Bashos What Is Zen
- Dec 11, 2025
- 2 min read
Today we enter… Basho’s What Is Zen. A koan so small it slips past the mind, and so clear it leaves the heart exposed.
This one doesn’t explain Zen. It removes everything that tries to understand it.
Step in. Quietly.
Let the Story Unfold
A monk once asked the poet-master Basho:
What is Zen?
Basho said:
A cypress tree in the garden.
The monk frowned.
I am not asking about a tree. I am asking about Zen.
Basho said:
A cypress tree in the garden.
Sit With the Meaning
The monk wanted a definition. A teaching. A doorway he could label and step through.
Basho refused.
He didn’t point to philosophy. He didn’t point to scripture. He didn’t point to some inner purity or mystic essence.
He pointed to a tree.
Why?
Because Zen is not about explanation. Zen is the direct encounter with what is here, before your mind divides it into meaning, metaphor, or lesson.
A cypress tree in the garden is
the world before thought.
The world before interpretation.
The world before the monk arrives looking for something else.
Basho’s answer cuts through every spiritual disguise:
Stop looking behind the momentor beneath it or above it.
What you want is already touching you. Unfiltered. Untranslated. Unimproved.
Zen is not hidden. It is simply ungrasped because it is too obvious.
A cypress tree in the garden.
Turn Inward With Your Parts
Is there a part of you that always wants deeper meaning, even when things are already simple?
What happens inside when someone gives you an answer that does not explain, but just is?
Can you sense a protector that fears stillness without interpretation?
Which part believes life must be symbolic or significant to be worth noticing?
Let Expression Rise
Choose the doorway that feels open:
IFS Journaling
Write from the part that needs understanding. Let it speak honestly about why clarity feels safer than presence.
IFS Parts Art
Draw the “cypress tree” inside your system, not literally, but the thing that is simply there, before your mind makes it meaningful.
Somatic IFS
Sit for a moment.
Let your attention rest on one simple sensation, your breath, your hands, the pressure of the floor. Do not interpret it.
Do not improve it.
just meet it the way Basho met the tree.
If nothing else feels right… simply rest with the koan. Let the obviousness undo you.
Stay here with your parts as long as you like, and we’ll meet again in the next story.
Continue Exploring the Zen Stories
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