Podcasts about dogen zenji

religion meditation heart spirituality mindfulness zen buddhism dharma sensei salzberg dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2025 46:15

This is a talk given by Jogen Sensei at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on January, 29th. In this talk Jogen Sensei continues his discussion on the Komyozo Zanmai a text by Koun Ejo who was a disciple of and received transmission from Dogen Zenji. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Komyozo Zanmai Part 2 - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

religion meditation heart spirituality mindfulness zen buddhism dharma sensei salzberg dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 22, 2025 28:43

This is a talk given by Jogen Sensei at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on January, 15th. In this talk Jogen Sensei continues his perspective on the Komyozo Zanmai a text by Koun Ejo who was a disciple of and received transmission from Dogen Zenji. ★ Support this podcast ★

Treeleaf Zendo Podcast - Dogen, Fullness and Sacred Ordinary Life

Treeleaf Zendo Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2025 49:01

Today we dance with an insightful scholar's paper on Dogen Zenji's unique and profound ideas regarding fullness, universal liberation, the sacred as "immanent in space and time", Buddhahood in the "fundamental activity of the world," practice-realization as "liberating activity", Zen practice as the "practice of Buddhahood," and the fullness and sacredness of "ordinary life". Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum: READ MORE HERE »

sacred zen fullness ordinary life dogen buddhahood zendo dogen zenji

The History of Shikantaza

Andrew Tootell's Ordinary Mind Zen Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2025 27:08

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.

history china japan zen dogen soto zen bodhidharma dogen zenji red pine shikantaza guo gu

Comments on the Komyozo Zanmai - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

religion meditation heart spirituality mindfulness zen buddhism dharma sensei salzberg dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2025 39:56

This is a talk given by Jogen Sensei at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on January, 8th. In this talk Jogen Sensei talks about the Komyozo Zanmai a text by Koun Ejo who was a disciple of and received transmission from Dogen Zenji. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Practice of Zen is Zazen

The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2024 32:54

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/14/24 - This talk explores how the minimal instructions for Zen practice that have been handed down to us from Dogen Zenji encourage us to be with what is, as it arises, without fixing or adding extra. “Realizing the fundamental point, it is practice realization,” Dogen wrote. We are encouraged to “let go of all involvements,” take care of the body and mind and all that arises, and let the practice of zazen support our true self.

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167: The Most Important Thing

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2024 18:58

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.

Fierce Hope

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2024 27:34

It's beautiful to be taking refuge together in all the various places we find ourselves.Ah. Here we are. Survivors of the election. Spiritual warriors attempting to live a vow-fueled life. Hearts turned towards love larger then fear. Even if fear is rattling in your gut, or anger is raging strong in your body or numbness has you hiding out.Whatever you are feeling is welcome.Whatever you are feeling is wisdom.Its your body telling you something—That something might be: This isn't ok. NO! I don't feel safe. I am afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I have the energy to fight. This matters. This is what i love. This is what i care about.Or something else. Listen. What is your body trying to say to you? This may change moment to moment.In the Zen Community of Oregon, we are currently studying a text called The Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A set of pith instructions given by the Buddha shortly before they died.This week we explored the Fifth RealizationIgnorance leads to birth and death. Bodhisattvas are always mindfulTo study and learn extensively, to increase their wisdomAnd perfect their eloquence, so they can teach and enlighten all beings,And impart great joy to all.Dogen Zenji calls it Always Maintaining Mindfulness and comments:Mindfulness helps you to guard the dharma, so you never lose it. If you practice this the robbers of fear and desire cannot enter you. Therefore you should always maintain mindfulness. It is like wearing armor going into a battlefield, so there is nothing to be afraid of.When we have mindfulness, or heartfulness—we know who we are, and where we stand. We are aligned with vow, the great vow—to awaken for the sake of all beings!Mindfulness has its popular dimensions in our culture. Its found its way into businesses, schools, the military—its featured in taglines like Mindful Car Washing, Mindful Jogging, Mindful Eating, Mindful Sleep Therapy. Its said to help workers stay focused, increase productivity, basically make everything better…Yet, mindfulness is also subversive. A mindfulness instructor, Zen practitioner and friend said to to me in a conversation once, mindfulness is shadow work. He has taught mindfulness in business settings, and when he said this, I felt the truth in his words. Mindfulness is empowering and it also brings us into direct relationship with the wisdom of our bodies, the feelings perhaps we have been trying to run from, the fixed beliefs that drive our life.Through mindfulness we aren't lost in the wimbs or conditioning of our thinking / reactivity. We can live more authentically, we can ask questions, make space for our anger and feel the wisdom of our fears.Mindfulness is our best english translation of the word sati, which means more “to recollect” or “to remember.” What are we remembering? Our practice, the dharma, heart, we are reconnecting with what really matters.If you are feeling a lot right now, its your body saying yes, this matters, our interconnected life matters. The earth, immigrants in our country, trans + non-binary people, queer folks, women, people of color, the more than human world—matter.Love matters. Wisdom matters. Seeing through the forces of ignorance matter. Awakening from our collective delusion matters.Mindfulness also means being present with, allowing what's here to be here—in the different dimensions of our being:My teacher Chozen Roshi would often teach the four foundations of mindfulness during morning meditation at the monastery. This teaching offers a ground up approach to experiencing this precious interconnected life. Here we start with our body.Body—bringing awareness to the felt sense of our bodies, part by part feeling our bodies from within the somatic experience of the body allows us to awaken to the wisdom of our embodied experience.Feelings—next we include feelings, allowing awareness to make space for the flow of life energy that we call emotion or feeling. To feel feelings without needed to make a story about them, without needing to name them. Just to feel the energy itself. This is our energy. This is our life.Thought—So often we just take our thoughts to be true, or we get in a fight with them. To bring mindfulness to the thought stream empowers us to see/hear what we are telling ourselves. It is possible to experience thought as pure sensation, another sense in the field of awareness. To do this, gives us freedom from the tyranny of our conditioned thoughts. Mind is freed up.Awareness itself—after opening to and including body, feelings and thought, next we open to awareness itself. Resting in pure awareness, senses open, one single unified life. This is our shared being, all is included, all is allowed.Thoughts and emotions often want to take us out of our experience, into story, worry, blaming others, searching for information—we can learn to follow them back home, to the liberated self.I have been reflecting on the teaching of the Five Wisdom Dakinis that comes from the Tibetan tradition, Lama Tsultrim Allione writes about them in her book Wisdom Rising.Dakini is one depiction of the awakened feminine, known also as a “sky-dancer” or “sky-goer”, the dakini principle is here to wake us up from our habits of ego-identification. Dakinis are often portrayed in motion, dancing on delusion and decorated in bone ornaments. The five wisdom dakinis are portrayed as fierce and passionate beings who transmute/use the energy of the emotions as the liberated energy of awakening. I feel like this time is inviting us to feel and use the energy of the emotions to meet the challenges we face as a country and a global community. We need the awakened feminine with her fierce hope and embodied wisdom. The five wisdom dakinis are connected to colors, the great elements and a buddha family. Earth—Yellow — Ratna — transmutes the desire for sensual pleasure and security into the Wisdom of Sameness, Abundance and GenerosityWater—Blue — Vajra — transmutes anger into Mirror Like Wisdom and ClarityFire—Red — Padma — transmutes passionate desire for connection and sexual energy into Discerning Wisdom and CompassionSpace—White — Buddha — transmutes fear/ignorance into All Inclusive WisdomAir—Green — Karma — transmutes jealousy/comparison/insecurity into All Accomplishing Wisdom or Great ActivityThe stories and koans of the women ancestors show us how real women have embodied these energies in their life of practice-realization. Stories help us see beyond ourselves and our limiting beliefs and also remind us that others have faced challenges and difficulties on the path. They also help us connect to practitioners beyond our current teachers or community. Here are some stories I'd like to share:The Old Woman burns down the Hermitage An old woman built a hermitage for a monk and supported him for twenty years. One day, to test the extent of the monk's enlightenment and understanding, she sent a young, beautiful, girl to the hut with orders to embrace him. When the girl embraced the monk and asked, “How is this?” He replied stiffly, “A withered tree among frozen rocks; not a trace of warmth for three winters.” Hearing of the monk's response, the old woman grabbed a stick, went to the hermitage, beat him and chased him out of the hut. She then put the hermitage to the torch and burned it to the ground.Ryonen Scars her FaceLingzhao's I'm helpingSatsujo WeepsTo close, I offer some questions for reflection as we land in this moment and also look to the future.What is this moment awakening in me? (Stay with yourself, listen to your body, feelings, thoughts, vow—we gather wisdom by listening to our whole being, and then use discernment, what is coming from conditioning and reactivity, and what is wise—if you don't know, keep listening)How do I want to show up for myself / my community?What supports / teachings / practices might I need to do this?What nourishes me?Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: The Ritual of Strange FlowersSunday Dec 1 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETHow do we know that anything is only one thing? Strange flowers bloom within and without. What is not a flower? What is not strange when held in a steady gaze? Each of us are strange flowers. How familiar are our own beauties? What of the self could be revisioned ?We will actuate our own blemished bodies as intimate beauty. We may take grotesque shapes and discover them differently. We'll look underneath and behind and move wierdly to enter new worlds. We will play in ways the authorities that haunt our minds may not give their seal of approval, releasing energy, shedding man and mind-made shackles.Sample ScheduleRitual of UnknowingSeated Meditation (bring a strange flower to meditate on)Somatic/Parts Work ExplorationsGroup Check-inClosingPlease rsvp and we will send the zoom link + additional information to prepare for the session. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Dogen Zenji and the Genjo Koan - Shonin, Dharma Holder

bonds buddha contemplative care new york zen center koshin paley ellison dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2024 31:49

This dharma talk was given by Shonin, Dharma Holder at Great Vow Zen Monastery on October 13th, 2024 during Ancient Way Sesshin. In this talk Shonin discusses the Genjo Koan and how it expresses Dogen Zenji's Great Doubt or investigation. ★ Support this podcast ★

religion meditation spirituality mindfulness zen buddhism holder dharma koan dogen zenji great doubt

Bonds of the Buddha | Koshin Paley Ellison

Zencare Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2024 25:47

“Are you indulging your bulls@$t, your mistaken understandings?” – Koshin Paley Ellison The awakening Way is not an idea. How can we free ourselves from the ideas of practice in order to practice? In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei continues to engage with Dogen Zenji's “Deportment of the Practicing Buddha” by paying […] The post Bonds of the Buddha | Koshin Paley Ellison appeared first on New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.

