Podcast appearances and mentions of john daido loori

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/30/24 - From the Koans of the Way of Reality - Xinyang's Sweet Melons - Being on the eve of the funeral of the monastery's beloved gardener, Senior monastic Choke Yukon, Abbot Shugen Roshi presents us, fittingly, with this koan from a collection compiled by the late John Daido Loori the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery.

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison is an author, Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, and ACPE Certified Chaplaincy Educator. After working more than a decade as a chaplain and psychotherapist, Koshin co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.   Koshin began his formal Zen training in 1987, and he is a recognized Soto Zen Teacher by the American Zen Teachers Association, White Plum Asanga, and Soto Zen Buddhist Association. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.  Koshin began his Zen training with John Daido Loori, received jukai from Pat Enkyo O'Hara,  and dharma transmission from Dorothy Dai En Friedman.More about the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care:https://zencare.org/More about Simplicity Zen Podcast:https://simplicityzen.com/

We at Tree Speech are incredibly grateful to Stephanie Kaza and our mothers, Miriam Robinson, Anne-Marie Roach and Jackie Vandenberg for joining us today. Dr. Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont and former Director of the UVM Environmental Program. She co-founded the Environmental Council at UVM and served as faculty director for the Sustainability Faculty Fellows program. In 2011 Dr. Kaza received the UVM George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award for excellence in teaching. Kaza received a prestigious Religion and Science course award from the Templeton Foundation for her course on Buddhism and Ecology. She lectures widely on topics of Buddhism and the environment. Kaza is a long-time practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism, with training at Green Gulch Zen Center, California, and further study with Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and John Daido Loori.  She was lay ordained by Kobun Chino Ottogawa in the late 1980s and applied her understanding of Buddhism as a member of the International Christian-Buddhist Theological Encounter group.⁠ ⁠She is the author of the books A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD, GREEN BUDDHISM: PRACTICE AND COMPASSIONATE ACTON IN UNCERTAIN TIMES, CONVERSATIONS WITH TREES, MINDFULLY GREEN: A PERSONAL AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE TO WHOLE EARTH THINKING, and others.  Also much gratitude and endless love to our mothers, Miriam Robinson, Anne-Marie Roach and Jackie Vandenberg for sharing their tree stories, and for everything.  To learn more about our podcast and episodes, please visit ⁠treespeechpodcast.com⁠. We're thrilled to be able to offer interviews, creative insights, and stories about the natural world we live in, and the trees who guide our way. ⁠Please also consider supporting us through our Patreon⁠ - every contribution supports our production, and we'll be giving gifts of gratitude including an invitation to Tree House, our new virtual community for patrons of all levels. Please also consider passing the word to tree loving folks, and rate and review us on Apple podcasts. Every kind word helps. See you soon! Tree Speech's host, Dori Robinson, is a director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator who seeks and develops projects that explore social consciousness, personal heritage, and the difference one individual can have on their own community. Some of her great loves include teaching, the Oxford comma, intersectional feminism, and traveling. With a Masters degree from NYU's ⁠Educational Theatre⁠ program, she continues to share her love of Shakespeare, new play development, political theatre, and gender in performance. Dori's original plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Boston. More information at ⁠https://www.dorirobinson.com⁠ This week's episode was written and recorded in Massachusetts on the native lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, Pennacook, Massachusett, and Pawtucket people, in New York on the land of the Lenapee tribes, as well as the lands of the Confederate Tribes of the Siletz Indians, and the Grand Ronde Cowlitz. Special thanks to the ⁠Western Avenue Lofts and Studios⁠ for all their support. Tree Speech is produced and co-written by Jonathan Zautner with Alight Theater Guild. The mission of the guild is to advance compelling theatrical endeavors that showcase the diversity of our ever-changing world in order to build strong artists whose work creates empathy, challenges the status quo and unites communities. For more information about our work and programs, please visit ⁠www.alighttheater.org⁠. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/treespeech/message

Matthew has traveled the world in pursuit of universal truths that all religions seem to point toward. Hypnotherapy, when performed in safe environments with medical supervision, can guide humans to a sense of peace that Matthew strives daily to share with the world. In this episode, you can take comfort in the years of research he is willing to offer free to anyone who takes the challenge to look deeper inside themselves and simply sit.In this episode:

Both solve a problem —though of differing import.Zen's is the broadest.* * *In the last session of live dharma dialog online at the Zen center — transcribed as the last podcast in the series on the most recent spate of mass shootings — the last participant worried that meditation would not help children in the classroom, owing to the complexity of the many personal and social issues they are confronting. Not least, the elephant in every public American classroom these days, the threat of yet another school shooter. The exchange went as follows:But don't give up! You're creative.No I won't give up. Thanks very much for your teaching.So I mean to encourage you similarly. No matter how bad it gets, don't give up on your zazen practice. And be creative in your personal life and approach to problem-solving. I closed the last by stating that this concludes the dharma dialog that took place on this occasion. But the dialog continues. In the next four sections we will draw some interim conclusions as a kind of summary of Zen and Design thinking, or those aspects of this intersection discussed to date, namely the Four Noble Truths, the first teaching of Buddha, and the Four Spheres of influence and Endeavor, my attempt at a comprehensive model of the real world in which we live and practice Zen.Buddha's First Sermon, alternatively called “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law,” “The Middle Way,” or “The Four Noble Truths,” lays out his description of the reality that all sentient beings face, and his prescription for what action to take to deal with it, namely the Noble Eightfold Path. We will include my semantic models of these teachings, along with my configuration of the Four Spheres in which we live and practice — the Personal, Social, Natural, and the Universal. Hopefully we can draw some correlations between the two models to get a better vision of how our Zen life can proceed in the context of the current complexities of the world. The illustration below shows that my model of nesting spheres can be usefully associated with both quartets.Before going into specifics of the four truths and their interconnectedness with the four nested spheres of our existence, it seems pertinent to ask the question: Why four? Why not five, or three, or six, eight, or twelve? I believe it has to do with what R. Buckminster Fuller developed and taught in his design science and geodesic geometry developments. The fourth point closes the system.Interestingly, if not coincidentally, Sokei-an, the Rinzai priest who accompanied Soen Shaku on his trip to America to introduce Zen Buddhism to the West at a world convocation of religions toward the end of the 19th century, said something similar about the relationship of Buddhism to Christianity. Paraphrasing broadly, he commented something to the effect that Buddha appeared some 2500 years ago and counting, propounding a kind of compassion and wisdom that required the surrender of the self. 500 years or so later, Christ appeared, preaching a kind of divine love that “closed the teaching.” In other words, the two great religious systems are complementary, not competitive.If we recall the many other teachings that are expressed in sets of four, there are the four fundamental elements of tradition: earth, wind, fire, and water. The four logical propositions, or tetralemma of ancient pedigree: it is; it is not; it both is and is not; it neither is nor is not. Then there are the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. In a more contemporary context there are the four fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces, potentially with a fifth or more lurking in the shadows of dark matter and dark energy. Modern biology posits four forces of evolution: mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection. The seemingly impossible phenomenon of an airplane in flight is also explained by four forces: lift, thrust, drag and weight. Orville and Wilbur must have figured that one out.Setting aside for now the apparent contradiction that in each of these cases, we can find other qualified candidates for inclusion, such as space and consciousness, sometimes listed with the other four elements, remember that Fuller was positing the simplest model of any given system, which by definition has an inside and an outside. The tetrahedron is the first geometric shape to fill the bill. But it is deceptively simple in appearance. When we look at the connecting tissue between the four points, we see that there are six such, and each can be interpreted as cutting both ways, resulting in twelve aspects of interconnectedness between the four points. (See illustration if you cannot visualize for yourself.)Not coincidentally, this number, 12, the familiar “dozen” from the Latin duodecim, pops up regularly here and there in the vernacular, in all sorts of categories of information: twelve lunar cycles or months of the solar year; the visible spectrum or color wheel; the hours of the day (in Master Dogen's day, doubled to 24 in modern times), and not to forget the twelve apostles as an outlier, with Jesus making a baker's dozen. You may counter that there are only three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow, in terms of pigment. But the hues that we can distinguish separately tend to fall into twelve combinations of the three primaries, the secondaries of violet, orange and green, and the tertiaries of red-violet and red-orange, blue-violet (or purple) and blue-green, yellow-orange and yellow-green, closing the circle. And then there is the Twelvefold Chain of Interdependent Origination, Buddhism's summary model of how things get to be the way they are, through life cycles of rebirth, aging sickness and death that are the lot of all sentient beings. Most importantly of course, those of the human persuasion.We can point to many groupings of less than four, such as the Three Treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Or the three legs of the Zen stool articulated by John Daido Loori: faith, doubt, and perseverance. Or the Three Times, past future and present. For each of these triads, I would submit that the fourth point is YOU. You complete the tetrad, the four-pointed system, in your relation to the other three. Buddhism is like that. It included the observer from the very beginning. Buddha was a human being, and had no interest in expounding a theory of existence that did not include human beings as observers. The whole point of his teaching is the nature of reality and our place in it.Other teachings such as the Noble Eightfold Path can be parsed into a tripartite grouping: Right Wisdom (view and thought or understanding and intention); Right Ethics or Conduct (Speech, Action and Livelihood); and Right Discipline (Effort, Mindfulness and Meditation) again with the caveat that the English term “right” is a limiting translation for the intended meaning. Buddha's “right” is more a verb than an adjective, taking action to right our raft, sailing on the seas of Samsara. Again, the fourth component completing this model is, dear seeker, yourself.While these enumerations may appear to be arbitrary, they do seem to function as memory aids, mnemonics, as well as revealing an underlying need and yearning for order, in conceiving a model of our existence, which can seem so chaotic and arbitrary in its manifestations. We can be forgiven a bit of conjecture in our efforts to explain the unexplainable and conceive of the inconceivable. As long as we are willing to return to the cushion, and contemplate our creative grasp of reality, I say: No harm, no foul. The monkey mind has some utility, if limited, in adapting to and embracing reality, warts and all.In the next session we will return to consideration of the quartets of Noble Truths and nesting spheres. We will look at each of the pairs of correlates in order: Universal Existence — of sufffering, that is — Natural Origin, Social Path, and Personal Cessation, of dukkha. Stay tuned.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Dan Gulliford reads from “The Daily Practice of Zen Ritual” by John Daido Loori.

