Podcasts about Bodhidharma

As I mentioned in the last installment, when thinking about content for the next Dharma Byte or UnMind podcast, I turn to my collaborators for inspiration: Hokai Jeff Harper, publisher of the newsletter, and Shinjin Larry Little, producer of the podcast. Jeff responded to a recent call for suggested topics with: • To everything there is a season• The wax and wane of householder zazen practice• What we are feeling right now IS impermanence manifesting itself In the last episode I delved into the first of these three, the seeming seasonality of everything as a universal principle. We might take a moment to remind ourselves that seasonality is also considered natural, as the waxing and waning of the four seasons. And, while somewhat arbitrary as a concept, is considered causal in terms of the natural sciences of biology, botany, and even psychology — as in "seasonal affective disorder." Arbitrary in the sense that, as Master Dogen says, "You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring." Now that we have gotten off the planet, any middle-schooler knows that the root causes of the seasons is a universal phenomenon. Unless they are being home-schooled by a flat-earther, that is. In this segment we will take up the second, the waxing and waning of householder practice, moving the discussion to the social level. Which, of course, is part and parcel of our personal sphere of activity and influence. Whether Hokai meant to point out the usual periodic waxing and waning of our personal commitment to meditation in the context of the many distractions assailing your average householder; or a more societal angle on how householder engagement has grown and diminished over time through the various Eastern countries of origin, compared to its prevalence and intensity in the West modern times, I am not sure. I think it may be more instructive to consider the alternative — monastic practice — and how it colors our perspective on our own, personal options for pursuing the dharma in the midst of life. Zen householders often harbor a misconception that because we are householders — and not monastics — that we cannot hope to penetrate to the fundamental meaning of the teachings of Buddhism. This seems to be a widely shared meme in the Western culture, perhaps particularly in America. And it is based on a fundamental misconception — namely that the social sphere of Zen trumps the personal sphere —that you can tell a book by its cover, when it comes to Zen practice. But you can't. Because we interpret the history of Zen Buddhism as primarily monastic, from its inception in India and its transmission through China, Korea, Japan and the Far East, we presume that the approach of material renunciation — leaving the householder life for that of the mendicant monk, nun, or hermit, or wandering on pilgrimage — is the most effective way, the only way, of recovering our Original Nature, or Buddha Mind. While traditional prescriptions for practice definitely include divesting ourselves of our dependency upon, and predilection for, the pleasures and problems of our times, the renunciation recommended in Zen is not limited to merely rejecting and replacing one lifestyle for another. It is more a matter of seeing through the delusional aspect of any way of living. Including monasticism. This is true spiritual poverty. Master Dogen articulated four levels of renunciation that members of his monastic community were either able or unable to embrace, which I have discussed in more detail elsewhere. They range from the ability or inability to relinquish attachment to family, home, inheritance, et cetera, to the inability or ability to relinquish our own opinions and biases regarding our own reality, regardless of outer appearances. The latter — Dogen's highest level of renunciation — would apply equally to monastic or householder. So apparently the main difference between the two lifestyle choices is that the former is relatively simpler compared to the complexities of the latter. In terms of the ability to realize the truth of Buddhism, lifestyle is just another form of pomp and circumstance. If you find your practice — by which we usually mean meditation — is waxing and waning beyond your intentions and control, you might want to take a radical departure. Stop. Quit, with all the negative connotations that may have in our goal-oriented culture and society. Admit that you have failed, once again. Or rationalize that Zen may work for others, but it does not work for you. In doing so — in "not doing Zen" — you will confirm your bias, and prove to yourself that, like everything else you have tried in life, it just didn't get the job done. Zen did not live up to your expectations. Now that you have resolved that untidy business you can get on with your life. Good luck with that. It turns out that this kind of discernment, that Zen is something we started doing, so it is something we can stop doing, is a category error of the first degree. There actually is no such thing as "Zen." Zen is what we call this particular meditation sect of Buddhism, but like any other sect, it only exists as a construction of our societal mind. It is a learned thing that upon examination evaporates like a puff of smoke, or a cloud in the sky. The etymology of "Zen" is one example of this misinterpretation. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the term Zen is actually a misnomer. It is phonetic Japanese for Ch'an, which is phonetic Chinese for Dhyana, which is a traditional form of contemplative meditation that the Chinese pundits assumed Bodhidharma was demonstrating when he would abruptly turn his back on them, facing the mountain wall instead. But the great sage was not doing dhyana. He was not contemplating anything in particular. He was demonstrating what is referred to in Japanese as shikantaza, which according to Master AI, means: Shikantaza, often translated as "just sitting," is a foundational Zen practice that involves sitting in a quiet, meditative posture without focusing on any specific object or thought. It's about being present, aware, and simply experiencing the present moment. If even this barebones definition does not capture the implications of the term, we have no one to blame but an artificial intelligence summarizing who knows how many verbal references on the large language model on which it has been trained. Defined as: A large language model (LLM) is a type of artificial intelligence that can generate human-like text based on the context provided. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of text data and learn to predict the next word or sequence of words in a text, allowing them to perform tasks like natural language processing, machine translation, and content generation. So it has come to this. We are using artificial intelligence to define artificial intelligence. With such developments as AI adding to the present overload of distractions, threats, alternative career choices, endless learning curves, and entangling relationships at home, work and play that householders have on their plates today, we can be forgiven for developing some ambiguity around adding to the list, or continuing to follow, yet another demanding regimen: Zen. Again, category error. We are already practicing Zen, from the moment we are born — and even before we are born, in the traditional Buddhist view — whether we know it or not. Everybody else is likewise. "Zen" is what we call that fact. Zen is a word that points at something that is not a thing, and in fact does not exist as an isolate or instantiation of anything. It is "the whole catastrophe" to quote Zorba the Greek. If Bodhidharma was contemplating anything, it was everything, which beggars the concept of "contemplation." In closing, let me quote myself again, from my closing statement from the last segment: Next month we will take up the second suggestion, the waxing and waning of householder zazen practice. Been there, done that. "Been there, done that" is not exactly true. I never began Zen practice, it began me. And I will never quit, though it may appear to be so to the outside observer. Zen is not something we can do. It is not in the realm of doing. So we cannot stop doing it, either. We either do it poorly or do it relatively well, like most things in life. Zazen is not something we have to do; it is something we get to do. Zen cannot wax and wane; it only seems to in our imagination. Perversely, there is no choice in the matter. The worse it gets, the better it is. "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences." Including a preference for what we

A talk by Travis Marsot. This talk was given on April 2nd, 2025.

ADZG 1238 ADZG Sunday Morning Dharma Talk by Shudo Paula Lazarz The post Emperor Wu Meets Bodhidharma Face-to-Face first appeared on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate.

Teisho by Sangen Salo sensei during zazenkai 23.2.2025 at Helsinki Zen Center, Finland.

This Dharma talk was given by Hogen, Roshi at Great Vow Zen Monastery during Sound Sesshin on March 15th, 2025. In this talk Hogen Roshi discusses the foundation of Sesshin, The Platform Sutra and Bodhidharma. ★ Support this podcast ★

Dharma talk by Eran Junryu Vardi Roshi of Eiryu-ji Zen Center in Wyckoff, NJ, USA on 3/16/2025.

This talk explores some of the history and mythology behind the development of zazen (including Shikantaza or just sitting) meditation, and how it has been described as a way of practice. Broadly following the historical timeline of Zen development, it draws on several key sources such as Red Pine's translations of Bodhidharma's sermons and the work of Guo Gu on Chinese Chan ‘silent illumination' practice. This sets the scene for the travels of Dogen Zenji to China in the 13th Century and the eventual transmission of the Shikantaza zazen practice to Japan. Dogen would go on to establish Soto Zen and his important practical and philosophical teachings still resonate in Zen practice today. The talk explores both historical facts and the interesting and sometimes amusing mythology that has evolved around Zen over the ages.

Listen to the story of Bodhidharma, the blue-eyed monk who brought Zen to China, and his legendary feats - from crossing rivers on reeds to meditating until his legs fell off. Learn how his teachings evolved into modern Zen practices, and get practical guidance for starting your own meditation practice. Click here for Adventure Travel inspiration from our friends at Explore Worldwide. Don't Just Travel, Explore. [This description contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.] Uncanny Japan is author Thersa Matsuura. Check out her books including The Book of Japanese Folklore by clicking on the Amazon link.  If you'd like to help support the podcast and have a bedtime story read to you monthly, please visit Patreon. Discord: https://discord.gg/XdMZTzmyUb Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thersamatsuura Website: https://www.uncannyjapan.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UncannyJapan Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/uncannyjapan.bsky.social Mastodon: https://famichiki.jp/@UncannyJapan Twitter: https://twitter.com/UncannyJapan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncannyjapan/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncannyjapan/ Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Thersa-Matsuura/e/B002CWZ73Y/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1500180689&sr=8-1 Buy Me a Coffee (one-time contribution): https://buymeacoffee.com/uncannyjapan

Norman gives the thirteenth  talk to the Dharma Seminar on Dogen's Continuous Practice from Kaz Tanahashi''s translation of the Shobogenzo Fasciles 31a and 31b. In this talk Norman speaks on Bodhidharma. .Suggested donation: $7 https://bit.ly/donate-edz-online-teachings We cannot continue offering teachings online without it. Thank you! https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/edz.assets/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Dogens-Continuous-Practice-Talk-13-2024-Series-Bodhidharma.mp3