Freisein in Identitäten

Akazienzendo Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2024 54:45

Bernd Bender, Dharma-Vortrag am 04. August 2024, Zen-Tag im Akazienzendo Berlin In seinem Dharma-Vortrag nimmt Bernd „Nenne mich bei meinem wahren Namen,“ ein Gedicht Thich Nhat Hanhs, zum Ausgangspunkt, um über Identität aus Zen-Buddhistischer Sicht zu sprechen. Das über Jahrtausende aufgehäufte Leiden bis hin zu Kriegen und Genoziden lässt sich unter dem Blickwinkel der Identität verständlicher machen. So zeigt sich Gewalt als etwas, das immer dann auftritt, wenn es zu einer Krise der Zuschreibungspraxis von Identität und dem Ausschluss aus derselben kommt. Jedoch können wir Identität nicht einfach überwinden. Wir brauchen Identitäten, und die unglaubliche Entfaltung, Differenzierung und Erprobung von Identitäten, die insbesondere über die letzten Jahrzehnte stattfand, ist eine enorme Errungenschaft. Mit Texten von Emily Dickinson und Arthur Rimbaud nähert sich Bernd modernen literarischen Beschreibungen von Identitätskrisen und setzt sie in Beziehung zu den Versen Thich Nhat Hanhs und Zen-Texten von Dongshan Liangjie, Dogen Zenji sowie dem Vimalakirti Sutra. Die Lehre von der Leerheit verweist darauf, dass es einen Wesenskern in uns und damit eine unveränderliche Identität nicht gibt. Dadurch gibt uns der buddhistische Pfad die Möglichkeit unsere Identitätskonzepte zu dekonstruieren und uns so mehr und mehr zu öffnen in die Fähigkeit frei in Identitäten zu sein.

The Play of Light and Shadow

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 13, 2024 31:22

Since leaving the monastery a few years ago, I have become interested in how the ancient Zen teachers talked about the spiritual path. Language about the realizations that compose awakening are nested in the Zen chants that I would chant daily as a monastic, but we were so immersed in the continuous-ness of practice, that rarely would we stop and try to map out the territory. We were living it, who needed the borrowed words of those long dead to put a conceptual overlay onto something so fleeting as experience?My teacher Chozen was fond of saying that Zen was a practice without guardrails or measuring sticks—we stumble around in the dark. And somehow in this stumbling, in the dark terrain of life before concepts— our faith deepens and our sense of self loses its limiting bearings in exchange for an indescribable vastness that belongs to no-one. Zen teachers over the years have said of Zen that, “it is good for nothing”, or “a practice of non-attainment.”Others, including the early founders of the Soto school, described or attempted to show through poetry and image, some of the dynamics at play in this “good for nothing” journey of “non-attainment” and spiritual maturation.Two such teachers are Zen Masters Shitou and Dongshan Liangjie. Shitou's famous work The Sandokai or The Identity of Relative and Absolute is still chanted at Soto Zen Monasteries and Temples all over the world. And Dongshan's Precious Mirror Samadhi, which contains his teaching of the Five Ranks is similarly revered.There is a magic to language. A symbol is passed down for centuries, from spoken word, to ideogram, to letters and words in our own tongue, which become images again appearing in our imagination, references to a memory that we can almost taste.Words are sensual. We taste our words as we speak them. We feel their images and are invited into their song. Sentences are like spells. They captivate the heart. They have the power to render us transformed in this midst of their utterances. When used mindlessly words can kill the thing they are attempting to name. They can create landscapes of lies, delusive dreams that collectively capture our imaginations and send us spiraling further away from ourselves.Yet, words are also alive. Language lets us re-cast the spell on itself. A single word can be a deep medicine for the exiled heart. A point of connection—a way in.The theme of the absolute and the relative is a timeless dance of wholeness. What happens when we really venture to peer into Mind, inquire into the inner workings of our hearts, this experience we call my life?— well it's empty yet appearing, spacious yet seemingly tangible, here yet unfindable. What we call one, is also many—a relationship so intimately entwined, it can feel like a great wrong has been committed to even speak as if they were two separate and distinct experiences. And yet, we long to make meaning. To communicate the inner landscapes of the heart-mind. To celebrate the journey. We are map-makers of consciousness, knowing that as we chart the choppy, ever-changing waters of the heart, it's already shifting—there is nowhere where we truly stand besides the momentariness of standing right where we are.As I study the Sandokai and Dongshan's Five Ranks, I have come to appreciate the play of light and shadow or relative and absolute as a generous reminder once spoken by Master Ma, and later by my own teacher Hogen Roshi—”we can't fall out of the deep samadhi of the universe.” We are always on the path, and the path is always revealing a new face of this mystery.So let's explore one map of the great ocean of awareness and perhaps through these words and images we will recognize some of our own footsteps.The Light within the Dark (the Relative with the Absolute)Dongshan: The third watch of the night, before moonrise—don't be surprised if there's a meeting without recognition. One still harbors the elegance of former years.My meditation is so spacious, it reminds me of that time when…Dogen Zenji says, when the truth fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. As someone who spent a lot of days, months and years in zazen and retreat, a taste of spaciousness can trigger a longing for my time as a total beginner to practice, who just stumbled into this dark mystery of being and had no skin in the game, no vow, just a heart turned towards spaciousness.The Dao De Jing says, In the Dark, darken further…Have you ever meditated in the dark before moonrise? Have you ever let yourself let-go for a moment the ordinary distinctions of seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking? What kind of place is this? Does anyone remain?The Dark within the Light (The Absolute in the Relative)Dongshan: Having overslept, the elder woman encounters the ancient mirror. This is clearly meeting face-to-face, only then is it genuine. Don't lose your head by validating shadows.I love this concept called non-linear emergence. A recognition that being human is non-linear. Healing in non-linear. Awakening surely is non-linear. Because we are never outside of the mysterious grace of our awakened nature, sometimes a moment of clarity rises up in the midst of a seemingly ordinary moment or even what we might consider a moment so outside of our concept of practice. Like those days when we sleep in, or are hungover, or ate too much cake, or feel distracted, busy, on autopilot, lost, alone in our suffering, or pain.Then suddenly, there is an encounter—a stranger smiles, we notice the yellow of a sunflower, a piece of music grabs our attention, we look up at the sky—and something happens. We find ourselves gazing into the ancient mirror. A true encounter. Face-to-face—we glimpse, we remember our shared nature, we feel an enduring love and acceptance, we taste the light of being.Yes right here in the midst of the ordinary, in the midst of the colossal ways we harm each other, in the midst of all the injustices in our crazy-making world—there is love, there is peace. The sacred rises up and kisses us on the cheek. And we keep on living. We go to work, we meet with a friend, we use the toilet when we need to, we continue to heal, we face the innumerable challenges of living a human life.As one Zen master said, awakening is an accident, practice makes us accident prone.Just the Dark (Coming from within the Absolute)Dongshan: Within nothingness there is a road out of the dusts. Just avoid speaking the forbidden name of the emperor and you will surpass the worthies of ancient times, who cut off tongues.Rinzai says: sometimes I take away the person and the environmentAll reference points lostJust don't try to speak of itThough many people practice ZenFew have lost their MindCutting off tongues aside, let me ask— when your mind isn't reifying anything—where do you abide?Enter the dark cave of meditation, it's OK to not-know who you are.One Zen student said when asked, what happens when you think about the one who thinks—I find that there is nothing there at all.Just the Light (Mutual Integration / From within the Relative)Dongshan: No need to dodge when blades are crossed. The skillful one is like a lotus in the fire. Surely you possess the aspiration to soar to the heavens.In the midst of our work, our relationships, our confusion, our intellectual pursuits—the dharma is here. We don't need to look for peak experiences or make wonderment happen. Every meeting is genuine. The dharma is us. Our vow, our heart's aspiration, the bodhisattva dwells in this very ordinary, cryptic, heart-wrenching human realm.Let yourself be a lotus in the fire.Aspire to see your life as a lotus blooming in the midst of all these flames.Light and Dark Together (Arriving at Concurrence)Dongshan: Everyone longs to leave the mundane stream, still you return to sit in the charcoal heap. Zen celebrates such a complete shedding. Is such a place possible? To no longer long for some peak experience, some validation from the universe that you are OK, that all is sacred. Faith can permeate one's being so completely that the world of oneness and the world of diversity are so intertwined that it no longer makes sense to make distinctions. The tradition also celebrates responsiveness. Born from practice-realization we respond to the complexities of our lives. We walk freely through the other ranks, as we live our lives of practice. Most great Zen and Buddhist teachers continued to sit retreats and had a daily practice throughout their lives.Whether the charcoal heap is your zafu or this burning world of change and pain or the complete combustion of being so fully here for those you love + the work you do—you continue to sit in it, with it, with all beings.Thank you for your practice, thank you for living the life you have as genuinely as you do. As we walk the circle of the way, never falling out of the deep samadhi of the universe, we encounter these different expressions of the great heart of being. You might describe them differently, if you bother describing them at all. Perhaps you too are a mapmaker, a spell-caster, one haunted by a call to make meaning and embody love in our sometimes chilling yet beautiful world.In the dharma talk, I offer some other reflections on this topic—as it pertains to the practice of Ango. A time in the Zen Community of Oregon's annual practice cycle that we dedicate to intensifying practice with the support of Sangha.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightBeyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesStarts today! This workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Treeleaf Zendo Podcast - September 2024: Dogen Zenji´s ¨Shoaku Makusa¨