We at Tree Speech and Alight Theater Guild are incredibly grateful to Stephanie Kaza for joining us today. Dr. Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont and former Director of the UVM Environmental Program. She co-founded the Environmental Council at UVM and served as faculty director for the Sustainability Faculty Fellows program. In 2011 Dr. Kaza received the UVM George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award for excellence in teaching. Kaza received a prestigious Religion and Science course award from the Templeton Foundation for her course on Buddhism and Ecology. She lectures widely on topics of Buddhism and the environment. Kaza is a long-time practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism, with training at Green Gulch Zen Center, California, and further study with Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and John Daido Loori. She was lay ordained by Kobun Chino Ottogawa in the late 1980s and applied her understanding of Buddhism as a member of the International Christian-Buddhist Theological Encounter group. She is the author of the books A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD, GREEN BUDDHISM: PRACTICE AND COMPASSIONATE ACTON IN UNCERTAIN TIMES, CONVERSATIONS WITH TREES, MINDFULLY GREEN: A PERSONAL AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE TO WHOLE EARTH THINKING, and others. Also much gratitude and endless love to our mothers, Miriam Robinson, Anne-Marie Roach and Jackie Vandenberg for sharing their sapling stories, and for everything. If you've enjoyed this episode, please like us on social media, and rate and review us on apple podcasts. Every kind word helps. To learn more about the episode see our show notes and visit us at treespeechpodcast.com, and on instagram @ treespeechpodcast. Tree Speech's host, Dori Robinson, is a director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator who seeks and develops projects that explore social consciousness, personal heritage, and the difference one individual can have on their own community. Some of her great loves include teaching, the Oxford comma, intersectional feminism, and traveling. With a Masters degree from NYU's Educational Theatre program, she continues to share her love of Shakespeare, new play development, political theatre, and gender in performance. Dori's original plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Boston. More information at https://www.dorirobinson.com This week's episode was written and recorded in Massachusetts on the native lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, Pennacook, Massachusett, and Pawtucket people, in New York on the land of the Lenapee tribes, as well as the lands of the Confederate Tribes of the Siletz Indians, and the Grand Ronde Cowlitz. Logo design by Mill Riot. Special thanks to the Western Avenue Lofts and Studios for all their support. Tree Speech is produced and co-written by Jonathan Zautner with Alight Theater Guild. The mission of the guild is to advance compelling theatrical endeavors that showcase the diversity of our ever-changing world in order to build strong artists whose work creates empathy, challenges the status quo and unites communities. For more information about our work and programs, please visit www.alighttheater.org. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/treespeech/message

