Both sitting and walking meditation are excellent ways to step back into your own fundamental awareness and I recommend them to everyone, especially beginners. However, no particular style of meditation is right for everyone.

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

In hearing, there is no hearing. Hearing does not depend on hearing. Hearing is not born and it can never die. When sound arises, hearing does not create it. When sound diminishes, it is not extinguished by hearing. Nor is the nature of hearing created by the arising or diminishing of sound.

Just realize that hearing is unborn and undying. Hearing does not come and go. How can you realize the wisdom of this? Listen! 

The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

Once you have deeply experienced and realized the oneness of yourselves, the universe, and the many things, the Zen path calls you to the forge of the ancestors. By using your buddha-eye, that is, your observing prajna, you apply yourselves to discerning the wisdom of buddhas and Zen ancestors. That is how you become proficient in the skills of helping all beings, which is now your true task.

Good friends, the study of the verbal teachings of buddhas and Zen ancestors has always been an integral part of Zen... Unfortunately, some contemporary teachers assert that reading and study are non-essential to Zen. Some even go so far as to imply that reading and study are detrimental to practice and enlightenment, often insisting that sitting meditation is all that is important. This is not a new phenomenon; it has been a recurring plague on Zen down through the ages. Many of the great masters have pointed out the fallacy of this teaching.

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

Good friends, all of the great masters urged their hearers to illumine the teachings of sages and actualize the wisdom of reality through observation meditation. Having awakened to the innate function of nonthinking through the realization of cessation, we can now apply ourselves to observation.

Observation meditation consists of observing the sacred teachings as well as the everyday world of sensation, perception, mental formulation, and consciousness seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking through and with the enlightened awareness of nonthinking. This is taking up and letting go without the notions of ‘taking up' and ‘letting go.' The Zen path of practice and enlightenment is the continuous and ongoing practice and enlightenment beyond all ideas and concepts of practice and enlightenment.

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

The teaching I expound has been transmitted by the sages of all time, and though I have also expressed what had not yet been expressed, it was not devised by me. Those who wish to attain liberation should first learn to cease conceptualization. Then your own true nature will be immediately apparent and all doubts will fall away just as happened to all of the sages of the past. Once you have accomplished this initial step, the subtle and profound teachings of the sages and Zen masters will become discernible, and you will discover that all things are constantly expounding the Treasury of the True Dharma-Eye.

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

...Like Zen koans, The Five Ranks is one way that this wisdom is transmitted. True Zen expressions are direct expressions of wisdom, which can only be realized by wisdom. When we take up a koan, we are taking up specific wisdom, realized and expressed by the buddha-mind. When we have become intimate with the koan, that is, when its wisdom is realized in us and has become our wisdom, transmission has occurred.

Learned audience, although a great amount of wisdom can sometimes be transmitted by a single expression, it nevertheless takes many expressions and realizations to transmit the vast store of the wisdom of the buddhas and Zen ancestors. We, as human beings, have the extraordinary opportunity to receive this transmission.

...each of the five ranks, like each koan, is unique; each expression transmits a particular aspect of wisdom. For those who would set out to realize authentic Zen practice and enlightenment, wholehearted dedication and long-term commitment is necessary. The resolution of the one great matter of life and death is no easy task; yet, there is no task as worthwhile.

Learned audience, as electricity will not transfer without a ground, so Zen cannot be transmitted without a receiver. As soon as a ground is provided, however, electricity flows. As soon as you become a receiver, Zen transmits.

Dogen frequently points out that this transmission only occurs from Buddha to Buddha. For, if we do not receive it with our buddha-mind, we do not receive it at all. Zen expression comes from buddha-mind and goes to buddha-mind. Buddha expresses Buddha, and thereby realizes Buddha. Buddha awakens Buddha. One meaning of "Buddha" is "awake." Hence, we can say, Buddha Buddhas Buddha.

Good friends, post-kensho practice and enlightenment is what taking the path of Zen is all about. If the path of Zen called only for achieving a state of emptiness or pure awareness or some other static condition, it would be the station of Zen rather than the path of Zen. You should not follow teachings that urge you to cling to the bliss of emptiness, making heroic efforts to detach from the world or sustain ‘pure awareness'. That would be what Dogen calls passing time in vain. Once you have awakened to your true nature, you should follow the instruction of all the sages and never waste another day.

Good friends, the truth itself is not separate from you here and now. To fail to continue along the Zen path of practice and enlightenment for the sake of the truth is to fail to realize or make real, your own true self. Once you have awakened to the true nature of your own mind through the realization of nonthinking, and learned to use your observing prajna, you should apply it in order to master the buddha-dharma or the truth of reality.

The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing

The sages of all the great spiritual traditions were not born as sages; they were no different than any one of you. Once they awakened to the true nature of their own awareness, greed and fear naturally fell away. What did they not already possess? Since there was nothing outside of their own minds, what was there to fear?

If you want to awaken, let go of everything. When conceptualization ceases, the myriad things cease, and all that remains is your own pure and clear awareness. It has never been hidden from you. Now is the time, here is the place.

~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing