Henry Shukman

Awakening is simple - and already here

Henry Shukman is a Zen master, poet, and British writer. Educated in literature at Oxford University, he discovered Zen meditation at 19 during a trip to Japan, and has since become one of the most accessible Zen teachers in the West. He is co-founder of the app The Way and a guiding teacher on Sam Harris's Waking Up.

Shukman teaches that awakening is not a grand event reserved for monks - it is ordinary, accessible, and profoundly loving. His concept of "Original Love" proposes that beneath all layers of conditioning, there is a fundamental belonging that can be rediscovered.

Books

Quotes

“You discover you belong utterly. And you see that this very moment is a pure gift. It feels like love.”
“There's something about deep wounding that can be a pathway to deep, deep love.”
“In awakening, one thing vanishes, that sense of self, and another thing appears, which is what that sense of self was occluding.”

Principles

Original Love

Beneath everything, there is a fundamental belonging.

Original Love is the discovery that before any conditioning, there is an intrinsic love and well-being native to our original nature. It's not something to build, but to rediscover.

Sentido Relacionamentos

Ordinary Awakening

Awakening isn't mystical - it's seeing what's already here.

Shukman teaches that awakening doesn't require years on retreat. It can happen in simple moments: the separate self dissolves and what was being hidden - presence, connection, openness - appears naturally.

Sentido

Koan Practice

Impossible questions that open the mind.

Koans are Zen questions or stories that can't be "solved" by the intellect. Koan practice invites the mind to release its certainties and find a more direct way of knowing.

Sentido

Connections

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