Treeleaf Zendo Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2024 42:26

This month, as we begin our sangha's Ango, we dive into a few sections of master Dogen's ¨Shoaku Makusa¨ (Not Doing Wrongs) Further reading and discussion are available on the Treeleaf forum: September 2024 Monthly Zazenkai»

dogen zendo ango dogen zenji

Studying The Self

Young Urban Zen SF

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2024

Kogetsu Mok: we'll dive deep on ”Studying the Self” from Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan.

studying dogen zenji

Lost in Translation

Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2024 52:20

Sensei Genzan shares his deep and transformative relationship with the great Zen poet, practitioner, and Soto founder Dogen Zenji. He discusses the importance of wholehearted practice, receiving precepts, and how […]

zen soto lost in translation dogen zenji

The Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Actions

embracing beginners zen buddhism bodhisattva city center koan dogen unity church dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 20, 2024 51:37

07/20/2024, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. This talk was given at one of Beginner's Mind Temple's pop-up events at Unity Church, by Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman. Dogen Zenji's beautiful and inspiring essay “Bodaisatta Shishobo” addresses four central practices of a bodhisattva ─ giving, loving speech, beneficial action, and identity action. Abbot David provides an overview of these four “embracing actions” which can heal our sense of separateness, deepen our connection with others, and foster social harmony and communal well-being. By actively taking up these practices together, we can ultimately transform the world.

Within there is a Jewel

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 19, 2024 29:53

Our attention is a precious resource. We use it all the time, and so, might forget what a resource it is. Contemplative traditions throughout the ages recognized the preciousness of attention. And also recognized that if we don't put in the effort to train our attention, our attention may get hijacked, scattered, frittered away by the thieves of time or thoughts of worry, disappointment, greed and hatred.With the election news blaring right now. It might feel easier then ever for attention to get hijacked in doom-scrolling, anxieties about the future, worries and fear. It is an on-going practice to notice where our attention is being pulled, and to remember that we have choice about what we are attending to. To remember that attending to joy, compassion, equanimity and loving kindness awaken these qualities in our own hearts and in the world.The intellect can only get us so far, as individuals and as a species. We have other resources and capacities that are under-valued in our capitalist society, but are life-affirming and necessary for our wellbeing. Qualities like spaciousness, presence, clear-seeing, compassion for others, curiosity and play allow us to connect beyond our differences in views and even across species-lines. These qualities potentiate other ways of showing up for ourselves, others and the world—ways of being that empower us to companion uncertainty and awaken to our inter-connectedness.About a thousand years ago, a Zen teacher named Yunmen said to their community: Within heaven and earth, through space and time, there is a jewel, hidden inside the mountain of form. Pick up a lamp and go into the Buddha Hall, take the triple gate and bring it on the lamp.In Zen, we call statements like this koans. Words or phrases that can't be understood with our intellects alone but require a different kind of attention and inquiry. Koans like this, invite us in to ways of seeing that are as multifaceted as this jewel. They invite us into their world, a world of possibility—a world that is right here, inside this one that we are already living. So if you can for a moment, slip below the apparent linearity of time—into the present—and conjure for a moment—MOUNTAIN.Maybe you live by a mountain. Maybe you have only seen pictures of them. Maybe at some point in your life you backpacked or camped or hiked on a mountain. Mountains have presence. To view a mountain, even an image of one can often invoke a sense of inner stillness, a sense of awe or even majesty.In the summer at great vow we would often study the Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Dogen Zenji. In it Dogen says:Mountains possess complete virtue with nothing lacking. They are always safely rooted yet constantly moving. You should study the meaning of always moving. You should study the green mountains. Just because the movement of mountains is not like the movement of human beings, do not doubt that it exists.We would practice sitting like a mountain. My teacher Chozen Roshi said, “If you sit like a mountain everyday for a month, it will change you.” What is it like to sit as a mountain. To sit in your completeness, to sit as though nothing were lacking. To be both safely rooted, connected to the earth, woven into the landscape, deeply connected to yourself as ecotone, as ecology, as a network of being—in constant movement, yet so Here.Mountain practice reminds us that we too are emplaced. Whether you live by mountains, or in the valley, or on the prairie, plains, forest, desert, coast—we are always emplaced. In a network of relations. In this city of sirens and heavy exhaust—a cardinal sings, a bright yellow finch bathes in the neighbors gutter, edible mushrooms grow in the metro park, walnut trees dine with paw-paws creating a ceaseless canopy near the rushing river, where a doe cleans her new born babe, whose fur is covered in white spots, legs still wobbly.Where-ever you find yourself right now, you are emplaced, connected to a geography, a living landscape of relationships. In part it is the quality of our attention that awakens a belonging to this earth community, to the breath of the wind and the space of the sky—Even though in parts of the human mind there appears to be so much division, contempt and fear. Interconnectedness is also true. We are also Mountain, landscape, a web of relatedness—we are also movement, breeze, sky, song. And within this mountain of form—there is a jewel.Within this mountain of form, within this life we find ourselves in, our particular karma—body pain, unanswered emails, childhood traumas, societal divides, violence, fear, disappointment, hope. There is a jewel.Within this body/mind with its beliefs about being unworthy, too much, not-good-enough. There is a jewel.In dharma practice, we are invited to awaken to the jewel of our true nature. To recognize it. To refamiliarize ourselves with it. And to remember that this precious jewel doesn't exist outside of the actual emplacement of our living. The actual events, fears, disappointments, pains.We don't have to go somewhere else to find it. We don't have to transcend this earthly existence. Right here in this mountain of form. This mountain of being. We are spacious clarity, love is our heart's nature—this is the great mystery. For what we are at the core is radiantly present, and vastly undefinable.The buddhist path recognizes that human life throws a lot of shade on this jewel, that we get sucked into believing things about ourselves, others and the world that appears to cover over our radiant jewel. We forget that the mountain is alive, that it is, we are— part of a great re-cycling of energy—that the re-circulating of earth, winds, waters, hope, love + bone is how the mountain continues.In our forgetting, we attempt to make sense of life and death, violence, lack of care—and develop strategies, beliefs are reinforced from caregivers or religious systems, stories are told that aren't true but helped to keep us safe when it seemed like nothing else would.Beliefs like, I alone am responsible for the injustice in the world. I alone should be able to fix this. If only I tried harder, read more, woke up earlier…was more enlightened. Or I'm not good enough. I am a failure. This shouldn't be happening….What we call practice is a path of reckoning with what is true. Coming back to the ground, to the earth, to the body, this mountain of form. Right here—there is aliveness. Right here—mysterious grace. Pure possibility.Then we have the second part of the koan. Use this mountain of form with its precious jewel—pick up a lamp and go to the buddha hall, take the triple gate and bring it on the lamp.It's not enough to recognize the jewel. Now let it shine, share it.It's a ridiculous image. I picture this giant toreii gate smashing through the buddha hall—bringing the temple entrance right here, right next to the buddha, right into our meditation space. Or bringing the buddha hall out through the temple gate. Out into the world.Dharma practice invites us to ask—what is your dream for the world?Sometimes we forget that we get to have one. We are so busy just trying to survive, to manage, to get enough of what we want. Spiritual practice really continues to ask us some version of this—why? What for? So what is your dream for yourself, others—the world? I want to allow what we usually call VOW to be a dream today. Vow can get us stuck in perfection or overly involved in commitmentDream invites imagination, process, experimentation…mystery…It invites us to smash into the buddha hall with all our fears and hopes about the world—to bring everything we've got to our spiritual practice.Dreaming also appreciates that there is uncertainty, much we don't know, that we can't be responsible for everything—but can be responsive.Part of what Yunmen is showing is a kind of radical faith. Yes, this world seems so fixed, but maybe much of what is fixed is your way of thinking about it. Maybe you are taking a limited human view.Or yes our political situation, institutions, society— appear so corrupt, and you don't have to let it corrupt you. Stay connected to this jewel, the spaciousness, clarity, love of your heart's nature. There is possibility, mystery is always right here—even though this may appear to be a mountain of form, it doesn't mean the only thing you can do is summit it, or run away. Maybe there are other options besides conquering or being defeated. Maybe you can walk around, maybe you can meet people at the base, maybe you can meander, sit with a tree, listen to the concerns of the river, get to know the landscape.Maybe we can apply this to our response to the election news or an interpersonal challenge or with our own inner life. Maybe I can hang out with this part of me that gets afraid, maybe I can make space for my grief, maybe I can call a friend and cry together/laugh together/make plans to see each other, maybe I can do something generous for a loved one, maybe I can recommit to showing up for what I care about in a really local way—feeding the neighborhood cat, attending a town hall meeting, volunteering at the library, making a donation to a shelter, getting to know people who work at the local grocery, getting to know my more-than-human community.Part of what I carry on this lamp is a dream for an awakened society. I carry it into and out of the buddha hall, I carry it—even as I meet the very real violence, bigotry, hatred and greed that is part of the manifestation of our world right now, part of my own conditioning. How does the jewel of awakened nature meet the manifestations of greed, violence, fear, loneliness? This is a living question. Something to live into and carry into the world.The koan also gives us practical medicine/instruction. Here are simple things you can do to train/reclaim your attention:Sit as a mountain, connect with the heart center. When we sit as a mountain, we connect to the earth and sky. We are invited to connect with our place, whether we live here or not, we can connect to place where ever we are. We can let ourselves feel emplaced. We can get to know the trees, birds, animals, flowers, rivers, rocks, fossils, breezes, stars and sky that we share this place with.Sit as a jewel—a jewel has many facets, many ways of seeing and responding, a jewel allows there to be complexity and empowers us to live our awakened life. In a very practical way, sitting as a jewel is a practice of appreciating your life. This embodied life. You! Only you can actualize the radiance of your inner light. Recording what you appreciate about yourself each day is a concrete way to nourish the jewelPractice seeing the jewel of each being. Not always easy to do, but such an important aspiration. Instead of judging others (including politicians) can you let yourself appreciate something about them. Or to see beyond their views, to see them as another human being who suffers and is capable of love. Carry your lamp, your dream for the world. Carry it into and out of the buddha hall, your workplace, your bedroom, your car, the establishments you frequent, your relationships. Get to know what helps nourish its light, and make a practice of doing one thing a day to nourish your dream for the world.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Healing Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutI am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating.I also lead a weekly online meditation group, you can read more about below.Monday Night Meditation + Dharma6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring embodiment, compassion and the principles of engaged buddhism. All are welcome to join.Zoom Link for Monday NightI currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by!Earth Dreams is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

