The Way: Meditation & Zen

After meditating mostly solo on and off for the last 15 years or so I slowly built up a learning process of my own. Ive always thought that meditation just needs to be taught step by step. Guiding you through your physical senses. I’ve tried sitting with various groups and always fall back into solo sitting. There’s way too much ego still floating around Zen centers and sit groups. The attitude is still that you have to earn your enlightenment. That it should be hard and take a long time. But the truth is, “awakening,”can be attained by anyone, right away, in the first moment of sitting, although it is like a handful of sand at first. Slipping through your fingers. With practice, practice and more practice one can harden that sand of awakening into something more solid. Slowly turning that sand into a diamond of enlightenment over a lifetime of focused attention training. So that instead of feeling it for a moment, you feel it for a minute, then an hour, and over time, most of your waking day. The Way is that step by step guidebook that has finally been written down. And Henry is an amazing human You can sense his present moment awareness, and eagerness to teach right through the screen. To all the people putting in the work. 🙏🏼🤙🏼

I came across The Way in a similar fashion to the other meditation apps I’ve leveraged previously - a recommendation via a podcast. In each case in the past, the initial scaffolding was helpful in keeping me on the intended path, but I lost my way (pun intended) after the scaffolding was removed and multiple options were presented. I have been using The Way for nearly a year now, and I find that - for me - the singular path it takes me on helps remove decision paralysis that may have caused me to abandon my meditation practice in previous attempts. The app is well-designed, the quality of the content is premium, and there is a pull to want to keep going (without any worry about maintaining a streak or unlocking any badges). I show up for the sake of doing the daily practice and then carry on with my day. If I were to find anything to highlight for caution, it would be the introduction of koans (I happen to be in the middle of this journey now). Despite having already had hundreds of meditation sessions, it can be daunting to tackle something so abstract and indirect at my current level of practice (10-minute sessions, 5-6 days per week). I suspect this experience will vary from one practitioner to the next, but my suggestion - if I’m even in a position to give one - would be to focus on the practice and first principles of meditation you’ve learned up to that point when focusing on the koan doesn’t seem to be bearing any fruit. Thank you, Henry and team, for investing your time and energy into a positive and beneficial resource!

I have come to absolutely love this app. Coming from breath-based practices like Vipassana and focused attention traditions such as Samatha meditation, I was exploring zen meditation and discovered The Way. What immediately struck me was how beautifully stripped down it is - offering a simple yet deeply focused path to practice without any distractions or unnecessary bells and whistles. The kindness with which Shukman approaches the guided meditations is genuinely palpable. There's an authentic warmth and wisdom in his voice that creates a safe, welcoming space for practice. I was so impressed that after trying it myself, I recommended it to my fiancé who has been interested in meditation but never found an approach that resonated with her. This was the first path that truly clicked for her, which speaks volumes about the app's accessibility and gentle approach. The technical quality is excellent - both audio and video are crisp and high-quality, and the app runs smoothly without any glitches or crashes. It's clear that care has been taken in every aspect of the development. For anyone curious about zen meditation or looking for a no-frills, authentic practice companion, I can't recommend The Way highly enough. It's become an essential part of my daily routine.