Norman leads a memorial service for Thich Nhat Hanh followed by Chris Fortin speaking on Dogen's Mana Shobogenzo Case 213 "The Bodhisattva of Miraculous Powers." This koan can be found in John Daido Loori's: The True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dogen's three Hundred Koans https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/edz.assets/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/28102108/Thich-Nhat-Hanh-Memorial-and-Dogens-Mana-Shobogenze-case-213-_The-Bodhisattva-of-No-Miraculous-Power_.mp3

Norman and Chris Fortin both speak on Dogen's Mana Shobogenzo Case 34 - The World-Honored One's "Intimate Speech."  This case can be found in John Daido Loori's  book "The True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans." https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/edz.assets/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/06134331/Mana-Shobogenzo-Case-34-The-World-Honord-Ones-_Intimate-Speech_.mp3

Renunciationis not simply leaving home —it is homelessness!* * *Master Dogen was quite prolific as a writer, even by today's standards. But we should remember that writing in those days, as well as publishing, was accomplished with rice paper, brushes and ink. Imagine what he might have done with a word processor. He apparently intended his master work, Shobogenzo, which tends to overshadow his other writings, to consist of 100 fascicles, or chapters, but he completed only 95 in his brief lifetime of 53 years.At a conference on Eihei Dogen around 2000 in Palo Alto, after his signature lecture on Dogen's collection of 300 koans, called the Mana Shobogenzo, I asked John Daido Loori, What could the other five have possibly been about? The old modern master huffed, “Good point!” and walked away.This collection, subtitled as “Sayings of Eihei Dogen Zenji recorded by Koun Ejo” in a small volume published by the Soto sect in Japan, was translated by one of my teachers, Shohaku Okumura Roshi. I have selected a couple of examples from the six “books” of live teachings, and will number them for your future reference. I hope you delve into these wonderful postcards from the past in greater detail.1-2 Dogen also said,[You] should maintain the precepts and eating regulations (one meal a day before noon, etc.). Still, it is wrong to insist upon them as essential, establish them as a practice, and expect to be able to gain the Way by observing them. We follow them just because they are the activities of Zen monks and the lifestyle of the Buddha's children. Although keeping them is good, we should not take them as the primary practice. I don't mean to say, however, that you should break the precepts and become self-indulgent. Clinging to such an attitude is an evil view and not that of a Buddhist practitioner. We follow the precepts of regulations simply because they form the standard for a Buddhist and are the tradition of Zen monasteries. While I was staying at Chinese monasteries, I met no one who took them as the primary concern.So the great master, while lecturing to monks living at a monastery, insists that the strict protocols of monastic life are not the primary practice of a monk. That central position is reserved for zazen itself. This tells us, as lay practitioners, that the lifestyle of the monastic, which we may hold in high esteem, and even long to emulate, is not crucial. We remember from Jijuyu Zammai — Self-fulfilling Samadhi — “Without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance and reading scripture, you should just wholeheartedly sit, and thus drop away body and mind.” The various rituals are the peripherals, plug-and-play supportive activities surrounding the true teaching found in meditation. The lifestyle of the householder is likewise not central to living a Zen life. Zazen alone is:For true attainment of the Way, devoting all effort to zazen alone has been transmitted among the buddhas and patriarchs. For this reason, I taught a fellow student of mine… a disciple of Zen Master Eisai, to abandon his strict adherence of keeping the precepts and reciting the Precept Sutra day and night.It looks like Dogen, while a student, played a somewhat subversive role in respect to his Dharma brothers. It reminds me of the tale of the young visiting junior monks, unsui, whom the abbot admonished not to go “imitating the senior monks around here.” When they saw him following the same protocols, they confronted him with the contradiction, to which he said, “I just have my devotion this way.” He was not imitating anyone. Dogen is attributed with asking, “In zazen, what precept is not fulfilled?” Wholehearted practice is not dependent upon the circumstances of our daily life. The real monastery has no walls. But regarding monastic life, Dogen's wheelhouse, the master had a lot to say:1-21 Dogen instructed, Students of the Way, you must be very careful on several levels in giving up worldly sentiment. Give up the world, give up your family, and give up your body and mind. Consider this well. Even among those who retreat from the world and live secluded in the mountains or forests, there