Crestone Mountain Zen Center

Last Updated September 8, 2026

Zen Buddhism is a body of knowledge and techniques that traces its origin to the historical Buddha in India who lived some 2,500 years ago.The Buddha’s experience of enlightenment, release from suffering caused by the deeply held belief in a separate self, is the basis of Zen practice and teaching, which maintains that all human beings, in fact all sentient beings, are in their essential nature, free – “enlightened”. Human beings, because of attachment to the idea of self and its attendant greed, hatred, and delusion, suffer unnecessarily. Zen practice is how to realize this freedom and happiness that is our true nature.