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There is no curriculum and no particular format [in the Soto Zen tradition]. This has suited me because I find I resist things that are too well organized; real life is fuzzy, and spiritual approaches that seem organized (they never really are organized; they just seem to be) and therefore suggest progress and reasonable development strike me as less honest that disorganized approaches that admit progress is a problematic concept to begin with. Though I have always been fascinated with religious systems, organized or not, I have a hard time taking them literally. But I realize that for many people, maybe most, organized approaches are good. They provide a map and a way of checking yourself.
Norman Fischer
from When You Greet Me I Bow