Zozen started out as a nickname.
From today’s perspective, the story goes back to around 1991 or 1992 — though I could not pinpoint it more precisely than that.
The name was born in the mind of a friend of mine. Even back then, he was deeply drawn to the ‘magic’ of the East, with Zen practice and karate playing an important role in his daily life. He noticed a sense of calm beginning to emerge in me and, without much thought, started calling me by this name.
In the 1990s, I knew almost nothing about Zen. My image of it was largely limited to Japanese monks drawing patterns in the sand, seemingly content with that activity. I carried the name, but it did not hold much meaning for me at the time.
My understanding did not grow much in the years that followed. I drifted away from the ‘East’, and for shorter or longer periods, calm felt very distant from me as well. I went on my way without meditation, Zen, presence, balance or inner stillness — though it might be more accurate to say that I wandered here and there, searching for my own path.
It took more than thirty years for the name Zozen to come alive again within me and begin to unite the activities I have pursued since. Roughly that amount of time was needed for me to recognise in myself what a few friends had already seen back then.
Even today, I would not call myself a ‘typical’ Zen practitioner, but I am closer to it than ever before. For me, Zen means presence. It is the path of now.