Other Zen Stuff

Zen has been described as 'the Artless Art' meaning that you should not be self conscious about it, that you should not try too hard - good advice to systems developers.

Directness

Zen encourages freedom of thought and action, in fact it wants you to go beyond 'Zen' rather than follow rules or simply repeat what has gone before. Of course, if Zen did not do this then it would simply be another dead dogma.

Compassion

Zen teaches, as you would expect, compassion .......but ....

.....one of the things I love about Zen is the way it can encompass everything in its teachings. Yes, they teach compassion but one of the schools of Zen, the one founded by the Zen Master Ma-tsu, uses shouts abuse, kicks, punches and blows with sticks to 'enlighten' their students!