DOGEN ON ZAZENUpon returning to Japan from China in 1227, at the age of 27, Master Dogen composed the first draft of Fukanzazengi, the tract in which he outlines the principles of seated meditation, or zazen, that he had learned under the tutelage of Master Rujing. In one of the English translations, about two-thirds of the way through the text, he asks a question of the reader: Now that you know the most important thing in Buddhism, how can you be satisfied with the transient world? Our bodies are like dew on the grass and our lives like a flash of lightning, vanishing in a moment. At this point in the piece, he has said many things about the physical method of meditation, interwoven with suggestions of the philosophy, attitude adjustments and correctives to conventional wisdom that accompany the practice. So what he means to indicate as the most important thing is subject to speculation. This may reflect a translator's choice anomaly, a known issue in the art of interpreting ancient teachings. To home in on this most important thing more closely, let's look at a brief, pointed poem, “Zazenshin,” that Dogen paraphrased from a Chinese version. It means something like “Acupuncture Needle” or “Lancet” – a very sharp instrument – for or about zazen: Zazen-shin - Shohaku Okumura, trans. The essential-function of each buddha and the functioning-essence of each ancestor.
Being actualized within not-thinking.Being manifested within non-interacting.Being actualized within not-thinking, the actualization is by nature intimate.Being manifested within non-interacting, the manifestation is itself verification.The actualization that is by nature intimate never has defilement.
The manifestation that is by nature verification never has distinction between Absolute and Relative.The intimacy without defilement is dropping off without relying on anything.The verification beyond distinction between Absolute and Relative is making effort without aiming at it.The water is clear to the earth; a fish is swimming like a fish.
The sky is vast, extending to the heavens; a bird is flying like a bird. So from this we may take it that the most important thing has something to do with not thinking and non-interacting, and not distinguishing between the absolute and relative. It is pointing at something intimate, undefiled by conventional wisdom, and that has nothing to do with our reliance on common understanding, and goal-oriented efforts. To which we can only respond, “Hmmm. Thank you Dogen, for clearing that up.” MATSUOKA ON DOGENClearly, this message is about something beyond words, that language can only point at, if it is beyond thinking itself. Let's explore some more contemporary quotes from Matsuoka-roshi to see if we can zoom in on the meaning of these passages. O-Sensei simplified Dogen Zenji's instructions for his American students, condensing them into three discrete areas: posture, breath, and attention. The following are three expressions he would use frequently, addressing questions about zazen: Keep aiming at the perfect posture never imagining that you've achieved it You have to work your way through every bone in your body When your posture is approaching the stage of perfection, it will feel as if you are shoving your head against the ceiling The first, about aiming without achieving, makes Dogen's “making effort without aiming at it” a bit more concrete by narrowly defining “it” as the upright posture. This is in keeping with the Zen premise that the zazen posture is the full expression of enlightenment, not merely a means to the end of enlightenment. It also reminds us that there can be no separation of body and mind in Zen, nor, indeed, in reality. And that the natural process of Zen is open-ended, based on aspiration as opposed to expectation. The second indicates that this is going to be a steady, slow process on a visceral level, sitting “with muscle and bone,” as my senior dharma brother in Chicago, Kongo-roshi, titled one of his talks. There are a lot of bones in your body. And the bones, of course, are not separate from the skin, flesh, and marrow, the connective tissue, as Master Bodhidharma taught. “Working your way through” recalls the famous dictum from the poet Robert Frost, paraphrasing, “the only way out is through.” The third seems to contradict the first, when Sensei describes what he frequently referred to as the “sitting-mountain feeling” that eventually comes from zazen. We are to aim at it without concluding that we've achieved it, because “Zen goes deeper,” as he would often say. No matter how seemingly complete and transcendent our immediate experience, it is not the end of the process, an attitude adjustment first articulated by Buddha himself in the “Fifty False States” section of the Surangama Sutra. The main admonition is that, no matter what happens in your meditation, not to imagine that you are now completely enlightened. Even Buddha returned to meditation for the fifty years of his life following his profound insight. But this “shoving your head against the ceiling” sensation is something that I can personally attest to from my modest experience on the cushion. I suspect that when we pull back on the chin, stretching the back of our neck with strength, a specific detail of the posture emphasized by Matsuoka-roshi, it has the effect of shoving our skull against the scalp, which would then feel like the resistance of a solid, external surface like a ceiling. The entire body is a tension-compression structure, much like a camping tent, where the bones of the skeleton are the compression members under stress from the surrounding membrane of musculature, tendons and ligaments, like the canvas and ropes of the tent. HAKUIN'S GAS PEDALThe other end of the “tentpole” is the base of the spine, connecting to the coccyx, or tailbone. Hakuin Zenji, a famous Rinzai priest whose life span bridged the 17th and 18th centuries, from 1686 to1769, recommended that we push forward and down on the lower spine until we feel a bit of pain there. That sensation derives from stretching the hard tissue of the discs between the large lower vertebrae. Even more today than in his time, our posture tends to be c-shaped, sometimes referred to as a “cashew,” when we sit in the driver's seat of our vehicles on the expressway, or the chair at our desk. The natural position of the spine is an “S-shape” curve, bending the lower back in the opposite direction, like a cobra rising from the floor, dancing to the tune of the snake-charmer's flute. I call this Hakuin's gas pedal. Like the accelerator of your car or truck, if you keep your foot on it, pressing forward and down, the vehicle moves. If you let up on it, it slows to a stop. On the other hand, if you go pedal to the metal, it speeds out of control. The Middle Way again, in all its manifestations. So the most important thing, as regards the posture, at least, may be keeping these two pressure points in play while sitting. If you do so, you can't go far wrong in terms of sitting upright. Breathing and attention also come into the picture, but that may be a subject for another UnMind. Let me close this segment with a couple of aphorisms that have come to me in my practice. ME ON ZAZEN I do not claim to have the depth of insight and understanding of our ancestors, and recognize that context, while not determinative of Zen experience, certainly counts. What Buddha, Bodhidharma, the great ancestors in China, and Dogen himself managed to accomplish under relatively primitive conditions in no way compares to what we may expect to realize under relatively cushy but geometrically more complex circumstances. But as they did in their times we must do in ours — namely use what we know to inform our efforts in exploring what we do not know, and cannot know, in any ordinary sense. So, here, I want to introduce two terms that may have no counterpart in their language. PROPRIOCEPTION MEETS VERTIGOProprioception is a term from modern physiology, defined as: Perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body Vertigo is defined as: A sensation of whirling and loss of balance, associated particularly with looking down from a great height, or caused by disease affecting the inner ear or the vestibular nerve; giddiness. In terms of our experience in zazen, then, proprioception would be akin to samadhi, or at least its early stages, when, as Matsuoka-roshi said: When posture, breath, and attention all come together in a unified way, that is the real zazen. Now, if there is “real” zazen, it implies that there must be “unreal” or “fake” zazen, or the false impression that we are doing zazen when we are not, really. Samadhi is a jargon term that I hesitate to use, as it implies that I know what it means while suggesting that you probably do not. Which sets up the false dichotomy of “you and I,” “us and them,” the in-group cognoscenti versus the great unwashed. Sensei also pointed out, at the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago, paraphrasing, “When you become dizzy, concentrate on your knees.” And “When you get nauseous, concentrate on your forehead.” Or it may have been the other way around. The main point is that you probably will get dizzy, and you probably will get nauseous, in zazen. This brings up another coinage, for which I claim authorship: Let not the spiritual be the enemy of the practical I detect a vestigial strain of puritanism in the American culture that can infect our understanding and presentation of Zen, as a kind of belief system, a set of doctrines that one must subscribe to, in order to penetrate the inner sanctum of Zen's purported spiritual secrets. This is anathema to the real Zen, as I understand it. All of Master Dogen's instructions in Fukanzazengi are physical, not mental, as Carl Bielefeldt points out in his “Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation,” a wonderful, incisive line-by-line analysis of Dogen's two extant revisions compared to the Chinese original. So let's stay focused on the physical, and not get distracted by any woo-woo “spiritual.” If we continue sitting without expectation, implementing the two pressure points until we feel tMatsuoka-roshi's “sitting mountain feeling” of great stability — our head “pressed against the ceiling” — the body and mind will take us where we need to go. We trust our teachers' intent and wisdom, and we trust our Original Mind, as indicated in the title of Hsinhsinming, the earliest Ch'an poem chanted in Soto liturgy. If we sustain this posture — sitting still enough and straight enough for long enough — it will work its magic. Equilibrium will set in in the tension-compression system of muscle and bone of the body, leading to equipoise of the mind. Sustained for some time, the constancy of our proprioception will inevitably lead to vertigo — the flip side of solidity. “Mountains are always walking” — the planet is falling through space. There is “not even a toehold.” Emptiness is innately form, form innately emptiness. In the next segment of UnMind, we will put a cap on “Election Year Zen,” my tenth and final concluding commentary on the 2024 campaign, now that we know how it all turned out. But like a centipede, or millipede, there are surely many more shoes to drop.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 11/17/24 - Continuing with Bodhidharma's teachings on the "Two Entrances", dharma holder Gokan explores how “all inclusive practice” includes even our struggles, our discomfort. He asks, when does “practicing the dharma” actually happen? And when are habits, views and the tendency to control taking over? We can use this teaching to investigate what it means to engage, fully, this opportunity to practice.

Eka, der spätere zweite Patriarch des Zen, wollte von Bodhidharma unterrichtet werden. Doch der weigerte sich und sagte: »Die subtilen und höchsten Lehren des Buddha können nur durch unendliche Beharrlichkeit verfolgt werden. Wie kann ein selbstgefälliger Mann wie du davon träumen, dies zu erreichen?« Damit stürzte er Eka in einen unglaublichen Zweifel und er zog sich zurück. Doch eines Nachts stand er wieder hinter Bodhidharma im Schnee und bewies seine große Entschlossenheit, indem es sich den Arm abschnitt und rief: »Mein Geist hat noch keinen Frieden. Ich bitte dich, Meister, beruhige meinen Geist!« »Bring mir deinen Geist und ich werde ihn für dich beruhigen«, antwortete Bodhidharma. Daraufhin begab sich Eka vertrauensvoll auf die Suche, bis er schließlich zurückkehrte und sagte: »Ich habe nach meinem Geist gesucht, aber ich konnte ihn nicht finden.« »Siehst du, dein Geist ist beruhigt«, antwortete Bodhidharma. Der große Zweifel, das große Vertrauen und die große Entschlossenheit sind die drei Antriebe der Erleuchtung und werden in dem Geschehen rund um Koan 41 des Mumonkan thematisiert. Um für junge Erwachsene den Aufenthalt im ToGenJi zu ermöglichen, bitten wir um eine Spende: Sie finden die Kontodaten/Paypal auf unserer Website https://choka-sangha.de/spenden/ Herzlichen Dank

Rev. Master Meian Elbert, Abbess of Shasta Abbey, talks about Bodhidharma who is an important ancestor in the Zen lineage. Specifically, Bodhidharma is known for his writing on the 'Four Practices' for trainees. This talk was given at Shasta Abbey on Sunday October 6, 2024.YouTube: https://youtu.be/IcaCItkf62kTwitter/X: @shastaabbey

September-October 2024 Sesshin, Day 3 Commentary on Guo Gu's The Essence of Chan: A Guide to Life and Practice According to the Teachings of Bodhidharma. Shambhala Press, 2012. Teisho by Sensei Dhara Kowal.  Automated Transcript The post Teachings of Bodhidharma #3 appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.

September-October 2024 Sesshin, Day 2 Commentary on Guo Gu's The Essence of Chan: A Guide to Life and Practice According to the Teachings of Bodhidharma. Shambhala Press, 2012. Teisho by Sensei Dhara Kowal.  Automated Transcript The post Teachings of Bodhidharma #2 appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.

September-October 2024 Sesshin, Day 1 Commentary on Guo Gu's The Essence of Chan: A Guide to Life and Practice According to the Teachings of Bodhidharma. Shambhala Press, 2012. Teisho by Sensei Dhara Kowal.  Automated Transcript The post Teachings of Bodhidharma #1 appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.