159: The Three Marks of Dukkha part 2

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2024 13:38

Continuing with a consideration of the realities of day-to-day Zen practice in the context of Buddhism's central teaching of dukkha – natural suffering writ large – the second of the “three marks,” or characteristics of existence from a human perspective, is usually named as “sickness” or “illness.” Please note in passing that illness, from the perspective of Chinese medicine – which may be closer to its cultural connotations in ancient India – denotes a lack of centeredness, or balance. Something is out of kilter – the yinyang of it all – when we fall ill. Nowadays, of course, we have much more access to many means of tracing and tracking the origins of our maladies, to environmental and other sources. Quoting from the Tricycle web site again, we find a less personal, less specific definition of the three: ...all phenomena...are marked by three characteristics...: impermanence (anicca), suffering or dissatisfaction (dukkha), and not-self (anatta). These three marks apply to all conditioned things—that is, everything except for nirvana. Sickness is not called out specifically as one of the many causes of suffering or dissatisfaction, possibly for reasons of cultural context and medical acumen 2500 years ago. We will get around to that throwaway line exempting so-called “nirvana.” I can personally testify to the dissatisfactory and suffering nature of sickness, from my experience contracting Covid-19 in 2022 and, more recently, a suddenly bloated GI tract blockage that had me hospitalized overnight, and bed-ridden for over a week. The pandemic occasioned such wide medical suffering and social unrest that Shunei Oniuda, the president of Sotoshu Shumucho, Zen administrative headquarters in Japan, addressed it from the Buddhist perspective in a public message: I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences for those who have lost their precious lives from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and offer a prayer that they may rest in peace. For those who have been affected by this illness, I pray that they will recover as soon as possible, and I would like to offer my deepest sympathy to their families and relatives who have also been affected by this illness. Also, my thoughts are with all those experiencing tremendous difficulties whose lives have been affected by the spread of this epidemic and the need to stay home. Then Mr. Oniuda relates some interesting facts providing context for the present: In the Kamakura Period of Japanese history when Dogen Zenji was teaching, there were times when cool summers caused by climate change often brought poor harvests. There were outbreaks of plague, and, during the Great Kanki Famine (1230-31), it is said that about a third of the population of Japan perished. In times such as these, Dogen Zenji emphasized that these were the very times to not neglect the Buddha Way. Who is to know it the changes in climate at that time were as precipitous and global as those we are seeing today. As an island nation, Japan is likely more subject to extremes in weather because it is surrounded by ocean waters. A caveat – in our fraught divisive times, it may be necessary to point out that this recollection of similar disasters from the history of Zen – though on a much smaller-scale – is surely not intended to support either side of the ideological argument. Instead, it reinforces the premise that Zen is a practice fully prepared to meet, head-on, the vagaries of life, whether of natural, man-made, or a combination of those causes and conditions. Note that he offers condolences to those who died first, rather than to the survivors; which is characteristic of Zen funerals. The sermon is actually directed to the deceased. While emphasizing the need for disseminating accurate information, and recommending that all concerned follow the practical recommendations for exercising due diligence in preventing the spread of infection, President Oniuda refers back to the compassionate teachings of Zen's founders, as they apply to this current, international crisis: It is in such a time that the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, Dogen Zenji, and Keizan Zenji are necessary. Shakyamuni Buddha taught right view, right speech, and right practice in the face of the sufferings of sickness and death. Right view, speech and practice – conduct exhibited in crises – do not follow the mob: Even if people are agitated or anxious in the confusion caused by others who are fearful and buy up or hoard food and other goods, let us act calmly. Let us act in accordance with the spirit of Dogen Zenji's teaching of the intention of first saving others before ourselves and in accordance with the Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Actions. This is to naturally practice the way of benefitting others. Compare to the panic mode triggered by the pandemic in most circles of the population. Then the President's message brings it home, uniting both social and personal spheres: Also, Keizan Zenji taught that we should have compassion and love for all things, that we should sympathize with others' sufferings as if they are our own, and that with the mind of compassion we should be diligent in the practice of zazen. I encourage you to endeavor to practice zazen during this time that we must spend quietly at home.[1] So the prescription for practice in Zen remains the same in good times or bad, whether we find ourselves in truly dire straits, or operating under relatively ordinary pressures of meeting the daily needs of ourselves and the community: Hie thee thither – back to the cushion. His message is directed not just to monastics but to householders as well. And by no means is zazen prescribed as an escape from the wolves howling at the gate, but the most direct and efficacious way to meet them where they are coming from. Matsuoka-roshi would sometimes say, “If you get sick, you just get sick; if you die, you just die. But meanwhile, do what the doctor says.” He frequently made the point that his fellow countrymen and women were usually calm in the face of calamity, whether in the form of personal trauma of getting bad news in a clinical or hospital setting, or even a prognosis of eminent death. This equanimity he attributed to their having been raised in a culture that embraces aging, sickness and death as natural and foreordained, rather than in one that approaches them with fear and loathing. Even young children in Japan are, or used to be, exposed to the teachings of Buddhism, and the practice of zazen, as a regular part of their upbringing. We like to think that Buddha's experience under the Bodhi tree that night so long ago represented the absolute apogee of good health and wellness, in all its dimensions – physical, mental, emotional, and even social. Yet it included the robust embrace of the ineradicable marks of biological, sentient existence: impermanence manifested as aging; suffering manifested as illness, both physiological and psychological; and no-self arising as the specter of death, the fear of non-existence on the personal plane. It seems that our modern obsession with youth and longevity lobbies against any wide acceptance of these natural marks, or transitions, of our existence as human beings. But all sentient beings are subject to their inevitability - no exceptions, theistic beliefs notwithstanding. Perhaps this may be seen as the true source of the neurotic aspects of this age of anxiety. We are confronted with these marks on a progressive basis, as we age and become increasingly infirm, or frail. It is best to engage them on the cushion, when we are young and strong, but better later than never. In the next segment of UnMind, we will take up the meaning of death, in the context of Dharma as the compassionate teachings. Until then, do not hesitate to allow your view of aging, sickness and death, your personal take on mortality, to enter into your zazen. It cannot hurt, and cannot be avoided in the long run.[1] Published on Soto Zen Net (www.sotozen-net.or.jp) on April 3rd, 2020Translated by Soto Zen Buddhism International Center * * *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

On Keizan and his ‘Notes on What to Be Aware of in Zazen'

japan sitting beginners zen buddhism aware be aware city center zazen soto zen dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 1, 2024 55:09

06/01/2024, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk, given at Beginner's Mind Temple's monthly one-day sitting, (this time held at Haight Street Art Center) Abbot David shares highlights of his recent trip to Japan to participate in a memorial ceremony and tour in honor of Keizan Jokin, considered the second of Soto Zen's two founders (along with Dogen Zenji). After providing some historical background on Keizan, he then introduces the opening sections of Keizan's ‘Zazen Yojinki' or ‘Notes on What to Be Aware of in Zazen', which describes zazen as a way to “clarify the mind-ground and rest at ease in your actual nature.”

Always New and Coming Back | Koshin Paley Ellison

Zencare Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2024 17:34

“…those whose lose mindfulness, lose.” From Shakyamuni Buddha, down through generations of ancestors, including Dogen Zenji, and into the present moment have come a series of teachings on the eight awarenesses of awakened beings. One is called Maintaining Right Mindfulness or Not Neglecting Mindfulness. Practicing this in the midst of our tumbling […] The post Always New and Coming Back | Koshin Paley Ellison appeared first on New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.

practicing coming back contemplative care new york zen center koshin paley ellison dogen zenji

155: Design of Future Zen part 3

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2024 18:47

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.

153: Design of Future Zen part 1

Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2024 15:30

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

Beginner's Mind Zendo: An Embodied Mandala of Sangha

beginners ritual zen buddhism ceremony embodied mandala sangha city center zazen zendo dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2024 24:27

01/17/2024, Shosan Victoria Austin, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk, given at Beginner's Mind Temple, Shosan explores how we are practicing with the current physical changes to the temple space. This year, our urban temple is “residents out, contractors in.” Dogen Zenji once taught that Sangha Treasure appears equally in the vast openness of being or within a particle of dust; that to help people it can transform to an Ocean Storehouse or to sutras written on shells and leaves.

