Posted inDharma, Koans, Valerie's Messages, Videos

Valerie Forstman: What is love? (Denkoroku Case #41)

September 5, 2024

Valerie begins her teisho with impressions from the teacher training in Germany – the consistent theme of life as a dream, already gone, and yet…shared sitting, shared practice, shared koan study in fellowship. Then life and death, side-by-side, offered in a week-long sesshin practicing next to a hospice house, sitting in earnest bare-hearted togetherness. Valerie states that “love” arises from all that is arising, just this, nothing but love with no opposite, no separation. 

Case Denkoroku #41 invites us to consider “What is love?”

Question: “I wonder what you, Master, love?”

Response: “I am already like that.”

 Yamada Ryo’un Roshi offers “Disappear in the act of uniting with something.”

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