When we mention Zen practice these days, we usually mean sitting in Zen meditation, or zazen. It was not always so. In Bodhidharma's time, “practice” meant observing the Precepts in daily life, discerning to what degree our behavior is comporting to their admonitions. If memory serves, this is found in “The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma” by Bill Porter, AKA Red Pine. Similarly, when we speak of studying the Dharma, we typically mean reading the written record. It was not always so. When Buddha was alive, the teachings were spoken. You literally had to go listen to live lectures and, later, memorized recitation, to hear the Dharma. This was apparently true of all teachings of all sects at that time; the oral tradition prevailed. It was some four centuries after the Buddha's death, when his utterances were first committed to written form. With the advent of the Internet we have many more opportunities to “hear the true dharma” — a Dogen coinage with a deeper meaning — as expounded by others in the form of podcasts such as UnMind, audiobooks and other modern marvels. But we have to call into question whether we are hearing the Dharma truly. Whether the meaning we extract from listening to the efforts of others to express this subtle and inconceivable teaching is anywhere near to the original meaning that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, intended, or for that matter that of any of his many successors in India, China, Korea and Japan, and the other countries of origin. I am not suggesting that we engage in a scholarly examination of the provenance and evolution of the Three Baskets — or Tripitaka in Sanskrit. I propose that we are challenged to attempt to render the meaning in the modern idiom, which involves extracting them from their original cultural context, and embedding them in ours, as well as expressing them in the vernacular, including the language of modern science and philosophy. For one thing, this means divesting the ancient liturgical passages of jargon — primarily the obscure and seemingly mystical terms, mostly from Sanskrit — such as “samadhi” for example — that some contemporary writers seem prone to sprinkle liberally throughout their publications. The downside to this tendency is that it creates an impression that the author actually knows what these terms mean, whether you, dear listener,understand them or not. Another consideration is what is called the “theory-laden” aspect of the semantics of language, as well as our interpretation of direct perception. This conditions the impact that Zen masters' behavior, as well as that of their “turning words” — in Japanese, wato — can have on their students. This concept was introduced to me by George Wrisley georgewrisley.com, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Georgia, author of texts on Dogen and Zen, who generously made several technical contributions to my books, “The Original Frontier” and “The Razorblade of Zen.” Professor Wrisley pointed out that, in the now-famous records of Zen students' exchanges with their masters, including extreme gestures they resorted to, in trying to help the student wake up to the reality of Zen — shock tactics such as shouting, and sometimes striking with a fist or staff — each student's reaction to the abuse was entirely dependent upon their belief, or innate “theory,” that the teacher was enlightened, and so could “do no wrong,” to oversimplify the point. Ordinarily, if someone hits you with a stick, your reaction would not be one of profound insight, and undying gratitude for the “grandmotherly kindness” of your abuser. Today it would likely trigger a lawsuit. The ancient ancestors of Zen seem to have an intuitive grasp of the importance of language and its effect on our perception of reality, as indicated in lines from the early Ch'an poems, such as: Darkness merges refined and common wordsBrightness distinguishes clear and murky phrases And: Hearing the words understand the meaningDo not establish standards of your own In Zen, of course, experience comes first, expression a distant second. The interim state, and where we can get it wrong, consists in our interpretation of direct experience, both on the cushion and off. As another ancient Ch'an poem has it: The meaning does not reside in the wordsbut a pivotal moment brings it forth And yet another: Although it is not constructedit is not beyond words Hopefully we have, or will have in future, experienced this pivotal moment. Meanwhile, we are dependent upon words to parse this teaching, and to express it, both to ourselves as well as to others. We can use words to encourage all to go beyond language, and even ordinary perception, in direct experience in zazen. In the face of this design intent of the Dharma, the past efforts to translate it into various languages, and the present effort to paraphrase it into the modern idiom, seem worth the time and trouble. In this spirit, let me share with you my paraphrase of the Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra, or Great Heart of Wisdom Teaching, with which, hopefully, you are familiar. This is a work in progress, subject to revision. The typographical layout available on the UnMind podcast page is designed to facilitate scanning and reading the text while chanting it aloud, usually accompanied by drum and gongs. You might follow it with your eyes, while you follow my words with your ears. In this way, you will absorb a multi-sensory experience, which may be more revealing than hearing or reading alone. I will simply recite it here, a capella: ESSENTIAL TEACHING OF PERFECTING WISDOM When any and all Awakening Beingsdeeply and directly experience the process of perfecting wisdom,they clearly see that all five traditional components of sentienceare fundamentally free of permanence and separate self-existence;this insight relieves all unnecessary suffering. Respected seekers of the truth, know that:the apparent form of our world is not separate from its impermanence;impermanence is not separable from appearances;“form,” or particles of matter, is innately “emptiness,” or waves of energy;conversely, emptiness is innately form.All sensations, perceptions, and underlying mental formations,as well as consciousness itself, also manifest as complementary.All existent beings manifest elemental impermanence,imperfection, and insubstantiality:they neither arise nor cease, as they appear to do;they are neither defiled nor pure, but nondual in their nature;they neither increase nor decrease in value or merit.Therefore know that, given the relativity of the material and immaterial,there can be no fixity of form; no tangibility of sensation;no persistence of perception; no infallibility of mental formations;finally, there can be no absolute entity of consciousness.More immediately, the principle of complementarity entails that there can beno eyes, ears, nose, or tongue, as such; and thus, no body;likewise there can be no “mind,” as a separate substance;it follows that, in spite of appearances,there can be no independent functions ofseeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching;nor can there be unconstructed objects of the mind;no independent realm of sight, nor that of any other sense organ;nor any realm of mind-consciousness as a whole. This means that there can be neither ignorance in the absolute sense,nor any extinction of ignorance in the relative sense.Neither can there be sickness, old age and death as absolute states;Nor any extinction of sickness, old age and death as relative states.In light of the implications of this insight,suffering intentionally inflicted upon oneself and / or others can come to an end,stemming as it does from confusion as to root causes;while natural suffering such as aging, sickness, and death cannot end. Thus there can be no isolated “path” leading to cessation of suffering;there can be no essential “knowledge” to gain, in any conclusive sense;and no “attainment,” of any consequential kind. Since there is nothing to attain,all Awakening Beings rely totally on simply perfecting their wisdom;their body-mind drops away, functioning fully with no further hindrances; with no dualistic hindrances, no root of fear is to be found;far beyond confused worldviews,they abide in nondual spiritual liberation. All Awakening Ones of past, present, and futurerely on the perfecting of this deepest wisdom,thereby attaining unsurpassed, complete, insightand letting go of the attainment. Rest assured that perfecting wisdomis the most excellent method;the serene and illuminating discipline; the unsurpassable teaching;the incomparable means of mitigating all suffering;and that this claim is true, not false. We proclaim the transformational perfecting of wisdom: Gone, gone to the other shore; attained the other shore; altogether beyond the other shore, having never left; the other shore comes to us; wisdom perfected! I do not claim to have captured the essence of the original chant. The afore-mentioned Buddhist scholar and Ch'an translator Red Pine, in his modern translation “The Heart Sutra,” tells us that this condensed version of the larger sutra extolling the emptiness of all existence, including the Dharma, was published in China around 900 CE. This was done in order to counter a prevailing trend toward erudition as the indicator of enlightenment, a distortion of the true Dharma that has occurred more than once in history. Another famous example is that of Master Huineng, sixth ancestor in China, who publicly tore up copies of the sutras to make a similar point. Buddha-dharma is manifest in nondual reality as lived, not contained in writing as doctrine. In a future segment of UnMind, we will take up another of my hopeful efforts at paraphrasing the Dharma. Meanwhile I encourage you to try your own hand — or more precisely, your mouth and mind — at putting one of the historical teachings into your own words. You might want to compose your own version of the Precepts, for example. When and if you do so, it may force you to consider the true meaning of these teachings which — through the sheer repetition of chanting them repeatedly over time — begin to sink into our stubborn monkey minds. But the downside of repetition is that they may become rote recitation, in which their deeper meaning and direct relevance to our contemporary lives may be lost. Not to worry, however — combined with the nonverbal silence and deep stillness of zazen, where we can begin to experience the meaning of the expression — we cannot go far wrong.

Zachary Smith: we'll answer the age-old and often-asked question, “Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?”

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/4/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 41 - Your Mind is At Rest - Shugen Roshi brings the teachings of Bodhidharma to life in this talk on zazen practice as a kind of inquiry that is free of concepts, ideas and analysis, and is rather a direct experience of one's awakened mind—your mind at rest—which is just your natural mind illuminated and at ease. 

Sensei Shinzan explores the story of Bodhidharma and then delves into his teaching on the two paths: that of reason and that of practice. Shinzan emphasizes the importance of connecting […]

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/25/24 - Gokan explores the third of the All Inclusive Practices of Bodhidharma's Two Entrances: seeking nothing. - Our longings and yearnings are are what motivates us ordinarily, and we come to practice because of dissatisfaction with samsara. Our human habit is to seek pleasure, comfort and security, to get rid of discomfort. But having found that seeking pleasure is temporary at best, what is it to enter the Way, without reservations, seeking nothing?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/13/24 - Gokan explores the second of the All Inclusive Practices of Bodhidharma's Two Entrances; adapting to conditions. When we open up to the many ways we are dissatisfied or contribute to suffering, we also simultaneously open up the power of ceasing to grasp and liberating ourselves. How do we allow ourselves to come inside of our experiences fully, into “the mind that neither waxes or wanes,” and see the infinite potential when we come closer?

Sendo Osho gave this Dharma Talk on the fifth day of Summer Sesshin 2024 at Chobo-Ji.  She examines why did Bodhidharma come from the West.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 6/16/24 - Looking at Bodhidharma's teachings on two ways to enter practice—by principle and by practice—these teachings acknowledge that we're all different and will enter practice in different ways, addressing what is most alive for us. In this talk Gokan explores the first of four practices identified by Bodhidharma—encountering suffering—and how the suffering which seems daunting or overwhelming can also provide all that we need to fully enter the Way.

We closed the last segment with a quote from Master Dogen from Shobogenzo Zuimonki, regarding monastic practice in 13th century Japan: How do we practice the Way without being disturbed by the slandering remarks of others, and without reacting to the resentment of others, or speaking of the right or wrong of others? Only those who thoroughly devote even their bones and marrow to the practice can do it. These instructions and admonitions for practicing the Zen Way and maintaining harmony in the Zen monastic community, from over 800 years ago, come across with great currency, as if Dogen may have been attending some of our past board meetings. It just goes to show that people have always been people, and that conflicts arising in day-to-day dealings with the propagation of communal Zen practice have not changed fundamentally over the centuries, and even millennia, since the inception of Buddhism. I think it appropriate to raise some of these quintessentially Western attitudes that have come to my attention in the recent past, and especially during the pre- and post-COVID period we have all just come through. Like most of Dogen's teachings – which can sometimes come across as harsh shaming, or finger-wagging scolding – the old adage applies: “If you see yourself in this picture…” or “If the shoe fits, wear it.” Any and all criticism in Zen, whether implied or explicit, is intended to be reflected back upon ourselves, as in a Zen mirror, and not held up to denigrate others. This is in line with the Ten Grave Precepts, particularly those advising against discussing the faults of others, or praising oneself at the expense of others. While we encourage independence of thinking in Zen, and further, claim that zazen is one of the only dependable ways of developing it to fruition, this does not imply that we then become the sole judge, and final arbiter, of all behaviors of others in the sangha. This is one of the many misconceptions, or delusions, that arise in community practice. One of our longer-term members once declared, some decades ago, that, in his dealings with others, he saw himself as the kyosaku – the somewhat controversial “warning stick,” usually used to strike the shoulders to help you “wake up” during long retreats. He felt it was his role and, indeed, his responsibility, to administer the stick, metaphorically, to those he thought were out of line with the Zen Way. I reminded him, gently, that there is a reason why the stick has to be requested, in Soto Zen. We do not simply go around whacking people with it willy-nilly, without so much as a by-your-leave. Dogen said somewhere that we should never regard ourselves as someone else's “teacher.” If and when we put ourselves in the position of teaching others whatever we consider to be the necessary lessons in Zen, we should remember that in the design of communications, it is the message received – not the message sent – that counts. We may teach another person a lesson we think they need to learn, all right, but it is not likely to be the lesson we intended. Our actions will likely tell them more about us, than they do about them. Dogen admonished his young wards on this point, urging juniors, and seniors in particular, to avoid using harsh words and behavior in the unfounded belief that criticism, however warranted, will work to their benefit, or that of the target of their reproval, or of their fellow community members who may witness the confrontation. In some general comments about one of the attitude adjustments that all students of the Buddhist way should adopt, Master Dogen stresses listening, over expressing your own limited understanding. Especially in the beginning of your practice and study of the buddha-dharma, which, remember, may require many decades to mature. His remarks seem as timely today as in the 13th century, and taken with the above quote, comprise as good a model of independent thinking and interdependent action that you may come across: 6 — 12These days, many people who are learning the Way listen to a talk on the dharma, and above all want their teacher to know that they have a correct understanding and want to give good replies. This is why the words they listen to go in one ear and out the other. They still lack bodhi-mind and remain self-centered. First of all, forget your ego and listen quietly to what others say, and later ponder it well. Then, if you find some faults or have some doubts, you may make criticism. When you have grasped the point, you should present your understanding to your teacher. Waiting to claim immediate understanding shows that you are not really listening to the dharma. Note that the popular trope – “in one ear and out the other” – is apparently not of recent coinage. We have to be careful of a certain cultural arrogance, in assuming that our present situation is overly unique. “It was ever thus,” as we say. Or, in Zen terms: “Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we; we in the future shall be buddhas and ancestors,” taken from Dogen's Vow. But to become buddhas and ancestors we have to learn tolisten, and that entails learning how to listen; which means learning how to hear. You may protest that you already know how to hear! That is, you are hearing, and have been doing so all along. But training in design thinking, particularly in the Bauhaus tradition, says “not so fast.” You may think you are hearing, seeing, and feeling, but are you really? Drawing, photography, and the other visual arts are all considered ways of training the eye to truly see. The audial arts – music, singing, et cetera – are likewise ways of training the ear to hear. Kinetic body work – dance, theater, athletics and so on, train the body to feel, and to move in gravity with efficiency and elegance. Similarly in Zen training we find expressions such as attributed to Dogen's teacher in China, Tiantong Rujing, where he said something like, paraphrasing freely, “gouge out your eyes so that you cannot see and then you may be able to see for the first time...” cut out your tongue, plug up the ears, burn the body, etc. so that they may be replaced with the true body and senses of buddha-nature. This, obviously, on a much deeper level than the Bauhaus training is shooting for. But simply on a social level of discourse, the need to listen is greater than ever, what with all the voices vying for our attention. With the recent burgeoning of interactive meetings on the internet – which incidentally, Master Dogen did not have to contend with, fortunately for him – we have witnessed a dramatic evolution of etiquette in public dialog. Standard admonitions include not interrupting the speaker; keeping your comments brief so that more attendees have an opportunity to participate; directing your comments to the moderator or guest panelist and avoiding cross-talk; and generally resisting the impulse to hijack the proceedings to pursue your own agenda. This syndrome has long been a known issue in American Zen circles, where even in intimate, in-person settings, when called upon, certain members of the audience will suddenly turn to the audience to share their viewpoint, rather than deferring to the person hosting the dialog. This is at a minimum impolite, if not downright rude. But this is America, where all opinions are considered equal, especially by those who hold them. Dogen goes on to modify his admonition to privilege a discerning silence over blurting out our opinion at every opportunity; giving it some time to gain clarity; then engaging the dialog in a respectful way. Application to today's social media transactions is too obvious to point out, but I could not resist. Later on, Dogen repeats this instruction, indicating that the issue had arisen again, in real facetime dialog: 6 — 14Students of the Way, when you practice with a certain teacher and learn the dharma, you should listen thoroughly again and again until you completely understand. If you spend time without asking what should be asked, or without saying what should be said, it will certainly be your own loss. Teachers always await questions from their disciples and give their own comments. You should ask again and again to make sure even of things that you have already understood. Teachers also should ask their disciples whether they have really understood or not, and thoroughly convince them (of the truth of the dharma). Taking Dogen's point, and following along the lines of appropriate attitudes and behaviors in the context of Zen community — including its traditional respect for seniority and today's smugly iconoclastic attack on anything that smacks of authority — the usual caveats regarding comparisons between our practice of Zen and that of the ancients, particularly the social or sangha dimension, include the disingenuous excuse that in the time of Dogen and before, male patriarchy and misogyny were prevalent in society, so the societal norms, mores and memes do not apply to us in modern America. To which our female members and others would likely react with a great rollingof the eyes. Furthermore, the thinking goes, the practitioners of that time were primarily monastic. Thus, the rules and regulations (J. shingi) governing the behavior of nuns and monks were themselves not characteristic of the larger community in those days. That is, they were even less egalitarian than conventions prevalent in the cities and villages, among the leadership structures of the times, and so, therefore, how much more so today. A closer reading of history might expose the relatively mythological status of these notions, but we cannot be faulted too much for trying to back-plot our current views of what is right and wrong – including ethical behavior and social injustice – to a place in history where our perspective may have had little or no relevance whatsoever. We like to imagine that the arc of history is bending toward the modern concept of justice, as Master Martin Luther King suggests. Admittedly, the language and culture of Buddha's and Dogen's times were somewhat determinative, if not dispositive, of the form and character of Zen practice of the time, both on personal and social levels. Particularly on the level of personal practice — by which term today, we primarily refer to zazen — the tangible differences might be somewhere in the 5% range of effectiveness on outcomes, including such technical developments as those of clothing and seating options. In other words, Zen “gear” has undergone its own cultural evolution. But the age-old relevance of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path still holds. In the social sphere is where we will find the most salient differences that cause confusion, and to which we may point, if we are inclined to mount challenges to Zen orthodoxy. In this regard — the social propagation of Zen — I want to share a few reminders about our root lineage. Matsuoka-roshi was definitely not in a class by himself. He belongs to a small, rarefied club of ancestors who not only took on the propagation of Zen in their time and cultural milieu, but also transported, imported, the face-to-face practice and transmission of Zen to a whole ‘nother country. O-Sensei joins the likes of Bodhidharma, who sojourned to China, apparently on foot, from the Indian subcontinent around 500 CE. He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Eisai Zenji and Master Dogen, who in the 12th and 13th centuries, respectively, traveled by sailing ship to China, bringing what they experienced there back to Japan. In the process Eisai revitalized Rinzai Zen, which had been predominant in Japan for centuries. Dogen Zenji introduced Soto Zen, emphasizing zazen over all other methods, around 1225. Matsuoka-roshi brought Dogen Zen to this continent in 1940, though the much longer journey by steamship may have been relatively safer, than those of Eisai and Dogen in ancient times. The period between each of these seminal international importations of Zen averages just over 700 years. I am gratified to be the recipient of the benefits of these great founders of our Zen past, as one of the current successors of Matsuoka-roshi. I am also somewhat concerned with the future of Zen, including the vitality of the branch of the tree that I have cultivated here in the Southeast Region of the USA. Thus this analysis. If you have any questions or comments on this subject, I would like to hear them. Tune in to the next episode of UnMind as we explore the future of Zen in America a bit further, with an intent to understand how the hybrid nature of our online and in-person interface may effect face-to-face transmission, for good or for bad, or, more likely, both.