Meditation – Pake Hall

Morgonandakten

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2024 6:01

Andakterna den här veckan tar avstamp i de fem världsreligionerna och har meditation som tema. Idag hör du Pake Hall från Göteborg som utgår från sin zenbuddhistiska tro. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Jag rättar till kroppen och vaggar mig in i en stabil och avslappnad position, låter läpparna mötas och en mjukt öppen blick ta in rummet omkring mig. Andas in, andas ut. Öppnar upp min uppmärksamhet för just det här, utan något centrum eller någon periferi. Landar in i en stillhet som sträcker sig i alla riktningar, ett med just det här ögonblicket som det är. Text: ur Dogen Zenji från FukanzazengiMusik: Honshirabe, prelude, trad. från Japan med Kohachiro Miyata på Shakuhachi-flöjt Producent: Susanna Némethliv@sverigesradio.se

japan meditation jag lyssna idag andas pake sveriges radio play shakuhachi landar dogen zenji andakten

Buddhism & Intrusive Thoughts

The Imperfect Buddhist

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2023 17:47

00:06Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and incorporating Zen principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled, Buddhism and Intrusive Thoughts.00:51It really doesn't surprise me that I was drawn to Zen Buddhism. And this is an important episode for me because as some of the most listened imperfect Buddhists out there might know, I've struggled with intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts for about the last 14 years. And it really was probably the reason I got into meditation at all. The message of Zen Buddhism that we aren't our thoughts.01:21that we are the awareness around and experiencing our thoughts was very helpful to me in those early days and still is. To be able to see our minds as passing clouds, we practice what's known in Buddhism or even now some hippie culture, something called mindfulness. Mindfulness is the deliberate turning of our attention to the present moment and whatever we are doing in that moment.01:50Mindfulness can be emboldened and strengthened through a practice known as Zazen, which is meditation in Zen Buddhism. We do these practices to help us be mindful in our daily lives. And intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts, they happen in our daily life while we're feeding the cat or driving the car. Before we delve deeper into the topic of intrusive thoughts and02:20Buddhist philosophy. I want to take a moment to understand a little bit more about what these terms mean and how they impact people's lives. Intrusive thoughts can be described as reoccurring, unwanted, or usually distressing thoughts, images or urges that pop into your mind. They're usually intrusive, hence the name, in nature, and they appear and disrupt02:50well-being. Some people would say that impulsive thoughts are more characterized by sudden urges or impulses to act and usually without consideration for the outcome and these impulses can arise seemingly out of nowhere. They compel people to engage in certain behaviors and as the name suggests, they're hasty or impulsive. In my practice, I've dealt more with intrusive thoughts than impulsive thoughts.03:18Intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts can create intense anxiety, turmoil, and they can create a feeling of being out of control. If we don't have a way to deal with them or work on them and they're left unchecked, of course it's going to affect our relationships, our work, and overall quality of life. Throughout this episode, we're going to explore practical approaches to working with one's intrusive thoughts. And I'm going to share some of my personal experiences of03:47the start of these intrusive thoughts along with some of the success that I've had along the way.04:15Zen Buddhism is a storehouse of antidote for this type of affliction, namely intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts. Shunryo Suzuki said that to follow the path of Zen is to realize that your thoughts come and go of their own accord. You need not serve them tea. And in Buddhism there's this character known as Mara. Mara is the affliction of the world, suffering.04:45and essential what he's saying is that Mara may come into your house. As long as you don't serve Mara tea, he won't stick or she won't stick around. Dogen Zenji said, in the landscape of silence, thoughts appear like passing clouds. They come and go, but the sky remains unchanged. How does one develop a state of being where the last little quotes I read05:13become something that one experiences. One can begin to experience their own thoughts and emotions through the practice of mindfulness, through the practice of developing present moment awareness. And so hence we have the importance of mindfulness in one's daily life. Zen Buddhism offers various practices for cultivating awareness so that when that image pops into one's mind.05:39eventually you can see it as phenomenon. You can see it as static electricity, if you will, the phenomenon of life.05:49I personally deal with intrusive thoughts, intrusive images. The first time it had a significant impact on my emotional health and mental well-being was when I was staying with my sister and her husband and a couple roommates up in Portland, Oregon. My nephew was about a year old at that time. I remember we were sitting in the living room and there was imagery of06:16me doing something to hurt him, I don't remember specifically what it was, or maybe like this underlying fear that somehow that could be something that I would do, and it set off this chain of events. At that point I was not acquainted with any type of meditative training or Buddhist practice. I had no grounding in mindfulness. I was fully identified with my mind and actually to strengthen the06:43The trouble here was I was very into the whole idea of manifestation of the secret, which if you're not familiar with it, it pretty much means thoughts are things and when we think about something or we hope for something, we really can imagine that it's real, it will manifest itself in our life. So on top of having these fears and compulsive images and worries, I'm now thinking, uh oh, I'm creating it. Like this is gonna, this is gonna happen. Oh, I can't think that. This whole.07:11back and forth mental struggle. I had no grounding in it. Of course the wheels kept going and I was pushing it away and acting like it wasn't real and then arguing with myself. That was really a hard place to be. The anxiety got worse and worse. The depression sets in because I'm so anxious. People are like, why aren't you talking? I would have this internal dialogue that's going a million miles a minute. I'm ashamed, so I can't tell anybody what's going on. I can't tell my father or my mom or...07:40my best friend or my girlfriend. What would they think if they knew that these images were popping into my mind? Would they also think that I was going down this path of becoming a murderer?07:56So what arose out of that experience was a deep need for refuge in a place of safety and healing, but I didn't know how or what or when that would happen.08:14What does Buddhism have to say about intrusive thoughts? What can it offer when it comes to the affliction of intrusive thinking? In Buddhism, there's an emphasis on non-attachment. Non-attachment goes further than our own thoughts and emotions. It also plays a part in how we interact with the world and ourselves as a whole. But nonetheless, it still pertains to our thoughts. And becoming non-attached means that we don't08:43Place any identity in our own thoughts. It means that we don't place any identity in the images that pop into our minds. This means that we don't have a sense of self there. So the image of dropping the heavy bag of cat food onto my cat, there's no sense of self there. We see it as a flash in the pan as a phenomenon. Just like we might see a shooting star across the night sky, we have this sense of non-attachment.09:12We can see potentially the causes and conditions that led to the imagery or the thought, and we can let go of any dialogue that goes too far into identifying with these intrusive thoughts.09:27Sometimes with intrusive thinking, it can really fuck with our internal dialogue because I'm a good person. I am not supposed to have images or thoughts like this that pop into my head. Non-attachment, non-self allows us to become fluid as beings on this planet, that we are allowed to experience the phenomenon of life, thoughts, emotions, experiences without placing ourself in them.09:58That's a little bit of the catch-22 with Zen practice. Not only do we let go of identification with the negative thoughts or so-and-so quote negative thoughts, what we label as such, but we also let go of our positive versions of ourselves. The good teacher, the kind mother, the famous musician, the infamous Karen, the poor grocery store worker, the rich real estate agent.10:28The creative younger brother. We let go of all these identities along with the impulsive thoughts, intrusive thoughts. We no longer identify with any of them as who we truly are.10:44The best technique for working with intrusive thoughts is having a regular meditation practice. It helps to enter your day with the intention of awareness. Without a regular meditation or zazen practice in the mornings, you can bring mindfulness and the intention of mindfulness. But in my own experience, in many practitioners' experiences, having a practice in the morning set aside specifically for cultivating awareness.11:13makes the effort of mindful awareness during your day much easier. Having that mindful awareness will serve you in helping to alleviate the karmic wheel of intrusive thinking in your mind. God, do I know how cheesy that sounds, but the wheel of thought in your mind, if you want to put it that way. A little bit of how we can apply this in practice, in applying Zen principles to this. If we start our day with awareness through a11:43meditation or zazen practice, whether that's five, ten, or 20 minutes in the mornings. We start out on the right foot. When we're working and all of a sudden an image or fear of an image coming up, because sometimes I know how it goes, you're afraid that you might have that image. See if you can step into that witnessing presence of what's arising and see if you can sense the emotion in your body. Tap into the emotion.12:09Sometimes grounding your awareness in the feeling in your body can really help ground that experience because then you're not feeding into the mind. And it's good because usually the emotion is strong. That feeling of fear, disgust, embarrassment, it's going to be pretty pertinent. It's going to be pretty there. So it's a good thing to tap into. Be cautious of witnessing that and letting it turn back into thinking in your mind. Bring that witnessing presence.12:38The same thing that you develop in zazen, when you're witnessing that breath, there's no judgment of the sensation of breathing. It's just a witnessing of the inhale and the exhale, out-heel. And you can just bring that same awareness to the emotion. You're not judging it good, not judging it bad. It's simply an emotion. And the thought is simply a thought. The thought image is simply an image. And we can detach.13:07from our judgment. Maybe on a particular rough day where these intrusive thoughts are really just coming in strong and you feel bombarded by them. Then along with our morning meditation, it may be good for you to do an evening or afternoon meditation. Maybe on your lunch break, you can go for a walk, see if you can start by becoming aware of the sounds around you.13:33as your mind starts turning and the worries there, witness that worry, that fear, and then see if you can turn your attention to the sounds around you, the wind in the trees, the birds, see if you can tune into the sounds around you, and then see if you can tune into the sensations of the physical body of walking, your feet touching the ground.13:55you14:07Another part of this, and I think another reason for my own affliction early on was a lack of self-care. Poor diet, no exercise, smoking cigarettes, stressed at my job, and no at that point real spiritual practice. And so there is an importance of taking care of our own bodies and minds, caring for ourselves. Something comes out of that caring for ourselves that maybe these impulsive or intrusive thoughts, if they're violent or harmful to others.14:36When we care for ourselves, we subconsciously show ourselves, wow, like I'm worthy of being cared for. It does something to build up a little bit of that self-confidence and self-assuredness that our intentions are good. And not only that, but exercising and working out, which I have not been doing a very good job of lately. It releases all sorts of positive chemicals in the mind that can help us get out of that state of fear, panic, and pain.15:04So caring for yourself and paying attention to your diet. The key takeaways here with almost any Zen Buddhist podcast, Dharma talk or Buddhist talk, it all comes back to cultivating present moment awareness, disidentifying with the thinking mind and finding our true home and identity in the presence that we are. If you're early on the path, keep going.15:32If you're in the middle of the path, keep going. And if you're at the end, keep going. Once you really start this journey, there is no other option. If you are experiencing intrusive or impulsive thoughts, I know it's hard and I want you to know that you're not alone. Now there's a lot of people that experience this. People don't usually talk about it, but I can tell you for sure, I've dealt with it and deal with it. So know that you're not alone and don't be afraid to seek professional help if you feel like you need it.16:01because we don't have all the answers and we can't always heal ourselves. I've sought counseling and treatment at different times, sometimes related to this and sometimes related to other things.16:17you16:32Thank you so much for hanging out with me and talking about some serious ass topics. Maybe one of the next episodes I'll do will be a little bit more lighthearted, but thank you for being here. And if you got anything out of this episode or any previous episode, please subscribe to the podcast. It does a lot to help me connect with other people. Spotify, for instance, when you subscribe, it just sends this little...17:00to the Spotify gods and they're like, oh, Matt, at the Imperfect Buddhist, he's doing something right. I'll show more people this stuff. And you know, if you could even leave a review. I appreciate it and it really helps me reach more people. I'm not asking for money at this point, I just want stars. And I'll talk to you next week. All right, bye.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-imperfect-buddhist/donations

god spotify oregon mindfulness portland poor tap buddhist zen buddhism dharma intrusive thoughts zen buddhism intrusive zen buddhist zazen 28the dogen zenji 36when

Aspects Class of Genjo Koan 4 of 4

class aspects koan dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2023 81:51

Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan – Actualizing the Fundamental Point, led by Ryushin Andrea Thach & Ellen Webb.

