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He [the student] may then ask, “By leaving home life behind, monks are quickly separated from all their various ties so that they have no impediments to diligently practicing seated meditation. But how can those of us involved in the daily pressures of lay life turn to doing training and practice so that we may realize the Way of the Awakened Ones, which is unconcerned with worldly affairs?”
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[Part of the teacher's response] It simply depends on whether you have the determination or not: it has nothing to do with being a householder or a monk. In addition, those who can deeply discern the difference between what is excellent and what is mediocre will naturally give rise to faith and trust. How much more evident it is that those who regard worldly affairs as an impediment to the Awakened Way are only inferring that the Awakened Way does not exist within the mundane world, and they do so because they have not yet recognized that, within Awakening, there are no ‘worldly ways’.
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Source: An excerpt from a discourse between a student and a teacher about spiritual practice; taken from the book Shobogenzo, by Dogen Zengi
