The natural world is a source of Dharma: not metaphor or backdrop, but actual teaching. Its radical edge is mujō seppō (無情説法), "the preaching of the insentient": the tile, the pebble, the fallen tree and the gap it leaves expound the Dharma without intention or sentience.
The home can be a complete field of practice: sweeping, washing dishes, cooking, caring for children and aging parents. The point is not that these chores make room for practice or interrupt it, but that such acts done wholeheartedly are zazenShikantaza (只管打坐, shikan ta za) — "just sitting," or more precisely, "nothing but wholeheartedly sitting" - is the zazen practice central to Soto Zen Buddhism. It is objectless, goalless, method-free meditation: open awareness without a focus point, without striving toward any particular state. Read more about zazen ». There is no gap between laundry or dishes and the Buddha way. Layman Pang, his wife and daughter Lingzhao were awakened laypeople. Pang's verse, "How wondrous, how marvelous: hauling water, carrying firewood." is the spirit of Dōgen' Tenzo Kyōkun (典座教訓, Instructions for the Cook).
The tenth and final oxherding picture (入鄽垂手) in Kakuan's series: ox and self forgotten, the practitioner re-enters the marketplace barefoot, mingling with all kinds of people and the withered trees come into bloom. Awakening completes itself not in withdrawal but in the dishes, the clinic, the job site; a profession examined and offered freely becomes the practice itself. The return to ordinary worldly life as the field of practice and compassion. This is practicing the Buddha way as a veterinarian, a project manager, or a software developer.
Buddhist practice can be an active response to collective suffering: social, political, and material. The term was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh during the Vietnam War and is embodied in his Order of Interbeing, but has grown to include many organizations and Sanghas (International Network of Engaged Buddhists, the Zen Peacemakers, Earthworks Centre foundation, etc.). Engaged Buddhism names the Bodhisattva vow turned toward the structures of the world: serving refugees, the displaced, the imprisoned, the poor. Its doctrinal root is the first great vow: "beings are numberless, I vow to free them".