In the last UnMind segment on “Election Year Zen,” we stressed Zen's emphasis on thinking independently and acting interdependently, as a kind of rule of thumb for approaching the quadrennial campaign and politics in general. Returning to the main theme running through the UnMind podcast, the intersection of design thinking and Zen, the importance of independent thought and interdependent action to the future of Zen in America, and the world at large, takes on an even more central role. Especially in the context of Buddha's teaching of the codependent origination of all things sentient – the comprehensive model of the Twelvefold Chain. Physics might agree that even the insentient universe is co-arisen, despite the singularity of the “Big Bang.” The following thoughts were first shared in my opening remarks for the Silent Thunder Order's annual conference in 2022, themed “Clarifying Interdependence.” The title of my address was “Future Zen: Thinking Independently; Acting Interdependently” Buddha himself was clearly an independent thinker, the original Order of monks and nuns, an example of interdependent action, choosing to relinquish their place in the social order and hierarchy of the time, with its rigid caste system. Buddha was also a problem-solver of the highest order, having defined the problem of existence itself in terms of suffering, and prescribed a solution based on the real-world context, articulated as the Middle Way, and modeled as the Four Noble Truths, including the Eightfold Path as the plan of action. Simply stated, the propagation of genuine Soto Zen practice in America is the logical extension of that plan, but in order to realize that potential, we must adapt the design intent of the Zen mission to the cultural and technological evolution that has taken place over two-and-a-half millennia. Nevertheless, the basic challenge to practice has remained the same. As we chant in the Dharma opening verse: The unsurpassed, profound and wonderous Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Now we can see and hear it, accept and maintain it. May we unfold the meaning of the Tathagata's truth. Accepting that the unsurpassed Dharma is rarely realized, even under the best of circumstances, we proceed with the Zen mission with lowered expectations, commensurate with geometrically expanded distractions currently on offer. These days, Buddha would not draw the typical crowd that attends a professional sports venue, nor even smaller concert venues. He might attract a considerable following online, however. Seeing and hearing the Dharma is now often first encountered online, via searching the plethora of web sites devoted to posting the teachings of Buddha and his successors, by following podcasts, or downloading audiobooks. “Doing your research,” as we say. For my generation, television may have been the medium in which one first discovered the hoofprints of the ox, in the form of the “Kung Fu” series of the 1970s. Seeing and hearing the true Dharma – as well as accepting and maintaining it – is still, however, a low-tech enterprise, requiring only the instrument of the human body, sitting upright and still in meditation. Unfolding the meaning of it, however, is another matter altogether, a near-impossible order of difficulty. In effect, it has to reveal itself to us. Meanwhile, we face a variety of conflicting interpretations of Zen, from the cultural milieu and idioms of today. For example, Zen is not really, or merely, a social program, as many of its proponents seem to feel. Interdependent action certainly entails the recognition of suffering in the form of social injustice, and the principle of karmic retribution does not explain or justify ignoring the suffering of others. The teachings of Buddhism are meant, first and foremost, to provide a mirror to ourselves, reflecting the good, bad, and the ugly without discrimination; focusing our attention upon our own follies, foibles, and foolishness; definitely not to be held up to criticize others. Our implementation of the “design of Zen” to-date – including the incorporation of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center (ASZC) in 1977, and the umbrella organization of the Silent Thunder Order (STO) in 2010 – has been intended to establish and maintain a stable training center, along with a service organization as we attracted affiliate centers, to facilitate the process of propagating what is called “Dogen Zen,” with the same intent of its 13thcentury founder, and his successors, especially Keizan Jokin Zenji. I use the term “design,” as this has been an intentional design process. ASZC is the home temple & training center of the STO network of affiliates, resulting from a group process of the individual efforts, financial support, and community service of hundreds of people over the past half-century or so. In carrying out this design intent, we are extending the legacy and lineage of our founding teacher, Matsuoka-roshi, who would frequently remind us that “Zen is always contemporary.” In a book surveying the origins of Zen in America, “Zen Master Who?” (2006), by James Ishmael Ford, we learn: Soyu Matsuoka ranks with Nyogen Sengaki and Sokei-an as one of the first teachers to make his home and life work in North America. He also seems to be the first teacher to clearly and unambiguously give Dharma transmission to Western students. I would add that these pioneers of American Zen also belong in the rarified ranks of those ancestors who traveled great distances and crossed cultural boundaries to bring the genuine practice to another country, a whole other continent, like Bodhidharma, and Dogen Zenji. Sensei, as he modestly asked us to call him, also is credited with opening the first Zen meditation hall, or zendo, for westerners. Needless to say, I was one of those Western students he transmitted, though he did so informally, rather than by the formal standards of Soto Shu, the headquarters in Japan. We inherit his estimable legacy and lineage, as well as those of the Kodo Sawaki-Uchiyama lineage, thanks to Shohaku Okumura-roshi. We also enjoy a link to that of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi through Seirin Barbara Kohn-roshi, who graciously agreed to be my Preceptor for my formal Transmission, or “Shiho” ceremony, after hosting my 90-day training period at Austin Zen Center in 2007. We may be somewhat unique in the American Zen cohort, having received formal recognition from three recognized priests, including pre- and post-WWII generation Japanese patriarchs, as well as an American Zen matriarch. Let us do what we can to honor our predecessors. We honor them most appropriately by thinking independently and acting interdependently. Before considering the future of Zen in America, we could do worse than to take a look at its past. In the Shobogenzo Zuimonki, collected and compiled under the direction of one of his dharma successors, Koun Ejo Zenji, some of Master Dogen's more offhand comments and spontaneous inspirations are recorded, apparently with little editing, much like our publications of “The Kyosaku” and “Mokurai,” the collected talks of O-Sensei. Dogen instructed, 4 — 13It is said in the secular world that a castle falls when people start to whisper words within its walls. It is also said that when there are two opinions in a house, not even a pin can be bought; when there is no conflict of opinions, even gold can be purchased. Even in the secular world, it is said that unity of mind is necessary for the sake of maintaining a household or protecting a castle. If unity is lacking, the house or the castle will eventually fall. Much more, should monks who have left home to study under a single teacher be harmonious like the mixture of water and milk. There is also the precept of the six ways of harmony.* Do not set up individual rooms, nor practice the Way separately either physically or mentally. [Our life in this monastery is] like crossing the ocean on a single ship. We should have unity of mind, conduct ourselves in the same way, give advice to each other to reform each other's faults, follow the good points of others, and practice the Way single-mindedly. This is the Way people have been practicing since the time of the Buddha. Echoes of Honest Abe's house divided against itself… a footnote explains the “six ways” reference: *The unity of the three actions – those of body, mouth, and mind, keeping the same precepts, having the same insight, and carrying on the same practice. This same precepts, insight and practice includes the harmony of sameness and difference, not an absolute identity. The milk-and-water bit reminds me of Sri Ramakrishna's expression that, like the swan, you have to be able to drink only the milk, mixed with water, to grasp the truth of this existence. This is the nonduality of duality. So here is the great unifying principle underlying Zen practice from the time of Buddha and Dogen down to the present. The past is prologue to the present, as is the present to the future, of Zen. This may not be true of our contemporary cultural and political institutions, however, as we are witnessing. Let us turn to Zen for something more substantial to hang our hopes on for the future. We will have to leave it here for now. Be sure to join us for the next three segments of UnMind, which will round out this contemporary take on the design intent of future Zen.* * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