Aspects Class of Genjo Koan 3 of 4

class aspects koan dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2023 67:37

Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan – Actualizing the Fundamental Point, led by Luminous Heart & Hannah Meara.

Aspects Class Genjo Koan 2 of 4

class aspects koan dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 27, 2023 80:53

Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan – Actualizing the Fundamental Point, led by Susan Oehser & Karen Sundheim.

Aspects Class Genjo Koan 1 of 4

practice class aspects koan dogen zenji

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2023 87:53

The theme for this year's Aspects of Practice class is Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan – Actualizing the Fundamental Point. The four class series are led by Carol Paul and Gerry Oliva

What is samādhi in Buddhism?

Bright On Buddhism

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2023 21:41

Bright on Buddhism Episode 72 - What is samadhi in Buddhism? How does one attain samadhi in Buddhism? What happens when a person attains samadhi? Resources: Nagarjuna (2001). "Chapter X - The Qualities of the Bodhisattvas". Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra. Translated by Migme, Ani.; Arbel, Keren (2017), Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhanas as the Actualization of Insight, Taylor and Francis, doi:10.4324/9781315676043, ISBN 9781317383994; Arya, Usharbudh (1986), Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali (Volume 1 ed.), Honesdale, Pennsylvania: The Himalayan International Institute, ISBN 0-89389-092-8; Berzin, Alexander (2006), Primary Minds and the 51 Mental Factors; Bronkhorst, Johannes (1993), The Two Traditions Of Meditation In Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass Publ.; Bucknell, Rod (1984), "The Buddhist to Liberation: An Analysis of the Listing of Stages", The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 7 (2); Bucknell, Robert S. (1993), "Reinterpreting the Jhanas", Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 16 (2): 375–409; Chapple, Christopher (1984), Introduction to "The Concise Yoga Vasistha", State University of New York; Gombrich, Richard F. (1997), How Buddhism Began, Munshiram Manoharlal; Gomez, Luis O.; Silk, Jonathan A. (1989). Studies in the literature of the great vehicle : three Mahāyāna Buddhist texts. Ann Arbor: Collegiate Institute for the Study of Buddhist Literature and Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN 0891480544.; Hui-Neng; Cleary, Thomas (1998). The Sutra of Hui-neng, grand master of Zen : with Hui-neng's commentary on the Diamond Sutra. Boston. ISBN 9781570623486.; Kalupahana, David J. (1994), A history of Buddhist philosophy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited; Lusthaus, Dan (2014), Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun, Routledge; Maezumi, Taizan; Cook, Francis Dojun (2007), "The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person": Dogen Zenji's Hachidainingaku", in Maezumi, Taizan; Glassman, Bernie (eds.), The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment, Wisdom Publications; Vetter, Tilmann (1988), The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism, BRILL; Wayman, Alex (1997), "Introduction", Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real: Buddhist Meditation and the Middle View, from the Lam Rim Chen Mo Tson-kha-pa, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers; Williams, Paul (2000), Buddhist Thought. A complete introduction to the Indian tradition, Routledge; Williams, Paul (2009). Mahāyāna Buddhism : the doctrinal foundations (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415356534.; Wynne, Alexander (2007), The Origin of Buddhist Meditation, Routledge Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by tweeting to us @BrightBuddhism, emailing us at Bright.On.Buddhism@gmail.com, or joining us on our discord server, Hidden Sangha https://discord.gg/tEwcVpu! Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brightonbuddhism/message

130: Personal vs Communal

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2023 20:02

Continuing with our discussion of various turning points in living the Zen life, we will examine the Buddhist tradition of “leaving home” to become a mendicant, with its unexamined but intrinsic root question of what, exactly, we mean by “home.” The monastic ideal of “leaving home” is repeatedly praised by Master Dogen in the ordination ceremony known, in Japanese, as “Shukke Tokudo” — which translates as something like “leaving home, sharing the dharma.” In lay householder practice, we do not literally leave home, of course, other than for the occasional extended retreat, or sesshin. But we interpret the meaning as deeply significant, even to the householder. Our true home turns out to be unrelated to geography, or any of the other relative circumstances of existence.We might also question the reality of home-leaving in the life of monastics, as Master Dogen mentions regarding monks of his time (see Shobogenzo Zuimonki). He suggests that some cannot really relinquish their attachment to family, and all that it entails, for the sake of Zen. But it seems a near-prerequisite in order to “hear the true Dharma,” as he puts it in Dogen's Vow (Eiheikosohotsuganmon).Other monks, who are able to relinquish family and home, are not able to let go of their attachment to their body, and good health. They are not willing to put their life on the line, which is, after all, understandable. In this same poem, he quotes Ch'an Master Lungya: “In this life save the body; it is the fruit of many lives.” I take his point to be that an obsession with living a normal life as the scion of a family lineage, at the expense of Zen practice, is ultimately doomed to failure. As a famous analogy has it, family will not accompany you in death. Like other aspects of your life, including health and wellbeing, they will only go as far as the grave. Aging, sickness and death, the three major marks of existence, according to Buddhism, cannot be avoided in the long run. And Zen takes the long view.But the third and most difficult level of monastic non-attachment pointed out by Dogen Zenji, is clinging to our own ideas and opinions, especially regarding all the above. Even monks who can realize the first two levels have difficulty with this last, unable to relinquish, or even to recognize, their erroneous worldview. The monk who can do this most difficult thing has the best chance of waking up during this lifetime. Highest Level of PracticeThis brings up an interesting point, a seeming contradiction, that Dogen does not go into. Achieving this last bit of letting go — of the “ties that bind” — implies letting go of our viewpoints. Including, most notably, those regarding the prior two levels — forgoing a normal lay life of family and friends, marriage, social status, and so on; and further, forsaking our attachment to our own health and, ultimately, our very life. In other words, if we truly let go of all of our own opinions, this would necessarily include any preconceptions we harbor — such as that the most advanced monk or nun is necessarily detached from family and body. Not necessarily. In Zen, we give up our opinions of all such kinds of attachment. It is, after all, natural to be attached to both the body and our family; the distinction lies in the degree to which we are attached to them. This is the heart of the Middle Way.A clear example of this principle is found in pain. We experience some pain in meditation. But we do not immediately react, doing something to make it stop right now. We sink into it a bit more than we usually would, going beyond our comfort zone. In doing so, we have an opportunity to truly experience the “pain” for what it really is. Thus, we may discover that it is not so bad. Although even if we thought that the more extreme dictates of practice may turn out to be life-threatening, we should not shrink from it, according to Dogen. Nothing ventured, nothing gained on a scalable spectrum. Unless we are ale to set aside our preconception that pain = bad, we cannot learn from the experience. This principle then applies to all of our aversions to testy circumstances in life. Aversion is simply the flip side of attachment. Master Dogen's assessment of the levels of commitment of various monks ends with the rare case of one who is able to sunder ties to family, health and life; and, finally, to one's own worldview. This is the highest and truest form of liberation from the random, but seemingly determinative, causes and conditions of our present human birth. But since the last test entails relinquishment of our personal opinion of “all the above,” this should lead to the conclusion that the life of the lay householder is not all that distinct from that of the mendicant monk or nun, at least in any way that really matters in the context of the Great Matter. It is a case of the well-known “distinction without a difference.” If the circumstances of one's lifestyle are only that — circumstance — then by definition, they are not central to living the Zen life.Following on this reasoning, we might propose that the lay person — who is able to relinquish all such opinions, and “succeed to the wisdom of the buddhas” (see Fukanzazengi) — represents the highest possible level of realization. This may explain why it is, in the history of Buddhism and Zen, that such lay persons as Vimalakirti, Emperor Ashoka, Layman Pang, and countless others, are so admired. In spite of having their plates full, constrained by domestic and even governmental duties, they were able to gain profound insight into the Dharma, without renouncing their ordinary life. Not to mention certain monks who were known to flout the norms of monastic life. Of course, you cannot tell the Zen book by its cover, so it is best to appraise only your own practice, and not to judge others, from outward appearances. Contemporary Lay PracticeContemporary lay practice in America is surely vastly different from what it was, and is, in the countries of origin, today as well as in ancient times. My limited understanding suggests that most lay householders practiced dana — generosity — by supporting the monks and nuns of the local orders with offerings of food and material support, including currency and other forms of fungible goods such as metals and fabrics. The community was apparently engaged in other, interactive ways as well. Young children would be sent to the temples and monasteries for training, which probably amounted to finishing schools, including some study of Buddhism. The early monasteries of the East probably evolved into the institutions of higher learning, universities, as they did in the Middle East and in the West, in Europe, for example. But the actual practice of Zen meditation, specifically, was probably not widespread, even in China and Japan. It was, and is, primarily the purview of the monastics Today, however — I think perhaps especially in North and South America, as well as in Western Europe — lay practitioners generally equate Zen practice with meditation. Particularly in the USA, we tend to be do-it-yourselfers. We are not satisfied with second-hand information, and look to direct experience as having its own value, in most everything we do. Thus, Zen training is closely related to apprentice modes of professional training, as in a craft or guild. A novice becomes an apprentice to a master; and eventually a journeyman; finally certified as a master herself. But we must be careful about this idea of becoming a “Zen Master.” We do not master Zen — Zen master us. But only if we allow it. As Master Dogen reminds us in the Genjokoan excerpt from Bendowa, meaning “a talk about the Way,” the first fascicle from his master compilation, Shobogenzo: When buddhas are truly buddhas they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. If spiritual awakening is simply awakening to reality, it would not necessarily include taking on a new self-identity as a “buddha.” It might, however, include seeing oneself, as well as others, in a somewhat different light. “Your body and mind, as well as the body and mind of others, drop away” as Dogen assures us in the same teaching. Living the Zen Life TodayWhile we may admire, and hope to emulate, the life of a monk or nun, I believe we in America do not have enough grounding in the reality of that choice, nor in the cultures of the countries of origin, in which Buddhism and Zen originally arose. The choices we have today, in terms of maintaining Zen practice in the midst of life, are surely very different from those of ancient India, for example. Joining the Order meant leaving behind the conventional trappings of society, including family name and caste position, wealth, and so on, though some of Buddha's top disciples seem to have been his blood relatives. The original Order at first included men only, but even during Buddha's lifetime, it expanded to include women. From what I have gathered, any adult from any level of the caste system of the time could join, as long as they were willing to forego the privilege and provenance of their upbringing. This, it seems to me, had to do with renouncing the self, in the conventional sense.This tradition is what Master Dogen, some 1300 years later, referred to as “leaving home,” in laudatory language. Today, we join the community, or Sangha — and can even become ordained as a priest — without literally leaving home in the obvious, outer sense of the phrase. However, when we undergo Shukke Tokudo, lay ordination as a novice priest, the implication is that we leave our ostensible home, in order to find our true home, in universal homelessness.Our True Home: HomelessnessThis homelessness is considered the original, or natural, way of being, and has nothing to do with where we were born, or where we currently dwell, in the geographic sense. Circumstances of our birth, as well as our growing up, our livelihood, and our eventual death, are just that: circumstantial. They are not central to our being, though they may play an inordinate role in shaping our worldview; and, indeed, whether or not we are ever even exposed to the Dharma.This human birth is considered rare in Buddhism, though with nine billion and counting (when I originally wrote this, it was seven billion), it may appear to be so common as to threaten the very survival of the species. By comparison to other life forms, such as insects, we are not even close to predominance on the planet, as measured in biomass. But the disproportionate effect that we as human beings have on the environment amounts to a crisis. We may want to broaden our scope from considerations of our own, personal mortality, to embrace the possibility of extinction of the entire species. There is no greater form of homelessness than to become extinct. ASZC & STO as Collaborative Community Each month, during our Second Sunday Sangha lunch and dialog at ASZC, we discuss issues of how we as individuals can join in the efforts of promoting true community, without compromising our own personal lives as householders and lay Zen people. Matsuoka Roshi predicted, and I concur, that the rebirth of Zen would be seen in America, and that its propagation would be primarily in the form of lay householder practice. He would often remark that “Zen is always contemporary.” That is, we don't have to try too hard to make it contemporary.We have just passed the sixth year anniversary of what might be considered one of the all-time great failures of community, that seen in Charlottesville, Virginia. It recalled to mind the greatest international example of decline of community in Germany, Italy, and later, Japan, which led to WWII. But Charlottesville is only a blip on the screen of the ongoing series of catastrophes, both natural and human, that have plagued the human community since the beginning of recorded history. The latest being the hell on Earth that is Ukraine, courtesy of the Putin regime in Russia. Any serious student of history is not at all surprised by the daily atrocities that we witness on the news. This is human nature in full flower. It is why we aspire to buddha-nature, instead.Now we are in the throes of adolescence, in the growth of the Zen community in America. That there is a lot of confusion wreaked upon this process is to be expected, owing both to quirks of contemporary Western society, and the persistence of myths surrounding the origins of Zen practice in the seminal communities in India, China, Korea, Japan, and the far East. Most of the confusion arises, I think, from the supposed contrasts and apparent contradictions between traditional monastic, and contemporary lay householder, lifestyles. So, as if we need one more thing to worry about, we do not want to become attached to the propagation of Zen as yet another preconceived project in its own right. We are privileged to be exposed to the Dharma, in the most humble sense of the term, and not merely by dint of circumstances of our birth, the source of most social privilege. Let us not miss this opportunity to join with the Zen community, and to serve its members in true collaboration. It is well within our enlightened self-interest to do so.* * * 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

