In August 2020, I moved into the Dharma Sangha Zen monastery in Herrischried. I stayed until April 2021. Officially employed as online program coordinator. In practice, I lived like everyone else there: zazen at four in the morning, kinhin, oryoki, work, zazen, sleep.
I rarely mention it, because it sounds wrong. Like a search for meaning, a spiritual break, time off. It was something else.
What Zazen Isn't
Zazen looks like a relaxation exercise. You sit still, yes. The goal is complete attention to what is happening right now. Without interpretation, without imposed meaning.
That sounds simple. It's the hardest form of attention I know. The brain produces noise nonstop. Interpretation. Judgment. Expectation. Memory. Planning. Everything that layers over the present moment.
And zazen asks: what's left when you set that aside?
As a daily practice at four in the morning, cold, on a meditation cushion, until the body settles.
„Zazen asks: what's left when you set that aside? Four in the morning. Cold. Every day."
The Lesson About Noise
A monastery gives the impression of silence. In reality, it's an environment that systematically eliminates noise so that the relevant signals become perceptible.
| Practice | What it is | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Zazen | Sitting in silence, 4 a.m. | Complete attention to the present |
| Kinhin | Walking meditation between zazen periods | Every step, every breath counts fully |
| Oryoki | Formal eating with bowls and ritual | Complete presence for a single action |
| Structure | Fixed daily schedule, identical every day | Freedom of choice creates noise: structure liberates |
What this teaches: Most of what we call attention is noise management. We react to the loudest, the most urgent, the most conspicuous, and overlook what's relevant. Noise disappears through reduction: through structure, through consequence, through removing everything that stays silent.
„Noise disappears through reduction, through removing everything that stays silent."
ZWAP Grew Out of a Question
The Zero Waste Architecture Protocol is the structural complement to SOVP. Where SOVP measures what's present, ZWAP asks: what should be removed?
Every website is a signal system. Most of them produce noise: metadata contradicts itself, HTTP headers carry defaults instead of statements, JavaScript loads and does nothing, structured markup goes unconfirmed by other layers.
ZWAP asks: what's left when you remove everything that stays silent?
This question comes directly from Herrischried, as operational logic.
What I Took Away
A way of working. That was it.
Complete attention to what is happening right now. Understanding the situation before I categorize it. Reading the question fully before I answer. Signal work instead of noise management.
When I talk with a client about their infrastructure today, I start with what's actually there. The current state. Everything else comes after.
This is zazen for infrastructure audits. More prosaic than it sounds. Remarkably effective.
„The domain is different. The architecture behind it is the same."
The connection between Herrischried and infrastructure diagnostics