Waking Up from the Dream of Concepts

Words are concepts—nothing more than ideas.

Without realizing it, we build an “imaginary world” inside our minds through words and wander within it all day long. It is an illusory cage created by our own thinking.

Words are convenient tools, yet at times they carry us away from reality. We drown in a sea of concepts—baseless anxieties and expectations—mistaking the simulations in our heads for truth, and becoming prisoners of our own shadows.

The World Before Interpretation

Yet, before any human interpretation, judgment, or meaning is added, there exists the original fact.

• Simply, what is seen.

• Simply, what is heard.

• Simply, what is felt.

These are the raw facts of life—present whether or not we try to see or hear them. In this very moment, there is no inherent meaning in a single breath or a single blink. It is the state of "as-it-is"—a reality so pure that interpretation cannot even enter it.

The Return

Zen awakening is waking up from this dream called “concept.” It is the practice of stopping the habit of adding meaning and returning to this reality as it exists before thought.

When we step out of the cage of thought and remain with naked facts alone, we realize a simple, profound truth:

We were free all along.

[ The Zero-Second Practice ]

Right where you are, having finished reading, take one deep breath.

Now, listen to the sound that is present, without attaching any meaning to it. Let go even of the words “I am breathing.”

Simply become one with the resonance that is there.

In that moment,

you have already awakened.

Words and photo by K E I K O