Today at the zendo, our ‘practice circle’ discussion focused upon the “red thread” of human passion. Long ago, as a young man, I walked down this pathway in the Washington Spring Garden park in Paramus, NJ, very much in love. I was involved with a lovely woman, and together we followed the red thread of our passions. Some of our best moments, our simplest and yet most profound times together, we spent along this pathway.

Our paths eventually went separate ways, the red thread for us frayed and ended. And yet, the threads are still there in all of our lives and along all our paths, if one looks closely. If Zen means nothing else (or means nothing at all, as some of the teachers might like to say), it means looking closely and carefully at life, to see all the things that we pass up in our hurry to get ahead or not get behind.

And so I’m not in any great state of passion right now, but I’m still searching for the thin but myriad red threads of passion that are woven through most every aspect of life. They are not as obvious as young romance, but they are there, in the stillness. They can yet be seen today along the Spring Garden pathway.