In the last two episodes of UnMind, we continued our review of the design intent of the Three Treasures of Buddhism, first focusing on joining the Sangha, or Zen community; then on studying the Dharma. In this segment, we will analyze practicing what Buddha himself did, the central and indispensable method of Zen's meditation. I have written extensively elsewhere on how zazen differs from other styles of meditation. Herein we will examine its more physical aspects, and how they may help determine its effectiveness. While the other two legs of the Buddhist stool are necessary for a well-balanced Zen life on social and intellectual levels, zazen is the most crucial and pivotal practice on the personal level. According to Soto Zen, upright seated mediation is necessary to open the Dharma gate to genuine insight. It is Dogen's “excellent method,” that he asserted “carries on the Buddha's teaching endlessly.” When we examine in minute detail the sitting posture, the full breathing cycle, and the focus of attention recommended in zazen, we cannot help but feel incredulous at its simplicity, that something so basic and simple as sitting still enough, upright enough, and long enough, could have any substantive effect on consciousness itself. When it comes to design intent, usually we can look for ways to tweak the design of a given product or process, here and there, to see if we can improve it. Zazen is already so simple that those tweaks have been done, and long ago. There is not much to the method that can be further refined, or eliminated. The zafu itself, the sitting cushion, is likewise nearly irreducibly simple, a design presumably first developed in China. In production processes used to implement various design-build systems, we look for what are termed “secondary” operations. They may force changes in the setup of the assembly line; or call for additional equipment; or require multiple phases. We may find that we can eliminate certain of these extra steps, or combine them with other operations, to make the process more efficient, i.e. streamlined. Early examples include the Ford assembly line. It is important to arrange the steps in any production process in the proper sequence, to avoid wasted time and motion. A technical early version of this approach is called “critical path management,” or CPM. One of its terms, the “true antecedent,” a critical piece in getting the sequence right, might apply to Zen. What would be the true antecedent to insight ‑ Buddha's awakening ‑ to take the least obvious, but penultimate example? In Soto Zen, we would lobby for zazen, probably. But, as Bodhidharma is credited with saying, meditation it is not absolutely necessary to insight. He indicated that all one has to do is “grasp the vital principle.” In other words, no causal connection can be dependably established between the act of sitting in zazen, and the triggering of Dharmic insight. It happens that most of us are not ripe and ready enough for that level of grasping, and we are carrying a lot of conceptual weight, so we need to spend some time in our meditation, to jettison the excess baggage. The great Indian sage is also recognized for bringing the direct practice of zazen to China. He created a model during meditation of four levels of observation: the breath; physical sensations; emotional sensations or mood swings; and conceptual constructions. Notably, his four-pointed model is in itself such a construction. One conclusion that he drew from this approach is that, like the breath, we realize that the other three dimensions are impermanent, ever-changing. And so must be the observer. Using Matsuoka-roshi's threefold division into what he termed “dispositions” – posture, breath, and attention – we can examine them one at a time to determine their design intent. A caveat: “design intent” is more tightly focused than intent in general. It is connected to function, as in the old design saw coined by 19th Century architect Louis H. Sullivan, “form follows function.” Of course, our larger or deeper intent in practicing Zen goes to the Buddhist skandha of “mental formations,” sometimes rendered as intention, motive or desire; the multivarious purposes underlying the “three actions” of body, mouth, and mind. That may be a subject for another time. For now, let's begin by looking at the posture. Of the four cardinal postures – standing, sitting, walking, or lying down, as mentioned in the Metta Sutta – why would sitting be the posture of choice for meditation? For one, it is obviously the most efficient in terms of energy consumption, other than lying down, compared to which, sitting is more conducive to alertness, as we are accustomed to sleeping in a horizontal position. The upright aspect of the sitting posture is crucial. Aligning our bilaterally symmetrical skeleton and musculature is the most direct way to achieve equipoise, a state of equilibrium within the forcefield of gravity. When the body is arrayed in this position, the spine and spinal cord become our “zero axis” in spacetime, the center of our being in the matrix of the proximate physical causes and conditions of existence. This is the physical basis of “samadhi” ‑ centeredness and balance ‑ the key to entering stillness. Arching the small of the back, and pulling back on the chin, we establish two pressure-points, one at the base of the spine and one the base of the neck, which pull the spine into its natural s-curve, resulting in what Matsuoka-roshi described as a “sitting-mountain feeling,” one of immense stability. He would comment that when the posture is reaching a state of perfection, it feels as if you are pushing the crown of your head against the ceiling, like a column or post. But with the caveat that we always aim at the perfect posture, never imagining that we have achieved it. Standing shares this upright alignment, but the entire weight of the body is delivered to the roughly square foot of the surface area of the feet and ankles, rather than distributed over the three-pointed base of the cross-legged posture (“full lotus,” J. kekka fuza), or similarly, the kneeling posture (J. seiza). Walking is obviously infinitely more complex, though walking meditation (J. kinhin) is certainly effective, dubbed “zazen in motion.” Minimal supporting gear is the one concession that Zen seems to make to our natural desire for physical comfort, perching on a cushion (J. zafu) on top of a square mat (J. zabuton) or kneeling on the seiza bench. But I think the lift has to do with maintaining the proper disposition of the angle between the upright spine and the body's main hinge at the hip joint. We sit slightly forward on the cushion or chair so that the hips are above the knees, at an angle of about 10 or 15 degrees to the floor. This allows the weight of the trunk and upper body to distribute equally between the knees resting on the mat and the “sitz” bones that form the bottom of the pelvis. These two arching protuberances form a kind of built-in rocking chair, which, when the lower back is properly arched, provides a stable base on the cushion or kneeling bench, as well as on a chair. In the cross-legged postures in particular, when resistance arises in the knees or in the back, it is our body telling us that we are pitched too far forward, in the former case, or leaning too far backward, in the latter. Matsuoka-roshi often noted that we have to keep making small adjustments to the posture over time, “working your way through every bone in your body,” to finally find that “sweet spot” right in the middle. The rocking motion that we are encouraged to engage at the beginning and end of each session of zazen helps us find the center of the upright and balanced posture. Starting with a large, arcing pendulum swing to the left and right, forward and back, and / or around in circle, we gradually decrease the length of the arc to a smaller and smaller swing, or spiral, until it comes to center. In this way we can correct our own posture from time to time, and particularly when first settling into the posture. It also allows for the body's muscles and connective hard tissue to stretch and adapt for the greatest level of comfort. Zazen, as we say, should be the “comfortable way.” Reversing this motion at the end of the sit, starting with a small, then gradually larger pendulum swing, allows the body to loosen up, and relieve any numbness that may have set in during the session. Numbness does not necessarily indicate poor circulation, but the natural adaptation of the body to sitting still for long periods of time. In summary, we are looking to recover, or rediscover, the natural posture. In more primitive times, our ancestors sat around the campfire, sitting upright and still while hunting, in order not to spook the prey. Your body knows this posture. Listen to it. The design intent of the zazen posture is, in one sense, to return to our normal, natural posture, while remaining fully alert. The same may be said of the breath. The natural breath adapts to the pressures of the moment. When walking or running, we palpitate, breathing rapidly, and often, irregularly. When we lie down to sleep, our breath slows down to a more regular rhythm. Sitting in zazen is a bit like falling asleep while staying awake. Our body knows this natural breath, just as it knows the upright, balanced posture. In zazen, we relinquish our usual effort to control the body in terms of resistance to pain, allowing ourselves to go beyond our normal comfort zone. Likewise, we drop our tendency to control the breath, other than occasionally counting it, or some other measure of inducing more strict observation. We begin to see the breath slowing down as the body settles into stillness. If we pay close attention, we can feel our heartbeat slowing as well. We enter into a deeper stillness, our more natural state of being. While adjustments to the posture are primarily physical, we move beyond the purely physical as we turn our attention to the breath and attention itself. Traditional zazen instructions emphasize attitudinal adjustments, observing the natural process of breathing and thinking with scientific detachment, and less controlling impulses. This is especially helpful in dealing with the tendency of discriminating mind (S. citta) to vacillate, from one extreme position to another, just as the breath is continually shifting from inhaling to exhaling. We are all bi-polar to some extent. The analytical function of the mind is skewed toward self-survival, triggering the so-called “monkey mind,” that frantic, chattering creature behind the all-too-familiar internal dialog. The idea of “breath control” is ingrained in the culture, perhaps primarily through the popularization of yoga in the West, but also incorporated in such areas of endeavor as athletics, aerobic exercise, and technical training in singing, or playing wind instruments. The body is actually controlling the breath, in a subliminal context of oxygen deprivation relative to the degree of physical exertion involved in sitting, standing, walking, or lying down, exercising or running, as the case may be. Our degree of control over the breath on a conscious, intentional level is minimal. The main reason Zen meditation asks us to focus our attention on the breath is that, usually, we do not. Raising awareness of the cycle of breathing ‑ which is, after all, our main lifeline ‑ returns our attention to what is most important in life. The heartbeat represents a deeper level, the metronome of life. When we turn our attention to attention itself, we have reached the apogee of attention, having come full circle. Now, we are paying attention to attention itself. Here is where we begin to see the genius of Tozan Ryokai's cryptic: “Although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words; like facing a precious mirror, form and reflection behold each other.” Bodhidharma was not contemplating the wall, as the visiting pundits of China thought; he was contemplating nothing in particular, everything in general. Or we might say he was contemplating contemplation itself. The “self selfing self,” as Uchiyama-roshi termed it, in his unique turn-of-a-phrase, conjuring a “turning phrase” (J. wato) to describe the indescribable, the ineffable essence of objectless meditation (J. shikantaza). Here, once again, we have come to the end of language. As I closed the session on the design intent of Dharma, Buddhism's truth is uniquely experiential. Master Dogen's intent is the same as that of all Zen ancestors past, future, and present: apprising us of the futility of pursuing literal, linear understanding, especially in its manifestation as verbal expression. We are to turn our attention, instead, to the immediate and intimate, dropping away of the self of body and mind, before interpretation can interfere. For more detail on Zen's meditative approach to posture, breath and attention, listen to UnMind podcasts #119, #120 and #121. In the next segment, we will return to examining the passing pageantry of the endless, unremitting quadrennial, election-year campaign, from the unique perspective of Zen Buddhism.* * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

While the sutras are numerous and many have never been translated, what we do have access to can be challenging to understand. The lore surrounding the Lankavatara Sutra is that when Bodhidharma chose his successor Hui-k'o, he gave him a copy of the Lanka sutra and told him all he needed to know was in it.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZCNYC - 4/14/24 - Sharing a teaching from Bodhidharma, Gokan speaks about the importance in the Zen tradition of directly realized experience, over our conceptual understanding. How is it when you truly let go? Trust yourself!

We will explore this teaching by the first patriarch of Zen on how dharma practice manifests in our lives. The post Bodhidharma's Outline of Practice first appeared on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate.

Attention! A monk once asked Baso, “Your reverence, abandoning the four propositions and wiping out the hundred negations, please point out to me directly the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West.” Baso said, “I don't feel like explaining to you today. Go ask Chizo.” The monk then went to ask Chizo, and Chizo said, “Why don't you ask the master?” The monk said, “The master told me to ask you.” Rubbing his head with his hand, Chizo said, “I've got a headache today. Go and ask Brother Kai.” The monk asked Kai, and Kai said, “Ever since I have been here, I don't know.” The monk returned and told Baso what had happened, and Baso said, “Chizo's head is white, Kai's head is black.” Learn more, study with us, and meditate online at oneriverzen.org.

