Book excerpt: Mzansi is hurting. Mzansi is dancing. This land is a constant tumble of brilliance and disappointment, of beauty, courage and heartache. How do we live with all this? This is our life's question, one we need to confront if our presence here is to have any meaning. The Way of Zen asks of us to look our situation in the eye; beyond our opinions, arguments and fears about it all, into things exactly as they are. It takes courage, it takes sincerity and it takes a great love. But this open-hearted awakeness allows us to step out of our separate corners into our natural connectedness, into our inherent oneness with this world and its people. From this intimacy, compassion and wisdom arise, and a generosity of spirit. Whatever we think of how the country is being run or where it is heading, this is our life. Let us live it fully. The author's familiar and authoritative Zen style inspires us into taking up this life with both hands, calling us into an intimacy that is already beneath our feet.