Teachings
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Teisho: Lineage (Part 1 of 3)
July 28, 20161 min read
"One knock and all knowledge is forgotten, There is no need for further searching... Not a trace left anywhere.” ~ Kyogen Description: This teisho first wraps up the previous week’s discussion about Aware and Awake. Henry then proceeds to explore the meaning of lineage and why it is important to Zen history and practice. He contrasts the results of two awakening experiences, one concerning the American playwright Eugene O’Neill and the other with the Sixth Zen ancestor...
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The Light of our Awakened Nature, Hsin Tao
July 25, 20165 min read
When we practice and study Buddhism, we have to leave all things of the phenomenal world behind to see our awakened nature. This physical body of ours exists, and is at the same time empty (of self-existing substance). As the Heart Sutra says: “Form is precisely emptiness, emptiness precisely form. Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form.” This refers also to our physical body: it is form and it is emptiness, it...
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Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age, Review of David Loy’s A New Buddhist Path, Part 1
July 22, 20167 min read
Ruben Habito reviews A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World by David Loy, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2015. His in-depth review of Loy's work will be published on our website in four installments. Enjoy! This new book by David Loy could have also been given the title “Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age,” with a subtitle like “Enlightenment and Earthly Engagement.” Loy, Buddhist philosopher and Zen Master, whose previous works include titles like...
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Teisho: Fuketsu’s Speck of Dust
July 21, 20161 min read
Fuketsu, giving instruction, said, "If one raises a speck of dust, the house and the nation prosper. If one does not raise a speck of dust, they perish." Setchô held up his staff and said, "Is there anyone who lives and dies with this?" Description: Henry begins this teisho on Fuketsu’s brief but powerful words in Case 34 in the Book of Equanimity with a short discussion of koans in general. “Koans sound like riddles, but they...
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Japanese Scroll: At the bottom of a ladle, one drop of water
July 19, 20162 min read
Rosa Bellino from the UK has given us the beautiful scroll that now hangs in our zendo. Many bows and thanks to Rosa for her generosity and kindness. The words on the scroll are: 杓底一残水 SYAKUTEI ICHI ZANSUI At the bottom of a ladle one drop of water left 汲流千億人 NAGARE wo KUMU SENOKU no HITO Billions of people scoop water from the river. This is part of a 4 line poem, “Gogon Zekku,” ( four lines, each of five Chinese characters) written...
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Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 3
July 18, 20164 min read
Buddhism provides a wonderful archetype that can bring individual and social transformation together: the bodhisattva. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of Buddhists Must Awaken. While much of traditional Buddhism is concerned about transcending (in one way or another) this unsatisfactory world, much of modern Buddhism is about adapting to it better. In the first case, this world is the problem because it is a place of suffering, while in the other, one’s mind is...
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Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 2
July 15, 20164 min read
...there is no distinction at all between samsara and nirvana…. The limit of nirvana is the limit of everyday life. -Nagarjuna Read Part 1 of Buddhists Must Awaken. Buddhism is the path of awakening, but what does awakening mean? Different Buddhist traditions seem to understand it differently, or at least emphasize different aspects of it. In the Pali canon, the earliest texts we have, nibbana signifies the end of rebirth into samsara, thereby the liberation from this...
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Teisho: Book of Equanimity Case 30, Daizui’s “Kalpa Fire” (Part 2 of 2)
July 14, 20162 min read
“Zen wants to take away the mind that understands so that we can directly experience our existential situation.” Case 30: Daisui's "Kalpa Fire" A monk asked Daizui, “When the great kalpa fire bursts out, the whole universe will be destroyed. I wonder if IT will also be destroyed or not.” Daizui said, “Destroyed.” The monk said, “If so, will it be gone with the other?” Daizui said, “Gone with the other.” Description: Henry continues exploring Daizui’s Kalpa Fire as...
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Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 1
July 11, 20164 min read
Is the goal of our practices to escape this world or to harmonize with it? Or something else? Interest in eco-dharma—the ecological implications of Buddhist teachings—is finally growing after years of apparent indifference and little conversation about it in Buddhist sanghas. The environmental crisis has been headline news since at least 1992, when the first President Bush attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and famously declared that “the American way of life is not...
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Fish Swim and Birds Fly, from Genjokoan
July 8, 20162 min read
Fish swim the water and however much they swim, there is no end to the water. Birds fly the skies, and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Yet fish never once leave the waters, birds never forsake the sky. When their need is great, there is great activity. When their need is small, there is small activity. In this way, none ever fails to exert itself to the full, and nowhere does...
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Teisho: Book of Equanimity Case 30, Daizui’s “Kalpa Fire” (Part 1 of 2)
July 7, 20162 min read
“I don’t think you can trust the heart of Zen more directly than through the koans; that is to touch the heart of a human being…. is to touch the heart of all things.” Case 30: Daisui's "Kalpa Fire" A monk asked Daizui, “When the great kalpa fire bursts out, the whole universe will be destroyed. I wonder if IT will also be destroyed or not.” Daizui said, “Destroyed.” The monk said, “If so, will it be gone...
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