Sadhguru narra una historia fascinante sobre el príncipe de la dinastía pallava, Bodhidharma, quien viajó más allá del Himalaya e impartió la antigua forma de arte marcial, kalaripayattu, a sus discípulos en China.   Planeta Consciente: https://www.consciousplanet.org Descarga la aplicación de Sadhguru: https://onelink.to/sadhguru__app Sitio web oficial de Sadhguru: https://isha.sadhguru.org Sadhguru Exclusive: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/sadhguru-exclusive Ingeniería Interior en línea: https://sadhguru.org/ie-es Yogui, místico y visionario, Sadhguru es un maestro espiritual diferente. Una combinación deslumbrante de profundidad y pragmatismo, su vida y obra sirven como recordatorio de que el yoga es una ciencia contemporánea, de vital importancia para nuestro tiempo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this segment of UnMind, I would like to return to the basics of Zen, after a foray into some of the darker topics of the times, in particular the horrific conditions of global strife in which we find ourselves immersed these days. It's a bit like being trapped in the middle of a train wreck where we cannot turn our gaze away. Life has always existed on the edge of death, aging and sickness — the three cardinal marks of dukkha, or “suffering” — Buddha's sine qua non of the conditions of existence as a sentient being. But the sheer enormity of wasteful, infuriating carnage being inflicted upon human beings by other human beings in current hotspots around the globe — not to mention the local wildlife, livestock, and pet animals — has exceeded all bounds of dysfunctional perversity. It seems a vestigial throwback to more primitive times, and is beginning to look like proof positive of the apocalyptic vision of some religions: the Prince of Darkness, evil personified, indeed has dominion over the Earth, at least for now. The Great Deceiver is parading around in the guise of political leaders of supposedly enlightened government, celebrating the targeted collapse of civilization everywhere they direct their ire. In this context it may seem irresponsible, and even insane, to turn our attention to examining the fundamentals of Buddhism and Zen, which encourage studying the self, forgetting the self, and hopefully realizing the true meaning and purpose of our existence, when the people actually doing the damage are the least likely to have any such inclination to self-examination, let alone any realization of compassionate insight for others. But, as they say, when the oxygen masks drop because the airplane is losing altitude, put yours on first, or you will not be able to help others. In Zen, zazen is your oxygen mask. ZEN ≠ ZAZEN ≠ MEDITATIONZen is not equal to zazen, and zazen is not equal to “meditation” as commonly understood. Zazen is not the same as other meditations, and the term “Zen” should not be considered interchangeable with “zazen.” It may seem heretical to propose that Zen is not equal to zazen, or that zazen does not fit the Western cultural definition of meditation. But bear with me. There are so many alternative styles of meditation today that it is past time to differentiate Zen's method from the rest. And to clarify that — while Zen and zazen cannot be separated — the terms are not interchangeable. Zen is not synonymous with its meditation method, zazen, simply because there is so much more to Zen as a way of life, a philosophy, and as a formative force throughout history. This has primarily been true of the history of the East, but following its introduction to America in the late 1890s, and especially after WWII, westerners in general, and Americans in particular, have become more and more interested in Zen, along with a parallel engagement with other meditative traditions and styles, such as Yoga, as well as other Buddhist and non-Buddhist variations. Zen is known as the meditation sect of Buddhism, but zazen is not its sole method of teaching. Zen boasts an extensive literature and liturgy on buddha-dharma as experienced and expounded by its adherents, traditionally beginning with Bodhidharma's journey out of India, and tracing its evolution through China, Korea and Japan, to the Far East. However, distribution of the Buddhist canon, in the form of written sutras and commentaries, had preceded the 28th Patriarch by centuries, and his bringing Zen from the West to the East was definitely focused on the direct practice of upright sitting, or what we now refer to as zazen, or more precisely, shikantaza. Likewise, zazen and shikantaza may usefully be parsed as to their relative definitions as method and effect, respectively. More on this later. ZAZEN & MEDITATIONThe Great Sage's meditation practice inside that cave at Shaolin Monastery did not conform to the traditional style known as dhyana, or contemplation, though this is how the local punditry interpreted his “wall-gazing Zen.” But he was not contemplating the wall. Dhyana, in the classic definition, involves a subject, or mind, meditating upon an actual, tangible object — such as a tree, in one famous example (from Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi): If you wish to follow in the ancient tracksPlease observe the sages of the pastOne on the verge of realizing the buddha wayContemplated a tree for ten kalpas “Ten kalpas” is a mighty long time. The entire universe passes through only four kalpas in its cycle, known variously as the empty kalpa, or kalpa of formation; the kalpa of continuance; the kalpa of decline; and the kalpa of disintegration. So ten kalpas embrace two-and-a-half cycles of universal evolution. Long time. But we digress. Generally speaking, dhyana, or contemplation meditation, continues until the observing mind finally runs out of ideas, exhausting all possible thoughts about the object; leaving a direct sensory awareness of the existential reality of what we call a “tree,” but without the overlay of conceptualization, categorization, and endless web of connections. Bodhidharma, by turning abruptly to face the wall of the mountain, was demonstrating not contemplation, but shikantaza, or “objectless meditation,” which amounts to a kind of oxymoron, in conventional terms. Meditation is typically defined as focusing our attention on something, and so inherently implies a division of subject and object. If our direct experience in zazen eventually becomes objectless, then by definition it must also become subject-less (which, tellingly, is not a recognized construction in English; thus the hyphenation). In the most salient sense, then, zazen transcends normal meditation. We might say that we transcend from the personal dimensions of posture, breathing, and paying attention to the senses, as well as the machinations of the mind — the “eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind” of the Heart Sutra — to a subtle awareness of something less definitive: meditating upon the whole, rather than any part. The observer is subsumed into the observed, like a holon in a holarchy. More on this later.“Zen” is phonetic Japanese for “Ch'an,” which is phonetic Chinese for the Sanskrit “dhyana,” one of the traditional Six Paramitas, or “perfections” of Buddhism. Thus, because the origins of Zen meditation are not conflated with dhyana, but as going beyond contemplation, “Zen” is actually a kind of misnomer. Which is a good thing, because what Zen is pointing to cannot be named. In Taoism there is a similar idea, paraphrasing: Naming is the source of all (particular) things That which is eternally real is nameless Zazen and shikantaza, as mentioned, can also usefully be parsed as to their relative functions as “method” and “effect,” respectively. Holarchy & HolonI first came across the term “holarchy” — as opposed to the more familiar “hierarchy” — in the form of a book, “The Essential Ken Wilber,” recommended by a member of the Suzuki lineage for its treatise on “integral spirituality.” The term, holarchy, was not coined by him, according to Google, which, like the old magic oracles, you can ask anything:Arthur Koestler, author of the 1967 Book “The Ghost in the Machine,” coined the term holarchy as the organizational connections between holons (from the Greek word for "whole"), which describes units that act independently but would not exist without the organization they operate within. Is a hierarchy a nested holarchy?Instead of everything being explained in terms of smaller bits and ultimate particles—which was the way science worked in the modern era—we can now think of the universe holistically, organized in a series of levels of organization in a nested hierarchy or holarchy. At each level, things are both wholes and parts.Some of the earliest examples of holarchic models may be found in the early teachings of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, the Twelvefold Chain of interdependent co-arising, the Five Aggregates and Six Senses, and so on. My model of the Four Nested Spheres of Influence, with personal at the center, surrounded by the social sphere, then the natural world, then the universal, is also like this, a holarchy. These sets of components are not meant to be understood as entirely separate and apart from each other, but intricately interrelated, to use one of Matsuoka Roshi's common expressions. In Zen, all seemingly disparate things are also connected, the ultimate expression of the current trope: “Both things can be true at the same time.” We turn to zazen in our daily lives, in order to manifest a Zen life. Zen is the meditation sect of Buddhism, and zazen is the heart of Zen. The method of zazen is the main thing that we actually transmit, from one generation to the next. It is the same in music and other arts and sciences. No one can teach another music, as such, but someone can teach you how to play an instrument. It is up to you to find the music. Similarly, we can teach others this “excellent method” of zazen, as Master Dogen defined it. It is up to them to find the Zen.The instrument we study, and play, in zazen, is the human body and mind, our essential inheritance enabling us to wake up fully, as did Buddha. Other species are not considered to have the level of consciousness necessary and sufficient to the challenge. Dogs may have buddha-nature, but like most humans, they may never realize it. Ironically, it seems that we have to stop “playing” the instrument of body-mind — that is, give up our impulse to control everything — in order to allow it to “drop off” (J. shinjin datsuraku) to reveal our true nature, which is not limited to this body and mind. Body and mind are not separate, and, again, both can be true at the same time. That is, mind and body may seem to be of different categories, yet they are intricately inter-related.So sitting in zazen may be considered a subset of Zen, which is all-encompassing, and thus the holon of zazen is subsumed under the holon of Zen. But the necessity of zazen as central to apprehending the larger sphere of Zen, means that the two not only cannot be separated, but that the method cannot be separated from the larger effects, as in: So minute it enters where there is not gapSo vast it transcends dimensionA hairsbreadth deviation and you are out of tune This stanza from “Hsinhsinming—Trust in Mind” by Master Kanchi Sosan, indicates another holarchy, that of the transcendent “IT” of Zen, and your personal relation to it. The slightest deviation on your part, in resisting or missing the point of this all-embracing teaching, is the primary source of your suffering. This basic idea of the asymmetrical nature of the relationship — of the holon of the “I” to that of the “IT” of Buddhism — is more directly captured some 200 years later, in Tozan Ryokai's “Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi: You are not it but in truth it is you In zazen, as well as in Zen writ large, we are embracing the directive from the first poem, in which Master Sosan admonishes us, paraphrasing: To move in the One WayDo not reject even the world of senses and ideasIndeed embracing them fully is identical with true enlightenment Stay tuned. * * * Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

In this episode, we continue exploring the rich spiritual tradition of Buddhism through one of its most profound and important schools - Chan/Zen. We dive into the history and development of the school, as well as its characteristic teachings about meditation, koans, liberation and Buddha-nature.Sources/Suggested Reading: Chuang Zhi (2019). "Exploring Chán: An Introduction to the Religious and Mystical Tradition of Chinese Buddhism". Songlark Publishing. Hershock, Peter D. (2004). "Chan Buddhism". University of Hawaii Press. Red Pine (translated by) (1989). "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma". North Point Press. Red Pine (translated by) (2002). "The Diamond Sutra". Counterpoint. Red Pine (translated by) (2008). "The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng". Counterpoint. Westerhoff, Jan (2009). "Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction". Oxford University Press. Ziporyn, Brook (2016). "Emptiness and Omnipresence: An essential introduction to Tiantai Buddhism". Indiana University Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During our annual Bodhidharma Day ceremony we explore the famous interchange between the Emperor of China and Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen in China.

Hay dos caminos, como dijo Bodhidharma en su tiempo: hay un camino simple para alcanzar la Vida eterna, y hay un camino de Servicio si realmente nos embarcamos en el camino espiritual. Disciplina, aspiración y habilidades elementales: todo esto en conjunto es lo que conduce a la victoria. Cuando nuestro cuerpo está cargado, cuando las consciencias primaria y secundaria están enfocadas, un ser humano como Personalidad gana más libertad. No importa a cuántas personas y a quién derrotes en este mundo; si no derrotas a tu propio demonio, perderás. Por lo tanto, es mucho más importante la victoria sobre ti mismo. Porque sólo la victoria sobre ti mismo te da realmente la Vida, la Vida Eterna. Salvo la Vida Eterna y el Amor de Dios, todo es temporal.

We continue our series on Genjo Koan, 'Realizing the Truth Right Here,' and the way of Bodhidharma found there. Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum: OUR MONTHLY 4-hour Treeleaf ZAZENKAI - Remember Bodhidharma Day!

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/2/2023 - From The Gateless Gate, Case 41: "Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind." - In this talk given during the Peaceful Dwelling Zazenkai at Fire Lotus Temple, Hojin Sensei asks what it means to truly walk the path of peace. She invites us to consider how we work with the aspects of ourselves and the world that are not at peace.

08/23/2023, Anshi Zachary Smith, dharma talk at City Center. The most striking feature of the famous Koan recorded as Case 1 of the Blue Cliff Record and entitled, in Cleary's translation, as “The Highest Meaning of the Holy Truths” is what a philosophical set piece it is. The Emperor and the Wandering Monk act flawlessly as the voices of two philosophical and experiential qualities that are at the foundation of Mahayana Buddhism. Hmmm… how did that happen? Is this mythology or history? In either case, it's a great story.

This Teisho was given by the Reverend Jay Rinsen Weik Roshi at the Buddhist Temple of Toledo on December 10, 2022. In this talk Rinsen Roshi teaches on the Bodhisattva warrior spirit. If you would like to learn more about the Buddhist Temple of Toledo or to make a donation in support of this podcast please visit buddhisttempleoftoledo.org.

Jogen Salzberg, SenseiCultivating The Empty Field SesshinGreat Vow Zen Monastery07/21/2023 ★ Support this podcast ★