are some who fear that their family, which has continued for many generations, will cease to exist, and who become anxious for their family members or their relatives.This deals with renunciation. Members of many spiritual sects are known as renunciants, turning their back on the normal family and social lives of the times, becoming hermits or mendicants. In any time this would represent a radical departure from the societal norms, including its mores and memes. The fundamental purpose of one's life would be re-examined, giving and extremely new meaning to the notion of the “unexamined life” not being worth living. Master Dogen would often focus our attention in zazen like a laser, exhorting us to examine his teachings thoroughly in practice, i.e. mainly in meditation.Although some people depart from home and give up family or property, they have not yet given up their bodies if they think that they should not do anything physically painful and avoid practicing anything which may cause sickness, even through they know it to be the Buddha-Way.Here I have experienced a trick of the memory, which modern studies have apparently proven is a dependable attribute of long-term memory — that it is not dependable. That is, we unconsciously modify and embellish our memories over time, e.g. to polish our self-image, or to make them more meaningful. In this case, I remembered this section as Master Dogen outlining several levels of monks, and how he evaluated them in terms of their ability to do true renunciation. Here I find no specifics of that construct as I recall, and have been freely paraphrasing. Continuing with the last bit as published in this edition:Further, even if they carry out hard and painful practices without clinging to their bodily lives, if their minds have not yet entered the Buddha-Way and if they resolve not to act against their own will even if such actions are the Buddha-Way, they have not yet given up their minds.In my revisionist memory, Dogen expresses ranking monastics in a holarchy of renunciation. The first-level renunciant does what I interpret as outward renunciation: turning their back on the social world, physically leaving home, and donning the clothing and appearance of a monastic. But s/he is unable to actually let go of attachment to family, and/or may harbor secret yearnings for fame and fortune, or status.The second level can actually reject the blandishments of society and the security and comfort of the family tree, which I refer to as physical renunciation. But this person cannot forsake clinging to the comforts of a healthy body, and put their own life on the line for the sake of Zen.The third level adept is able to lay down their life and limb for the sake of the mendicant lifestyle. But they are unable to give up their own willful opinion of all the above. For example, they may be able to perform the abandonment of home and hearth, health and longevity, but they may nourish a certain self-image, taking pride in their accomplishments. This is monkey-mind.If, however, unlike the monkey, they are able to release their grip on all the cookies in the jar, thus liberating themselves from their own clinging mind, they may accede to the highest level in Dogen's hierarchy. At this point, they have done true renunciation, seeing through all the various dimensions of their life, and especially the delusional aspect of their own construct of what it means. Thus, the highest becomes the lowest, and the householder becomes identical with the monastic. If, in the midst of everyday life, with all its complexity, we can still manage to see through to the underlying emptiness, we need not abandon it in favor of the monastic model.Another comment on this came in response to a question raised by a nun in the congregation of Dogen:3-2 Once, a certain nun asked, “Even lay women practice and study the buddha-dharma. As for nuns, even though we have some faults, I feel there is no reason to say that we go against the buddha-dharma. What do you think?”Dogen admonished, “This is not a correct view. Lay women might attain the Way as a result of practicing the buddha-dharma as they are. However, no monk or nun attains it unless he or she has the mind of one who has left home. This is not because the buddha-dharma discriminates between one person and another, but rather because the person doesn't enter the dharma. There must be a difference in the attitude of lay people and those who have left home. A layman who has the mind of a monk or nun who has left home will be released from samsara. A monk or nun who has the mind of a lay person has double faults. Their attitudes should be quite different. It is not that it is difficult to do, but to do it completely is difficult. The practice of being released from samsara and attaining the Way seems to be sought by everyone, but those who accomplish it are few. Life-and-death is the Great Matter, impermanence is swift. Do not let your mind slacken. If you abandon the world, you should abandon it completely. I don't think that the names provisionally used to distinguish monks and nuns from lay people