Jan Sendzimir JDPSN: Letter to a student (2024)

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your email. I regret that my reply is so late, but preparations to leave Europe for 5 months have kept us busy.

The question of finding a direction for your life is fundamental. Your life, your sense of quality and goodness, all revolve around whether it is clear to you that you are living a good life.

This lesson of how to engage this question cannot be learned from a teacher, from a book, from a website or a video, or from anyone or anything but you. You are the ultimate expert of your life.

Underlying all of this is: Who is this “I”? Who is this who is asking?

You can begin to look at “What am I?” from another angle at the start: how do I learn to trust myself? Where can I find the wise voice inside me that I can trust to show me the way?

One simple way to start is to ask a question that pulls everything to one point: your heart, your intellect, your feelings, your mind…….everything comes to one point!

Here is an example of one such question: “Why do you get out of bed in the morning?”

As you lie in bed and consider your day, do you look forward to doing what you do? Are you so eager to start your work that you cannot wait to get out of bed?

Many people talk about the best things they ever did, the best days of their lives, almost as if they had no choice: They had to do what they were doing! It was like a force of nature rushing through their bodies.

When this eagerness to live, to do your work, to do anything….even simply sitting and staring at the clouds, when this eagerness is obvious, then there is no need for a coin flip, for any advice from a person or a rock or a tree.

So questions like “Why get out of bed?” will point you toward where you are at this moment. In our Zen practice, that question becomes “What am I?”….and we hold it without expecting an answer, waiting with the patience of a mountain for the vast hidden voice to finally speak. This waiting with an open mind we call “Don’t Know”. And within the great space of Don’t Know you can suspend any question you have……jobs, monk, girl friend, family…and perhaps something will appear that you can trust.

I trust that you can raise this Don’t Know and find the right path for your life.
It was great to practice with you last Summer. I look forward to the next time. Until then, please practice with all your heart and help those in need.

best regards from Vienna,

Jan