The Faces of Meditation: Ken Atkins (Yin Cai Shakya)

I have been meditating for 15 years. It isn’t so much about just sitting anymore.

I still sit in meditation every day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for only five minutes. But over the years it became deeper. I find that I can enter the meditative state at-will, now. Think of it like a gentle shift of consciousness which I can engage, not just while sitting and doing breathing exercises, but while doing active things as well, like fly fishing or cooking gumbo. This progression is perfectly natural. The more we transcend the ego while we sit and practice, the easier it is to walk around in a transcendent state when whenever we wish to.

As a disciple of the late Ming Zhen Shakya (Order Of Hsu Yun) who once quipped, jokingly, that I am an “avatar of Sun Wukong,” I was taken on as a personal student, taught Zen, and eventually was ordained him as a Zen Buddhist priest in 2008.

 

Like our Faces of Mediation posts? See the others we have posted here and here. Would you like to submit one Send us a little note about yourself and a photo of you meditating to editor@thetattooedbuddha.com!

 

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