The Practice and Manifestation of Beneficial Action

action practice beginners manifestation guidance zen buddhism city center dogen suzuki roshi dogen zenji shobogenzo

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2023 30:34

09/13/2023, Roger Hillyard, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Roger Hillyard explores the Boddhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance - a fascicle from Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo on how to help all beings move toward awakening. Roger brings this practice into our modern world and everyday experience, using concrete examples of practice.

Undersök självet och låt kropp och sinne falla bort

Andlighet

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2023 18:11

Genom att studera oss själva så glömmer vi oss själva, och när vi glömmer oss själva blir vi upplysta av världen. Det menar zenmästaren Dogen Zenji. Meditation är verktyget vi använder för vårt experiment då vi undersöker vem vi är och vad det här med upplysning är för något. Dogen Zenji:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dgen Genjōkōan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genj%C5%8Dk%C5%8Dan Andlighet på olika plattformar Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andlighet Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/andlighet/id1603002647?l=en Google podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy83OGI5MjVmOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CIB4x6sOyceoxShQvnKpZ?si=Hyo1wvOqTqCIKj5-BIXowQ

meditation sinne genom unders falla bort kropp dogen zenji

Cooking Your Life

Pine Wind Zen Community Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2023 29:41

07/16/2023, Furyu Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. A discussion of Dogen Zenji's instructions to the Head Cook with examples from our own kitchen practice here at San Francisco Zen Center.

practice kitchen cooking zen buddhism dogen san francisco zen center dogen zenji tenzo green gulch farm

Mindful Eating; Where Compassion and Wisdom Meet (Emyo)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 30, 2023 42:55

Because food is life, it is of upmost importance that we receive it with deepest gratitude. When we eat, we consume life. There isn't a meal that is taken without the expense of another lifeforce — "the practice of eating is the essential truth of all Dharmas. At the very moment of eating, we merge with ultimate reality” — Dogen Zenji. When we eat a meal we enter into the process of merging with everything that surrounds us. Eating becomes a celebration of the Dharma, with no separation between us and the universe.

wisdom eating compassion dharma mindful eating dharmas dogen zenji

More on Zazen from Bendowa

Dharma Talks – Ocean Gate Zen Center – Santa Cruz, Capitola, Aptos

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2023

Rev. Daijaku Kinst continues the lecture series on Zazen, discussing a passage from Dogen Zenji’s Bendowa. https://www.oceangatezen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jaku-April-15-More-on-Zazen-from-Bendowa-MP3-Audio.mp3 https://www.oceangatezen.org/2023/04/more-on-zazen-from-bendowa-2/feed/ 0

rev roberts zen buddhism dharma zazen mahayana dogen zenji shinshu kinst

Not Possessive Of Anything

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2023 36:06

03/19/2023, Fu Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Dogen Zenji's great awakening took place on hearing his teacher Rujing scold a student for sleeping during zazen saying, “Zen study is the dropping of body and mind.”

zen buddhism possessive dogen paramita dogen zenji green gulch farm

Hsueh Feng's What Is It

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2023 41:48

02/19/2023, Rinso Ed Sattizahn, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Dogen Zenji said, “Breathing in or breathing out, after all, what is it?” No one can tell what it is.

breathing zen buddhism feng koan dogen suzuki roshi dogen zenji green gulch farm

Tenzo Kyōkun: Instructions for the Cook by Dogen Zenji

cook instructions dogen zenji tenzo

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2022 55:50

A talk given at Berkeley Zen Center on Saturday, December 17th 2022 by Hozan Alan Senauke.

Dogen Zenji - Space

Buddhaverse Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2022 67:27

Dogen Zenji is a dual patriarch of both Rinzai and Soto Zen and his writing a Dharma activity changed Japan and the world forever . To celebrate his life a work I'll be doing a reading of chapters of his Shobogenzo intermitently. I do a a brief bio of his life and enlightenment story, and then read a chapter entitled Space or Koku in Japanese, and I finish with the Prayer in Praise of the 16 Arhats for the well fare of all Dharma teachers and the flourishing of the Dharma. buddhaversepodcast.comFor my updates follow me here: instgram.com/harddrive