are at all important.”I quote Dogen without omission because I frankly cannot see that any part of his response is not germane and important to our understanding of lay versus monastic practice. He profiles this as a choice, but insists that we are either all-in, or we are not. However he does not indicate that just because one chooses one way or the other, one is not superior or inferior to the other. It depends. Wholehearted practice does not depend on the choice so much as the commitment. Half-baked practice in either case would seem to be the point of what the translators refer to as an admonition. Because Dogen is sometimes characterized as the “father” of Soto Zen in Japan, and mistakenly characterized as overly stern, severe and authoritarian, I would respectfully submit that these instructions are like those given to a child, in the sense of compassionate guidance, or tough love, and not at all condescending, or admonishing. He is not taking sides or advising this nun, and by extension ourselves, as to which way is right for us. He is only encouraging us to recognize the path we walk, and not to confuse the one with the other. Followed to where they are leading, either way works. All roads on the Original Frontier lead to nirvana. Eventually.Master Dogen touches on this point again in later references in Zuimonki, but we do not have time to comment on all of them. In 4-3, for example he reiterates, “The primary point you should attend to is detaching yourself from personal views. To detach yourself from personal views means to not cling to your body.” And later in the same section, “…if you have not detached from the mind which clings to your body, it is like vainly counting up another's wealth without possessing even a half-penny of your own. I implore you to sit quietly and seek the beginning and the end of this body on the ground of reality.” Here we find another aphorism we might have assumed to be Western or biblical in origin. But the great master could as easily have been addressing these comments to a lay audience, rather than to his coterie of monks and nuns. And again, the way, the method for both, is, as always, zazen.In another instance, in 5-20, he quotes an ancient master who said, “At the top of a hundred foot pole, advance one step further.” He goes on to reinforce his point with this familiar Zen trope:This means you should have the attitude of someone who, at the top of a hundred-foot pole, lets go of both hands and feet; in other words, you must cast aside body and mind. There are various stages involved here. Nowadays, some people seem to have abandoned the world and left their homes. Nevertheless, when examining their actions, they still haven't truly left home, or renounced the world. As a monk who has left home, first you must depart from your ego as well as from [desire for] fame and profit. Unless you become free from these things, despite practicing the Way urgently as though extinguishing a fire enveloping your head… it will amount to nothing but meaningless trouble, having nothing to do with emancipation.Here we find the famous “hair on fire” trope we think originated with Dogen but now ubiquitous as the image of extreme urgency and intensity. This is followed by a rather long critique of the ignorance and misguided attitudes of recalcitrant and phony monks of the time, which we sometimes imagine to be a modern anomaly. But people are people, and were no different in Dogen's day. Note the restatement, found elsewhere, of the idea that unless your commitment is total, Zen practice may be a waste of time.As a final note, it should be mentioned that in many parts of his oeuvre, Dogen promotes the monastic alternative. In his times, as it is today, it was probably more difficult for a lay person, man or woman, to maintain a practice of meditation and Dharma study than for a cloistered monk or nun. In 6-9 he likens entering a monastery to passing through the “Dragon-Gate… where vast waves rise incessantly. Without fail, all fish once having passed through this place become dragons.” But he goes on to say,The vast waves there are not different from those in any other place, and the water is also ordinary salt water. Despite that, mysteriously enough, when fish cross that place, they all become dragons. Their scales do not change and their bodies stay the same; however, they suddenly become dragons.I take his meaning to be that all of us, wherever we find ourselves, are surfing the vast waves of samsara that are rising incessantly all around us. And we are all capable of undergoing this mysterious change, passing through the gateless gate, that is nothing more or less than returning to our original nature, while nothing else changes. He goes on to point out that the monastery — sorin in Japanese, which connotes a place pf practice in the forest — is “not a special place.” In transforming samsara to nirvana, our practice converts the mundane to the sacred, and vice-versa. My world and welcome to it (shout out to James Thurber), the monastery without walls.* * *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