Let's recall our initial outline of areas of interest we are using to compare and contrast the Zen life with our usual preoccupations. To refresh your memory, they were, and are: — Lifestyle: Monastic versus Householder — Physical: Zazen versus the four Cardinal Postures — Biological: Meditative breathing versus everyday situations— Psychological: Shikantaza versus ordinary attention In this segment we will take up the last of the four — attention — the third disposition, after posture and breath, of Matsuoka Roshi's simplified model of zazen, Zen's upright seated meditation. One of his repeat instructions was that, “When the posture, breath, and attention all come together in a unified way, this is the real zazen.” Which implies that we may think we are practicing zazen, when we are not. And what determines whether we are, or not, is, mainly, our attention. We can be sitting in the natural, upright posture; and following the natural, full breathing cycle, all the while paying attention to the wrong thing; or, perhaps better to say, not really paying attention at all, in the Zen sense. So, let's examine what we mean by “attention,” and later, how it works in zazen. In marketing and design circles, attention is regarded as a kind of commodity, upon which we may place a value. That billboard on the expressway attracts a certain amount of attention from the drivers passing by. The owner of the billboard can charge a certain amount of rent, based on the number of “eyeballs” exposed to its message, the client's message. In today's post-print media market, we are saturated with electronic media competing for our attention, seeking to maximize the amount of “clicks” or “hits” a message gets online, as well as on “legacy” or “traditional” media channels such as film, broadcast television, radio, and print publishing. So one way to think about paying attention in Zen, granted that it is a choice we make, is to ask ourselves: What is the most important thing to pay attention to? Of course, I can hear you responding with the hip and flip, too-clever-by-far, all-too-predictable trope: “Everything.” Like the hotdog joke — the Zen master will have one with everything. Which, seriously, raises the question of whether that is even possible. Actually paying attention to everything simultaneously, that is. Master Dogen, in his seminal tract on zazen, Fukanzazengi—Principles of Seated Meditation, at one point says: Now that you know the most important thing in Buddhism how can you be satisfied with the transient world?Our bodies are like dew on the grass and our lives like a flash of lightning Vanishing in a moment This lands about two-thirds of the way though the text, and by then he has said maybe a hundred or so things about Buddhism, so it begs the question, “Which of these is the most important?” But I think we can safely surmise that it has something to do with attention. The legendary Master Bodhidharma, credited with bringing the direct practice of Buddha's meditation to China at the end of the 5th century CE, taught that it is not necessary — or should not be necessary — to do zazen, but that we have only to “grasp the vital principle.” Of course, for most of us, we have to burn through a lot of zazen to be able to grasp the vital principle of Zen. Notable exceptions include Master Huineng, the sixth in the Chinese succession in the 7th century, who underwent a profound experience of insight without benefit of a teacher, or any prior practice. This rare event is traditionally attributed to “merit accumulated in past lives.” But such prodigies are few and far between. My theory is that the main reason that most of us have to sit in zazen to such an extreme extent is that the load of ignorance, personal opinions, and rationalizations we carry on our shoulders has accumulated to that extent. In design and art circles, we speak of two different fundamental kinds of processes working with material media. One is “additive”: lumping clay onto an armature to build a bust of Napoleon, for example; the other is “subtractive”: chipping away the stone to reveal Rodin's “The Thinker.” I find zazen to be mostly the latter. We are chipping away at our own ignorant ideas and preconceptions of reality to get to the bottom of things. And it's a long way down. So what we have to pay attention to is, or may be, “everything,” in one sense; but by taking one thing at a time. And there are a lot of things in the pile we have accumulated. “Pile,” by the way, is one meaning of “skandha” — a “heap,” or “aggregate” — of many like things. Which gets a mention early in the Heart Sutra chanted frequently in most Zen wheelhouses around the world. O Shariputra, form is no other than Emptiness; Emptiness no other than formFeeling, thought, impulse, and consciousness are likewise Emptiness So there you have it. The four aggregates of sentient experience of which we can be conscious — the form, or appearance, of things; the feelings, both tactile and emotional, that we experience on both instinctual and intentional levels; the stream-of-conscious thoughts relentlessly emitted by the brain; and the underlying impulses triggered both subliminally and on the edges of awareness. And finally, consciousness itself, can become conscious of consciousness, “form and reflection” beholding each other, in Tozan Ryokai's memorable phrase from Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi. Back to Bodhidharma, who refers to this same point in an oblique manner: The great Buddhist saint went on to say that if and when we do zazen — in spite of his reluctance to claim the necessity of doing so — there are four basic aspects of ordinary awareness that we can observe, or pay attention to: the breath; physical sensations; emotional sensations, or mood swings; and finally, the machinations of the mind: our various thoughts or concepts, about everything and nothing. A four-pointed model. I think one of Bodhidharma's main points is that in observing the breath, we note that it comes and goes momentarily — we never breathe the same breath twice. Likewise for physical, emotional, and conceptual phenomena — they are ever-changing, by nature impermanent. Well, “Duh!” you say. But these are four of the main aspects of what it is to be a sentient being — those we most associate with our personal identity: This is MY breath; I am hot or cold, in pain, or comfortable; this is MY moodiness; and these are MY ideas. And yet all four are essentially ephemeral, like “a bubble on a stream,” to borrow from Shakyamuni himself. So where does this pervading sense of continuity come from, this “persistence of vision,” and all the other senses? And what are we to make of this contrarian stanza from Hsinhsinming—Trust in Mind, by Master Sosan: To move in the One WayDo not reject even the world of senses and ideasIndeed accepting them fullyIs identical with true enlightenment As I discuss in excruciating detail in the chapter on “Deconstructing Your Senses in the Most Natural Way,” from my first book, ”The Original Frontier” (I know, I know, it is weird to be quoting from your own writing), as we settle into the relatively extreme stillness of zazen — fixed gaze and all — a kind of profound sensory adaptation begins to set in, which is also referenced in the Heart Sutra, just after the bit about the skandhas: Given Emptiness [there are] no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;No seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching;No realm of sight; no realm of mind-consciousness So now we are getting a clue as to what to pay attention to in zazen. And the implication that things are not exactly as they seem to be, sensory-wise. If we simply sit still enough for long enough — and it is anything but simple — everything changes. Through the natural process of paying strict attention to the senses, the process of adaptation takes us through what is sometimes referred to as samatha, or samadhi — calming or stilling the mind; and eventually, and hopefully, vipassana, kensho or satori in Japanese; or what is referred to as “spiritual insight.” Which, by definition, is different from, but inclusive of, normal sight. Do you “see” what I mean? Then the Sutra goes on to say: And so no ignorance; [and] no end of ignorance;No sickness, old age and death; no end of sickness old age and death Whoa! Here is a whiplash-inducing claim. Transcending the senses — as we ordinarily experience and interpret them — takes a seemingly sudden turn, eliminating the very ignorance that has been bedeviling us all along. It also magically relieves us of the burden of the three main marks of dukkha, or sentient suffering: sickness, old age, and death. This challenges our credulity. That those things we fear most in life: the loss of life itself, through the random crapshoot of contracting one of the innumerable fatal illnesses threatening us; or the natural process of aging out of life, just as we age out of our professions and familial responsibilities. Is it all just a figment of our imaginations? In summation, we are all paying full attention every moment of our waking day. But, like the proverbial monkey jumping from limb to limb of the tree of consciousness, it seems random and pointless. The challenge, and the question, becomes what is the most important thing in the flux-and-flow of daily life to pay attention to, and more precisely, how? I would submit that we begin with accepting, and even embracing, the flux-and-flow itself. Master Nagarjuna, 14th in the Indian succession, where Bodhidharma was 28th, said something to the effect that enlightenment entails “seeing into the flux of arising, abiding, and decaying.” And it seems to me that that “abiding” piece is one source of our confusion. If anything is abiding, it is not for long, not in geological time, nor in the quantum realm. So a big part of what we are observing, or paying attention to, is change itself, the passing pageantry of life. I would suggest that, as a benchmark, simply paying more attention to posture and, more pointedly, your breath, will help extend the halo effect of your meditation into every situation you confront in daily life. It may also begin to bring home the deeper meaning of the seemingly trivial and mundane activities which otherwise amount to distractions. There is much more to say about attention, of course, as there is about posture and breath. But for the sake of simplicity, and the practical constraints of this podcast, I will leave that to your imagination and to your discovery in zazen. And I will leave you with a final caveat concerning the nature of the realization of insight, as well as the limits of our imagination, from Hsinhsinming: With a single stroke we are freed from bondage Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothingAll is empty; clear; self-illuminating; with no exertion of the mind's powerHere, thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value For more on Soto Zen, its meaning and application to our modern life and practice, please check out our online and in-person schedules on the Atlanta Soto Zen Center website, and register for my Master Class on the Soto Zen liturgical verses.

Trudy Goodman shares Zen Master Dōgen's method, the Backward Step, for stepping back into awareness and receiving each moment as awakening.Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/beherenowIn this episode, Trudy Goodman lectures on:Stories about Wonhyo, Bodhidharma, Ajahn Chah, and the BuddhaHow to work with what arises when sitting in retreatDōgen Zenji's Backward StepDating Jack KornfieldBeing present with different kinds of experiences"When we have the capacity to be with our own suffering with a more steady presence, what happens is we can help other people with that steady presence. We can be with them through the ups and downs of their lives when we're called to do that. And so freeing our hearts is a blessing, not just for ourselves, but for our world." – Trudy GoodmanAbout Trudy Goodman:Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats and workshops worldwide.Learn more about Trudy's offerings at trudygoodman.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Not symmetricalBut then nothing really is —Only in our mind* * *In this segment of UnMind we continue where we left off, discussing the all-important mentoring relationship of teachers to students, and students to teachers, particularly the asymmetrical relationship in Zen training. The success of any mentorship depends almost entirely, 100% plus, on the sincerity and intensity of the student, more so than the teacher, as illustrated by the anecdote about my friend and fellow student at ID+IIT, JJ, who had an unfortunate run-in with one of my key design mentors related in the last segment. As a teacher of design at the U of I, Chicago Circle Campus, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I found myself on the other side of the equation and gained even more respect for my mentors. For those design students who did not seem to benefit greatly from my tutelage, I can fault them as well as myself. My story and sticking to it, anyway.The well-known exchanges between Zen ancestors and their students, particularly those who eventually succeeded them in the lineage, are illustrative of this asymmetry. Bodhidharma, the first Zen patriarch known to history in China, for example, responded to his Chinese student and dharma heir, Huike, who complained of having a disturbed mind, by asking him to show him this mind. When Huike replied that when he looked for it he could not find it, the sage exclaimed “There I have calmed your mind!” or some such expression. These incidents are variously translated so please forgive my paraphrasing, as well as the spelling of the names. I am not a scholar. My point here is that then Huike, in a similar exchange with his future successor, Sengcan, said something similar. The eventual third patriarch in China likewise complained of being “bound” by something, and Huike asked him what was binding him. When he could not respond, Sengcan suddenly realized there was nothing binding him and was liberated.That Huike responded to his student in essentially the same way that his teacher Bodhidharma had replied to him illustrates that the teacher was not called upon to say or do something extraordinary, but instead had responded with an ordinary, mundane question. We might even conclude that Huike had merely imitated Bodhidharma's approach. I think this makes the case that what triggered the profound event of the student's transformative insight was not the skill or mystical power of the teacher, but was dependent upon the desperation of the student, combined with complete faith in the teacher.Symmetry is a principle of Design Thinking, as can be seen in the design of most modern automobiles as well as vintage wheeled vehicles, such as the chariot Buddha used as an analogy to the skandhas, or the Conestoga wagons that settled the West. The practical reasons for this are pretty obvious when considering the function of the vehicle to move straight forward or backward in as friction-free a way as possible, as well as to navigate turns. But the adherence to symmetry in design goes far beyond the practical functioning of the vehicle, into the aesthetics of its overall form and features. One of the few notable exceptions to the symmetry norm may be seen in the Nissan Cube (see photo) introduced to the American market in 2009 and discontinued in 2014. We may most usefully consider this anomaly in the context of the adage, “form follows function.”Seeing this startling design for the first time may cause whiplash as it surprises your expectations of symmetry. It features a wrap-around window on the rear and one side, which violates the usual bilateral symmetry of vehicle design. I wonder if it also created a hazard in case the vehicle rolls in a wreck, as the roof-support structure would apparently be greatly weakened by the lack of a fourth column in that corner. And that that partially explains its brief time on the market.Of course, the power drive chain and other mechanical systems that make the modern vehicle function are not symmetrical in the simple sense – one only has to look under the hood to see the asymmetrical complexity of the modern combustion engine or that of the newer electric and hybrid vehicles.The apparent bilateral symmetry of the human being and many other animals is similarly deceptive. Once the relatively symmetrical outer appearance is removed, as in surgery or an autopsy, the incredible complexity of the underlying system of nerves, glands, and organs is revealed. The skeleton and musculature largely reflect the symmetrical form of the outer appearance, and much like the drive train and wheels of the automobile, function to support the mobility and balance of the body in motion.So the appearance of bilateral symmetry in both cases is just that – appearance, another word for form.The famous formula coined by Buddha, that form (appearance) is, itself, emptiness — and vice-versa — reflects this greater reality. If we probe even further, down to the molecular and atomic levels, it becomes clear that while the constituent elements making up the appearance of symmetry of the object may themselves exhibit various kinds of internal symmetry, including radial and other three-dimensional geometries that transcend mere bilateral or mirror symmetry; there is no clear, fractal-like relationship of the micro-scale parts to the macro-scale whole. The forming processes of whatever metal, plastic, rubber, textile and other materials undergo in order to achieve the final form of the completed object obviously depend upon the properties of the materials, but their original, internal form has little to do with the final, external form. Like the fabled chariot, the whole exists only in the sum of the parts.If we deconstruct the vehicle, like the chariot, it ceases to function, or to exist, as a vehicle. Likewise, the organism, human or otherwise, does not function or exist outside the particular assembly of its parts. Zen meditation is often referred to as a process of deconstructing consciousness, or the mind itself. Realization, according to Master Dogen in Jijuyu Zammai—Self-Fulfilling Samadhi, is the manifestation of this process (emphasis mine):All this, however, does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness in stillness; it is immediate realization.Note that the term “unconstructedness” does not even qualify as proper English; the giveaway is the red underline the word processor uses to highlight a mistake. Dogen goes on to point out that “if practice and realization were two things, as it appears to the ordinary person, each could be recognized separately. But what can be met with recognition is not realization itself because realization is not reached by a deluded mind.” This indicates that anything that can be met with recognition is, by definition, a kind of delusion. Our very recognition of something we call “symmetry” is itself delusional. Upon closer examination it falls apart, seen to be, at best, a kind of approximation. The mind continually averages out all the contrary impressions of asymmetry to focus upon and reify the notion of symmetry.The immediacy of realization the Master points to should be understood as immediate in both time and space. That is, in this “realization” what becomes real to us is not something that heretofore was distant from us and somewhere in the future, but always and ever present, and near at hand. So close as to be inaccessible to perception as such, like the water to the fish, or the air to the bird. As Dogen points out later in this same tract, even the idea of “realization” must be regarded with some circumspection:[But] the boundary of realization is not distinct. For the realization itself comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge or is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. That “the inconceivable may not be apparent” — one of my favorite Dogen lines and, I think, indicative of his sense of humor — must be one of the grand understatements of all time. How could the inconceivable in any way be apparent? This is one of the hallmarks of the asymmetrical nature of the relationship, the ability to use language but not be used by it. So to speak. o point at that which is beyond concept, let alone language. Concepts take time to form. Expressing them in language takes even longer. Using words to point at that which is beyond conception, and thus far beyond language, is difficult, but not impossible. Tozan Ryokai, credited with founding Soto Zen in China, reminds us of the inconceivable nature of Zen realization in his Ch'an poem Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi, pointed to as “it” (J. inmo):Although it is not constructed it is not beyond wordsLike facing a precious mirrorForm and reflection behold each otherYou are not it but in truth it is youIt would be hard to find a more succinct and intriguing description of a symmetrical relationship than “Form and reflection behold each other.” Especially as the two elements of the sentence, “form” and “reflection,” indicating object and subject, respectively, are usually considered to be the opposite of symmetrical — comprising the material and spiritual dimensions of existence — or matter versus mind.One more visual example of the apparent symmetry versus the actual asymmetry that we normally perceive is illustrated by an exercise called “Your Original Face” from a creativity workshop we conducted at ASZC, based on Huineng's famous anecdotal koan. In the photos you see the same portrait of my face, divided down the middle axis and reconstructed to reveal the “left-face “ versus the “right-face” version of me. Looks like me, but… Note that the arched-eyebrow side in shadow connotes the evil me while the side in full light looks more like a saint. The “eyes have it” but so do the eyebrows and mouth. Problem-solving is the action-oriented modus operandi of both professional design thinking and the Zen or Buddhist worldview. Designers define problems worthy of solving, often redefining those presented by clients, for financial as well as altruistic reasons. Siddhartha Gautama clearly interpreted the cultural norms, mores and memes of his times and his particular social standing in the caste system as problematic or unsatisfactory, and went on what we might romanticize as a spiritual quest to find a solution. His findings, conclusions, and recommendations constituted the content of the First Sermon, in which he laid out the Four Noble Truths, an extremely concise and complete description of the “problem” of sentient existence, particularly for human beings, including a thoroughgoing prescription for practicing in daily life, the Noble Eightfold Path, which, crucially, emphasizes the central method by which anyone can approach and — at least in theory — solve this problem for themselves, essentially by “doing thou likewise.” Fortunately for us, he succeeded to a greater degree than most of his contemporaries. He and his followers transformed this personal experience into a socially inclusive program for like-minded people, the original Order of monks and nuns, as well as householders and leaders, in India. This is the origin of the legacy we have inherited and celebrate today. As I said in the prior segment, in both design and Zen training, relationships to your mentors become all-important, shaping your views of the profession, and the practice and meaning of meditation, respectively. This is true of Zen in particular, and probably all asymmetrical relationships in general. Where we go from here we shall see, as we say, but wherever the road takes us, it will arrive at the intersection of Zen and Design Thinking. Meanwhile keep practicing.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

