Naked Awareness For about a year, while between permanent homes some years ago, I lived at a nudist resort near San Diego. Folks, that I talked to there, seemed convinced that the population of nudists was steadily increasing. I reflected on the soaring increase in sheer human numbers, and it occurred to me that any increase in the nudist population probably only reflected a general population increase. Acquaintances sometimes remark to me that the attraction to the nondual teachings appears to be increasing at a surprising rate. Earlier on, this seemed to me to be a corollary to the increase in the nudist population. But, more recently, I’ve considered it differently. In one-on-one discussions with scores of people each of the past few years, I’ve noticed that virtually all of these “seekers” have much in common. Most all have acquainted themselves with a wide variety of spiritual teachings and disciplines. Most all have been involved in some sort of “practice”-oriented tradition, various schools of meditation primarily among them. Partly due to such books as Alan Watts’ Way of Zen, there was a notable enthusiastic interest in Buddhism beginning in the Sixties. Many Zen roshis were invited over from Japan to establish zendos in the various parts of the U.S., such as Suzuki Roshi who headed the San Francisco Zen Center. The so-called sudden enlightenment school of Soto Zen seems to have been more attractive than Rinzai Zen with its koan stepping-stones. Soto Zen masters stressed Zazen, sitting meditation.
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