Poet, editor, scholar, and musician Tony Trigilio, whose new collection is Proof Something Happened, winner of the 2020 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Tony Trigilio. This prompt is adapted from John Daido Loori's The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. Sit with an object/memory/experience until it begins to reveal itself to you -- its details, contours, emotions, and so on. Be open to the possibility that you might need to sit for a long time. As you get more comfortable with the object's familiar contours, the odd, strange, subtle, mysterious, and absurd (and equally-as-real) aspects of this object of your mind will reveal themselves. Express these in a poem - any form, shape, structure, tone, or pitch. You are writing about "what else" the object is, and likely also writing about "what it is not." Like a painter working with negative space, this approach can help you discover the fullest sense of your subject matter. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

In this episode, I share my reflections on my own discovery of art being a meditation practice, what shifts happened in my life to kick off that new practice, and what I have noticed that I need to enter that state of being at my art table. I make connections to Zen philosophy, spirituality and art making and share some of my favorite quotes about meditation that connect to art making and creativity including an excerpt from the book by John Daido Loori called, The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life and this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that I love, “Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration." Emma Freeman, the host of Reflections from my art table, is a queer mixed media artist, teaching artist, designer and dreamer. Her art practice is experimental, playful, tactile and meditative. She works in many mediums including textiles, fibers, book making, cyanotype, drawing, collage, printmaking and illustration. She teaches art classes online, creates greeting cards, fabric collections, and fine art collections. You can learn more about her and see her work at www.emmafreemandesigns.com. Find her on Instagram at www.instagram.com/emmafreemandesigns. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/emma-freeman-art/message

Debonee speaks with Sensei Sean Murphy to learn about the value of humor and levity in spiritual practice and thought. Sean shares some of his own more comical experiences in Buddhist training, as well as humorous teaching stories and lessons learned the hard way (don't try to talk to Taizen Maezumi about death!) You'll hear about the beginnings of Sean's book, "One Bird, One Stone", the connections between comedy and tragedy, and the subversive power of humor. You'll get to know John Daido Loori, and Nasreddin, and all sorts of tricksters. Crack a smile and enjoy!

Josh Bartok, Roshi, began practicing Zen practice with John Daido Loori, at Zen Mountain Monastery in the early 1990s while a student at nearby Vassar College, and later lived there for 18 months. In 2000, he began practicing with James Ishmael Ford, Roshi. He was ordained by James Ford in 2008 and received permission to teach from him in 2012. Presently Josh serves as the guiding teacher and spiritual director of the Greater Boston Zen Center. For many years he worked as a Senior Editor at Wisdom Publications, a leading publisher of classic and contemporary Buddhist books from all of the major Buddhist lineages. During his tenure he edited nearly 250 books having to do with meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhist traditions. Josh is the co-author of Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts) and the author of Daily Doses of Wisdom. His writings have appeared in Buddhadharma, Lion's Roar, and The Handbook of Zen, Mindfulness, and Behavioral Health. He remains with Wisdom on a part-time basis as the Executive Editor and has a private practice in contemplative and Buddhist pastoral therapy in Cambridge, MA. You can find out more by visiting https://bostonzen.org/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher. https://ianwhitemaher.com/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Providence Zen Center. http://providencezen.org/

Wojtek Kutyla values the ability of a designer to play the role of enabler, and we ‘absolutely’ agree with his approach. If you building something with a team of people they, we, are all busy with the act of creation. In his words, he has a sneaky plan to replace the old dinosaurs with teams with an user-centric approach. He’s not overly excited about having an title but is instead more focused on creating measurable value through the work he is doing. You can refer to him as an Experience -, User Experience – or Service Designer all we know is that we really had fun speaking to this lively Polish designer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Important Links Wojtek's Blog - https://wojtekkutyla.pl Twitter - https://twitter.com/wojtekkutyla Book: The Shape of Design, A small philosophical handbook about design and making things for people by Frank Chimero. Book: Sense & Respond, How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously Book: The Zen of Creativity, John Daido Loori. Episode details Seed Cards 10% discount promo - You can only use the special promo code here - www.gadzetytrenera.pl Please leave a comment about the episode on the website - Bloc Thinking Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or in your favorite podcast app with our rss feed: https://rss.simplecast.com/podcasts/4348/rss Connect with us on Twitter: Werner, Jonathan Or LinkedIn: Werner, Jonathan

'Rhythms of Practice: Settling Within and Expression in the World' Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and teacher, academic, and author. He is an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki, and is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Soto Zen Centre in Chicago. Taigen was ordained as a Zen priest in 1986 and received Dharma Transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2000. He lived in Japan between 1990-1992 and is a translator (together with Shohaku Okumura) of Dogen's 'Eihei Koroku' and other Dogen texts. He holds a PHD from Berkley. He is also the author of numerous books, including 'Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry', 'Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression', 'Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness' and 'Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra'. He was also asked to provide the forward to John Daido Loori's classic compendium on Zen meditation 'The Art of Just Sitting : Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikan Taza' Taigen has long been active in various US Engaged Buddhist programs for social justice, including Environmental and Peace activism. He is on the International Advisory Council of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He is frequently asked to speak on how Buddhists can engage in protest and activism whilst maintaining the Buddhist principles of no-harm and kind speech.