Designing SanghaSangha is the fruitOf all of our endeavors —If harmonious.* * *angha is also an operative dynamic of our world. Community already exists; it is just not always very harmonious. Why would Buddha have established the original Order of monks and nuns, when he had a perfectly serviceable community in the form of the Shakya clan, and enjoyed a position of high honor and privilege within it? Why do we seek out groups of like-minded folks, often turning away from the family and friends we grew up with? Why do we reject the smorgasbord of ersatz communities on offer in the wider society, and turn instead to groups who insist on sitting quietly for irrationally long periods of time, occasionally inviting someone to hit us with a stick? It is because, as Matsuoka Roshi would often say, “Civilization conquers us!”One could argue the case that Buddha was basically a late-blooming adolescent, a rebel who rejected his father's plans for his future; and potentially a draft-dodger who, as a member of the warrior caste, did not relish the idea of taking orders from the Brahmins, for instance to wage war on the neighboring tribes. One could also reasonably wager that had he been of the lower castes — an untouchable, for example — he would not likely have gotten away with his renegade movement. I submit that we are doing essentially the same thing in America today that Buddha did when faced with the dilemma of introducing a “third way,” in contrast to the probably polarized choices that denizens of proto-Hindu India faced in his day and time. In my recent book, “The Razorblade of Zen,” I delve into the choices we face today between the extremes of theism and religion on one end of the societal spectrum, with rationalism and science at the other end. Zen presents as the Middle Way, positioned between, and inclusive of, the extremes. You don't know where the middle is until and unless you go to the extreme.This vacillation, from high to low, from sensations such as exhaustion or hyper-energetic, or swings in emotions from anxiety to serenity, extreme states from depression to mania, or from one concept to its opposite, seems to be built-in to the very manner in which our mind functions. As Master Dogen reminds us in Fukanzazengi:Think neither good nor evil right or wrongThus stopping the functions of your mindGive up even the idea of becoming a BuddhaSo thinking good or evil, right or wrong is the natural functioning of the mind — monkey mind, that is.Such thoughts, emotions and states can be experienced on a strictly personal level, but they tend to influence our behavior and reactions in the social sphere as well. Which is where Sangha comes into play. One of the prevailing memes about the residential or community practice in vogue today in Zen circles is that the process is akin to stones in a fast-running creek or river — they become smooth by rubbing against each other. This analogy to rubbing off the rough edges simply by being tossed into the same tumbler for some time has its limitations. Most communities are highly intentional in their design. They often include “mindfulness gotchas” built into the day-to-day routine of the practice place.Consider that we all have other choices these days. Whether or not we live in an intentional community, and for how long, is largely dependent upon other factors, such as resources and alternatives, otherwise known as “privilege.” Most Americans practicing Zen today are vastly more affluent and thus more privileged, than was Buddha in his environ. This is one factor explaining the predominantly white and upper-middle-class skew of the leadership of American Zen. My generation is the second, after those members of my father's cohort, the “greatest generation” who went overseas in WWII. They became the first generation of American Zen practitioners and priests, having been exposed to the virus in the Pacific basin. My teacher, like theirs, was Japanese. We are now beginning to see the first generation of younger Zen students who came by it honest — their parents were into Zen.The current influx of 20- and 30-something Zen seekers are a different animal, having grown up in a post-digital and highly interconnected world, with access to most of its intellectual resources. This naturally affects how they engage with the world, and calls into question the place of Zen training, with its emphasis on face-to-face transmission of the Dharma. Why are they coming to Zen? Same reasons you and I did. I was in my mid-20's when I met Sensei; he was in his mid-20's when he came to America, as was Dogen when he travelled to China, all to find the secret of Zen, which was missing from life.Sensei would often say the secret to Zen is “Confidence in everyday life.” I would add balance to that claim, recognizing the many more tugs and pulls that are keeping us off-balance today. But we also now have many more avenues for outreach and engagement. Pre-and post-COVID, I have enjoyed many long-term, robust Dharma dialogs online, with students I have never met in person. We are actively redesigning the interface of the teacher-student relationship in all fields, including Zen.If we are to give up even the idea of becoming a Buddha, what about taking up the role of Bodhisattva?The “idea of becoming a Buddha” is relatively easy to dissect and dismiss, along with the idea of becoming anything we are not already. Or giving up the idea may create a higher likelihood of actually realizing Buddhahood. In any eventuality, it would certainly change our relationship with our community. Or would it?If we are already Buddha — that is, awake but not fully so — what effect would becoming even more awake have on our relationship to our Sangha? And by extension, to the community-at-large? Awake to what? is the question begged. Awake to the community as harmonious, that is, as genuine Sangha? Awake to our personal role in assuring that the community is as harmonious as possible, and maybe improving our performance in playing that role?We have a relatively recent usage in the realm of politics of the adjective, “performative.” This points out what some may regard as the hypocrisy of certain pols who represent positions and policies as if they truly believe in them, as we say in the religion of ideology; but an underlying suspicion suggests that they are only performing for the audience to gain or retain the votes of their constituency. Whatever the utility of this critique, and its potential influence on the future of governance, it seems we might benefit from adapting and applying it to our own role within Sangha, and by extension to society in general. While “performing” in front of others, we might pay attention to the fact that we are performing, and consider whether our actions are merely performative, or genuinely in line with our intention.Sangha is a two-way street. At least. We affect the practice of the community and the community affects our practice. It can go either way. Too much emphasis on fitting into the community, and your zazen may be neglected. Too much emphasis on personal practice, and disharmony may result. It's a balance, like most things. And Sangha is not really necessary on the personal level: see Bodhidharma. On the social level, however, the design of the community becomes crucial to its survival and success, which is measured by its beneficial effect on its members Zen lives, no matter how many or how few. If we can strike a balance between the three legs of the Zen stool — Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha — we may have a chance at experiencing the liberation that the Ancestors have assured us hangs in that balance. Zen is about true freedom or liberation: from self-imposed as well as societal constraints; it is innately apolitical. Freedom from cultural memes and mores, yes, but the Zen worldview is not a form of license; the “Zen person has no problem following the sidewalks,” as Sensei would often remind us. We followers of Zen are already the ultimate in non-conformity — no need to make a point of it. Finally, freedom from anxiety, analysis paralysis, weariness and confusion; but not based on a belief system about reality but a direct transformation of our grasp of reality.In the next series we will look at the intersection of certain selected pairs of phenomena that I find to be related to both Zen and Design Thinking. Of course I would be hard-pressed to find anything that does not relate to both of these parallel influences on my life. Meanwhile please practice-practice-practice Buddha-Dharma-Sangha.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

Namaste. Recognizing the Oneness of all mystical paths, wisdom from Advaita master Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sufi master Rumi, and Zen masters Bodhidharma and Bankei are explored to illustrate the fact that you are already what you seek. Additionally, a pointing and perspective from my latest book, “Finding Freedom Where You Are,” is also shared. Be the Buddha and be free. Namaste. Love to all, Selena Sage // selenasage.com // ebooks: zentaobooks.com // Fb+IG: Selena Sage — Author

02/25/2023, Shosan Victoria Austin, dharma talk at City Center. How does mindfulness of breathing help untangle our experience of the self and the world? Guided meditations and commentary based on ancient words of the Buddha, Prajnatara, and Bodhidharma; on contemporary teachings from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and on personal study with Tenshin Reb Anderson and Sojun Mel Weitsman.

This morning, learn the power and freedom of separating from one's mind and observing the thoughts objectively. Want to be more focused? Wish distractions would just melt away? Sign up for the WMU Focus Course! If you're interested in joining, all you need to do is sign up for the course here: https://wakemeuppod.gumroad.com/l/focus. Get ad-free access to the entire WMU catalog + bonus content + 25% discount on WMU courses by joining the WMU Premium Feed. Sign up and start your 7-day free trial at https://wakemeup.supercast.com/. Follow the show on Spotify - Apple Podcasts - Amazon - Podchaser Say hi or request an episode at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/contact. See visual guides for the yoga and stretches in WMU episodes at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/stretches. And find the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. **Only partake in the physical movements suggested in Wake Me Up episodes if you are physically able and in safe surroundings. All movements are done at the individual's own risk. Be safe, and always consult a doctor if you have any questions or concerns.** Have a wonderful day

02/04/2023, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. In commemorating Zen's first Chinese Ancestor, Abbot David provides an overview of Bodhidharma's seminal work, the “Outline of Practice”, which posits that there are essentially two ways to enter the path of Zen ─ by ‘Principle' and by ‘Practice'. He describes the four all-inclusive habits that Bodhidharma says lead to awakening, with particular focus on that of “accepting adversity”.

A reading of Bodhidharma's formative teaching "Outline of Practice" which describes the four all-inclusive habits that lead to enlightenment. Translated by Red Pine. Bodhidharma is considered the founder of Zen Buddhism in China and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. He brought the Buddha's teachings to China from India in 520 AD. While much of his biography may be the stuff of legend and his historicity is still in question, numerous early records speak of him (or someone by the name of Bodhidharma) as a wise and compassionate monk. Whether or not he was ever a living person, the legend of Bodhidharma has made him as real in the Zen tradition as anyone else.