zexeda K
A practitioner and teacher of Korean spiritual philosophy — Cheonbugyeong, Samiljingo, and the Seon-do tradition. Based in Korea. Writing in English so this wisdom can reach anyone who needs it.
There is a particular discouragement that arrives about six weeks into any practice. You sit, nothing happens, and a quiet thought starts up underneath it.
ou step outside and for a second or two there is no you-here and world-over-there. The closing lines of Korea's oldest scripture say that second was not a mood. It was accurate.
There is a particular tiredness that comes from sitting in front of something you are supposed to make. You press harder, nothing comes, and the pressing itself becomes the problem.
You woke up meaning to have a good day. Then something small got you — a tone in someone's voice, a smell from the kitchen, the heat that would not let up.
There is something about your own life you have almost known for years. Most of us assume the voice is too faint — this week we look at the other possibility.
Somewhere along the way you were told to find your center. It is one of the most useful-sounding instructions that can quietly take you away from what you are looking for.
There's a certain person — you know the one — who can unsettle you with a single glance or a passing comment. This week, we turn the question gently around.
There's a tightness in your shoulders that's been there so long you've forgotten it wasn't always there. A clenching in your jaw that shows up at certain names, certain places, certain sounds.
There's a kind of weight that has nothing to do with what's happening right now. It lives in your chest before your morning coffee, in the tightness behind your eyes when you see a certain name on your phone.
You've probably noticed how certain places in your body seem to carry their own weather. That spot between your shoulder blades that tightens before you even recognize you're anxious.
There's a peculiar heaviness we carry without realizing it — like wearing glasses so long we forget they're there, seeing the world through smudged lenses and believing that's just how things look.