'Rhythms of Practice: Settling Within and Expression in the World' Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and teacher, academic, and author. He is an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki, and is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Soto Zen Centre in Chicago. Taigen was ordained as a Zen priest in 1986 and received Dharma Transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2000. He lived in Japan between 1990-1992 and is a translator (together with Shohaku Okumura) of Dogen's 'Eihei Koroku' and other Dogen texts. He holds a PHD from Berkley. He is also the author of numerous books, including 'Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry', 'Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression', 'Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness' and 'Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra'. He was also asked to provide the forward to John Daido Loori's classic compendium on Zen meditation 'The Art of Just Sitting : Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikan Taza' Taigen has long been active in various US Engaged Buddhist programs for social justice, including Environmental and Peace activism. He is on the International Advisory Council of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He is frequently asked to speak on how Buddhists can engage in protest and activism whilst maintaining the Buddhist principles of no-harm and kind speech.

'Rhythms of Practice: Settling Within and Expression in the World' Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and teacher, academic, and author. He is an authorized lineage holder and Zen teacher in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki, and is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Soto Zen Centre in Chicago. Taigen was ordained as a Zen priest in 1986 and received Dharma Transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson in 2000. He lived in Japan between 1990-1992 and is a translator (together with Shohaku Okumura) of Dogen's 'Eihei Koroku' and other Dogen texts. He holds a PHD from Berkley. He is also the author of numerous books, including 'Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry', 'Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression', 'Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness' and 'Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra'. He was also asked to provide the forward to John Daido Loori's classic compendium on Zen meditation 'The Art of Just Sitting : Essential Writings on the Zen Practice of Shikan Taza' Taigen has long been active in various US Engaged Buddhist programs for social justice, including Environmental and Peace activism. He is on the International Advisory Council of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He is frequently asked to speak on how Buddhists can engage in protest and activism whilst maintaining the Buddhist principles of no-harm and kind speech.

In this first of a three-part series, two conversations: the first, with John Daido Loori (1931-2009) founder and former abbott of Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York, died shortly after this interview was taped.  Daido Roshi, as he was known to … View full post →

Raghu speaks with Koshin Paley Ellison, the founder and partner of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, an organization that works closely with people who are passing or ill. Koshin Paley describes his origins and how he was introduced to Zen Buddhism. He talks about the teachers, influences and triggers which geared the direction of his life and practice.  Including; the Aids Epidemic of the 1980’s, Alan Ginsberg, and his first Zen teacher John Daido Loori as well as being exposed to Ram Dass as a very young person. Koshin Paley tells the moving story of the passing away of his grandmother and the tremendous impact that experience had on his life. (hint: The New York Center for Contemplative Care wouldn’t be here otherwise!) Raghu and Koshin discuss the blending of Jungian depth techniques with Buddhist psychology and what exactly a Spiritual Bypass is. Other topics covered are relationships, bearing witness, loving action and what is being brought to light by working with dying people.  

John Daido Loori, Roshi abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery in NY and well-known Buddhist author, joins us to discuss the history and development of his teaching, especially with regards to the key role that Art plays in Zen practice. Naropa University teacher Robert Spellman joins us as guest host to ask Daido Roshi about the 8 gates of zen, Roshi’s training with Minor White, the difference between Western and Eastern forms of art, how the wildness of nature relates to Buddha-Nature, and ethical issues of taking responsibility for one’s state of mind and their art work. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, Everything Arises in the Mind of the Yogi. Episode Links: Mysticism – by Evelyn Underhill ( http://bit.ly/aQOOs ) Zen Mountain Monastary ( http://www.mro.org/zmm/ ) Robert Spellman ( http://www.robertspellman.com ) Minor White ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_White ) The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training ( http://bit.ly/11HmaQ )