89. Precepts & Putin

Play Episode Listen Later May 4, 2022 20:34

Dharma trumps karmabut it is not an escape —Consequences come* * *Last Sunday we performed an initiation ceremony called “Jukai Tokudo” in Japanese. We had an international visitor and a couple of other candidates who were ready and willing to receive the initial precepts of Zen, declaring themselves Soto Zen Buddhists. We will do so again in November of this year, which is our Founder's Month, honoring Matsuoka Roshi, our founding teacher.It occurred to me that in this context, with all the consternation and pontificating over Ukraine — now segueing into the dismal fatigue syndrome of becoming yesterday's news — we might revisit the fundamental question I raised for our Sunday dharma dialog a few weeks ago: “What the hell is wrong with Vladimir Putin?”You may have participated in this discussion, so apologies in advance for any redundancy, but these points bear repeating. It is an inexcusable, but seemingly inevitable scenario, that we become fatigued at the repetition of atrocities, as if the victims being killed and maimed today are somehow not as worthy of our attention, the horror not as shocking, as we registered at the beginning of the aggression. As someone once said at the screaming of lobsters being boiled alive, “They are used to it.” But in light of the aspirational aspect of the Precepts, even this tragedy takes on deeper meaning.In approaching this particular train wreck as a subject for dharma, I was careful to couch my terms, explaining that “what” is the fundamental question in Zen, rather than “why” or “how,” with “who, when and where” being pretty self-evident. “Who” the hell does Vladimir Putin think he is? would suffer from focusing on the wrong question, personalizing the issue to too great a degree. “Hell” is also carefully chosen in that, according to classic Zen philosophy, we human beings make our world into hell or heaven, and reap the karmic consequences thereof. “Wrong” is also understood to reside in the realm of “right” views and thoughts, as well as speech, action and livelihood, the social side of the Eightfold Path, with right mindfulness, effort, and meditation rounding out the inner, personal dimension of our all-too-human existence. In Zen, all opinions are not equal, and all teachings do not lead to nirvana.I thought it might be worthwhile to consider Vladimir Putin's behavior, and the attitudes that it seems to betray, in the light of the Buddhist Precepts, which many of us take up as guidelines or reminders, touchpoints to return to from time to time, as we witness our own actions as well as those of others. There is a hoary meme in Buddhism that government leaders — one of the Four Benefactors we appreciate in the Meal Chant — are in their position of power by virtue of merit accumulated in past lives. So the only set of criteria we can hold them to are those of Buddhist morality or ethics, or Shila. Which begs the question, does this mean that the millions of dollars spent campaigning are basically a waste of time and treasure? And as good Buddhists, aren't we supposed to avoid discussing the faults of others?How does the behavior of Putin, as well as President Trump and others in leadership roles, hold up in comparison to the admonitions of the Buddhist Precepts? First, we must remember that the Precepts of Zen have a history of their own. In India and China they may have been expressed and understood differently. Those we receive in modern times convey the current rendering of their meaning, sometimes translated as “morality,” but “ethical” conduct is probably more appropriate. It should also be mentioned in passing that Vladimir Putin is purportedly a Christian, so whatever precepts, lower case “p” he may be following would not necessarily resemble those of Buddhism or Zen.The quotes regarding precepts in Zen are taken from an essay by Shohaku Okumura Roshi, one of my lineage teachers, in the Soto Zen Journal, “Dharma Eye.” This is a recommended online source of information of a scholarly nature for those of us practicing Zen in the West, its masthead shown below.One of the first factoids that Okumura roshi points out is that there are variations in the precepts given to Zen practitioners over time, depending on factors such as lineage and the country. The scholars tell us that Master Dogen could not have received the sixteen precepts he handed down to us in our initiation and formal ceremonies today, as they were not done that way in China. Whether he modified those he received from his Tendai masters or cobbled together his best interpretation of the precepts he felt inclined to transmit as Bodhisattva principles, I leave to further scholarship. Quoting the journal:Dogen Zenji received only the Bodhisattva PreceptsDogen Zenji (1200-1253), the founder of Japanese Soto School, originally became a monk in the Japanese Tendai tradition in 1213. Therefore, he received only the Mahayana precepts. According to his biography, Dogen had some difficulty receiving permission to practice in a Chinese monastery. This was because he had not received the Vinaya precepts which was a requirement to be recognized as a Buddhist monk in China. However, he did not receive the Vinaya precepts. To his disciples and lay students, Dogen Zenji only gave the 16 precepts that were called Busso-shoden-bosatsu-kai (the Bodhisattva precepts that have been correctly transmitted by Buddhas and Ancestors). The nature of the Bodhisattva precepts we receive in Soto Zen tradition is quite different from that of the Vinaya precepts.Okumura Roshi quotes one of those seemingly contradictory statements that appear so often in Zen literature, this one from the Brahma Net Sutra:And in the introduction of the ten major precepts, the Sutra says, “At that time, when Shakyamuni Buddha sat beneath the bodhi tree and attained unsurpassable awakening, he first set forth the Bodhisattva pratimoksha.”Okumura goes on to make the literal case about this claim:Pratimoksha is the text of the precepts, and here, it refers to the Bonmo-kyo. This means that the Bodhisattva precepts were established as soon as the Buddha attained unsurpassable awakening and even before he began to teach. Historically, this is not true. The Buddha did not establish any precepts or regulations before people made mistakes. In the Vinaya text, the stories explaining why the different precepts were made were recorded. When we read these stories, we can see that the Buddhist Sangha was a gathering of actual human beings. People made all sorts of mistakes even though they aspired to study and practice the Dharma under the Buddha's guidance.So the Vinaya, the rules and regulations governing behavior within the original Order, obviously evolved over time, like any other organizational protocols. The main rule governing the harmonious community, or sangha, is, of course harmony. Most communities we belong to are anything but harmonious, and even Zen groups are known to become rancorous from time to time. Human nature raises its head.But the bit about Buddha establishing the pratimoksha in zazen that night I think we have to take on faith. What transpired within his experience in meditation was, and is, the essential meaning of the precepts. As Master Dogen is said to have asked, what precept is not fulfilled in zazen?If we take the precepts as primeval and natural, built-in to existence and to be discovered, not made up, we can accept that translating them into language and written form is a mere approximation of their true meaning. This is why they seem impossible at first glance. They live in the realm of being, not doing.Ceremonially, Zen precepts include and are preceded by a Repentance Verse and taking Refuge in the Three Treasures of Buddhism:RepentanceAt a precepts ceremony in the Soto Zen tradition, first we make repentance by reciting the following verse, “All the twisted karma ever created by me, since of old, / through beginningless greed, anger and ignorance, / born of my body, speech and thought. / I now make complete repentance of it all.”There is another repentance verse taken from Samanthabhadra-sutra that says, “The ocean of all karmic hindrances arises solely from delusive thoughts. / If you wish to make repentance, sit in an upright posture and be mindful of the true nature of reality. / All faults and evil deeds are like frost and dew. / The sun of wisdom enables them to melt away. This verse clearly shows that our precepts are based on awakening to reality and wisdom of such reality.Okumura is now leading us gently by the hand to the realization of the concrete reality of the Precepts.The Three RefugesWe then take refuge in the Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha is the one who awakened to reality. The Dharma is reality itself, the way things truly are. The Sangha are the people who aspire to study and living according to the teaching of the reality of all beings.We also take refuge, or return to, our original nature, which is called Buddha, or awakened. What we awaken to is the Dharma, which is ever-present, but does not depend upon our knowing it. The Sangha members are primarily vested in awakening to this same truth, or it is not truly a Zen community.The Threefold Pure PreceptsNext, we receive the threefold pure precepts: (1) the precept of embracing moral codes, (2) the precept of embracing good deeds, (3) the precept of embracing all living beings. These three points are the direction we walk on the Bodhisattva path.These are often translated as: Do no harm; Do only good; and Do good for others. And yet the truth of the Precepts is that they are beyond doing in the conventional sense. If we find what we are looking for in our practice, the Precepts become our natural intention. But we make mistakes. And resolve to try harder. Eventually our behavior may become consonant with the Precepts, by virtue of practicing zazen.The Ten Major PreceptsThe ten major precepts are: (1) do not kill, (2) do not steal, (3) do not engage in improper sexual conduct, (4) do not lie, (5) do not deal in intoxicants, (6) do not criticize others, (7) do not praise self and slander others, (8) do not be stingy with the dharma or property ,(9) do not give way to anger, (10) do not disparage the Three Treasures.If this sounds like a laundry list of do's and don't's or the 10 Commandments phrased a little differently, there is a kernel of truth in that. But we take up the way of following Zen voluntarily, not under threat of punishment by a vengeful God. They are not merely literal; in that interpretation some are impossible. We come to understand what they mean through the tried and true process of trial and error.Zen and the Precepts are OneThe Bodhisattva precepts we receive in the Soto Zen tradition are also called, Zen-kai (Zen precepts). This means that our zazen and the precepts are one. In our zazen practice, we put our entire being on the ground of true reality of all beings instead of the picture of the world that is a creation of our minds. By striving to keep the precepts in our daily lives, we strive to live being guided by our zazen.So what does all this have to do with design thinking? Design thinking starts with problem definition and proceeds to problem-solving through design-build actions. Zen starts with Buddha's definition of the central problem of existence as sentient beings and offers a method for arriving at solutions, zazen. In design, we speak of design intent, and strive to maintain its integrity through all the trials and tribulations that any existent object, program or system is subject to, including the test of time. Each of these solutions tends to have a weak link in the chain, which is where it eventually breaks down. The design approach is to take the failure as instructive, and redesign. The Zen approach is “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Considering the Precepts in the light of design intent, we can see that they are meant to foster harmony in the social dimension, in transactions with other individuals and groups. They shine a bright light on the futility of having “designs” on conquering another country, especially in the context of impermanence and imperfection. Whatever gains are realized are only good for whatever is left of one lifetime. Which brings us back to our starting place. Is Putin evil? Or just ignorant?Zen holds that the only thing that finally accompanies you to the grave, and affects life after death, is the deeds committed in this life. Whatever crusade you mount to defend your actions may be based on a category error. To die in the service of a cause greater than yourself may indeed be considered a noble deed. To kill others in the service of a cause you consider greater than or glorifying to yourself, while cowering behind your local cronies, is a crime, in karmic as well as human terms.Putin may be surprised to discover that his reward in heaven is not what he anticipates. He may be surprised to find that that kind of heaven lasts about fifteen minutes, as an old Master once said. He may be disappointed to find that life moves on without him, as he conceives himself. And that any actual afterlife, including his potential rebirth, is not one of his choosing. He may be surprised that karma is not a respecter of persons, however powerful they may regard themselves. And that the Soviet Union, as well as Mother Russia, do not really exist, except in the fevered imagination of a limited mind.* * *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: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

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