The Daily Zen began in 2008. I was 14 years old and became interested in Zen Buddhism thanks to a book of Zen stories and koans I found in my grandmother’s bookshelf. The book was full of irreverence, humor, and anti-logic. I realized quickly that Zen was not the rule-and-regulation laden provincial Buddhism I had a then-cursory understanding of, nor was it any sort of religion, and it certainly didn’t feel very New Age. It was an age-old philosophy unto itself, both rooted in tradition and standing outside of it, never adhering to labels nor falling on any ideological spectrum. Zen was fluid and strange. I liked it a lot.
I started by posting Zen sayings and proverbs to Twitter, which was just a toddler in 2008. The Daily Zen’s Twitter account has since grown to more than 200,000 followers. The site is now highly ranked and has a ton of subscribers. I am happy about this but, in Zen fashion, I’ve learned not to really care about the numbers. I continue to study Zen, and I mirror my studies on this site. I post poems and stories I find, and write posts. The written content of the site has evolved alongside my understanding of Zen, and I am always overhauling old posts with new stuff I’ve learned or experienced. The journey is the destination, as they say.
The site features advertisements. You’re on the internet and shouldn’t care terribly much about advertisements. If you do, you can certainly complain to me, but they’ll probably stay up there (unless you find someone who wants to donate some money). I hope the site can eventually be donation-only in the way that Zen monks travel to the village squares each day to collect donations. I’m not a Zen monk, though, just a white guy with a hobby. Take it with a grain of salt.
-Charlie Ambler