Everything Is the Teaching

There is no separation.

When I first began seriously practicing, I believed there was something I needed to find—some experience or understanding that was missing from my everyday life.

So I went to retreats. I attended teaching weekends. I sat in meditation and read book after book, looking deeply into the words of teachers and traditions that had traveled across generations.

Over time, something began to shift.

I started recognizing the teachings in my ordinary life.

Dōgen wrote:

“To study the buddha way is to study the self.” — Genjōkōan

The teachings began showing up in conversations with my wife and family, in relationships, in difficult people, in work, in disappointment, in joy, in nature, and in the quiet moments when there was nowhere else to go.

I also began hearing echoes of things my grandfather and parents had taught me years before—things I could understand intellectually when I was younger but could only truly understand after living awhile.

This helped me recognize something important: what I was reading was someone else's description of lived experience.

The words were never meant to replace my own experience. They were pointing me toward it.

The Dhammapada says:

“You yourselves must strive; the Buddhas only point the way.” — Dhammapada 276

A teacher can point.
A book can point.
A tradition can point.

But eventually, we have to walk.

This is also reflected in the Tao. Chapter 33 of the Tao Te Ching turns our attention away from accumulating knowledge about the world and back toward knowing ourselves:

“To understand oneself is to be illumined.” — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33, Arthur Waley translation

Perhaps this is why the teachings become simpler with time.

We study impermanence, and then someone we love changes or dies.

We study nonattachment, and then life asks us to let go.

We study compassion, and then encounter someone difficult.

We study presence, and then discover that this ordinary moment is the only moment we actually have.

Eventually, the boundary between practice and life begins to disappear.

The retreat is the teaching.

The book is the teaching.

Our ancestors are the teaching.

The difficult coworker is the teaching.

Our relationships are the teaching.

The aging body is the teaching.

The mountains, trees, grief, laughter, love, and silence are the teaching.

Nothing is outside the Way.

Maybe awakening is not about finding something extraordinary somewhere else.

Maybe it is learning to fully experience what has been here all along.

Everything is the teaching.

And this life is where we practice.

-Fusatsu, Apriel JessupSearcy