happening. I'm not good at it. It's our, our dwelling in thoughts that cuts us off from directly, directly experiencing life purely simply, as it is. There's a old Zen story about the power of simple bare attention. And it appears in the three pillars of Zen. One day, a man of the people asked Master EQ. Will you please write for me some Maxim's of the highest wisdom? If you immediately picked up his brush, and wrote the word attention? Is that all? Will you not add some more? The man asked? If you then wrote two words, Attention, attention. At this, the man became irritable. Well, I really don't see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written. Then master EQ, wrote the same word three times running, Attention, attention, attention have angered the man demanded. What does this word attention mean anyway? And EQ replied, attention means attention. It sounds so simple. And it is it's radically simple. Attention is just attention. There's an American version of this teaching found in the writings of Henry David Thoreau. Instead of saying, Attention, attention, attention. He declared simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. For those unfamiliar with the row, he was a 19th century naturalist and transcendentalist, whose spiritual journey led him to live in solitude in the woods of Massachusetts for two years, between 1845 and 1847. And in his own words, he said, I went to the woods, because I wished to live deliberately, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. For him, this meant to live a simple life. to live in harmony with nature to become intimate with it. So, he set out to rely on his own resources as much as possible. Although he did have support from friends, he kind of adopted a do it yourselfer, attitude and approach to living. Starting with building a small house along the shoreline of Walden Pond, he grew his own food, eating a diet diet, mainly of vegetables and fruit. Some which he found growing in the wild, but also beans that he planted. And his other activities were simple, walking, swimming, fishing, reading, writing, and also yoga and meditation. He kept a journal of his experience, which later became the basis of his famous book titled Walden. And in describing his, His purpose, His mission further, he said, I wanted to live deep, and suck out all the marrow of life. To live so sturdily and Spartan like, as to put to route all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms.