The man wants the bath water to be calm so he smacks down the waves as they come up. The teacher said, ‘That’s like trying to smack down your thoughts as they arise. But that will just create new ones! If, instead, you simply keep still and watch the waves, they will die down of themselves.’
This comes again and again. There is something hidden even in the terrible experiences we have, which ― if we have spiritual sight and discrimination ― we can find. There is a treasure in our own house which we often don’t see. We can say, ‘Well, how can there be?’…
Everyone originally possesses the Dharma-Seal of the Unborn; so why do you still search for it? Have you realized it yet?
Short film by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi – Sandokai – Sound and Noise
This eighth-century classic is a complete translation of Hui Hai’s teachings. He was one of the early Chan/Zen masters (along with Ma Tsu and Huang Po) following on from Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch.
Hui Hai: “What do you suppose is not the Buddha? Point it out to me!”…
The well-known Zen Buddhist phrase ‘the finger pointing at the moon’ refers to the means and the end, and the possibility of mistaking one for the other…
At the beginning you have to take up a koan riddle. One such is this: ‘What is your true face before father and mother were born’. For one facing the turbulence of life and death, such a koan clears away the sandy soil and opens up the golden treasure which was there from the beginning, the ageless root of all things…
That ordinary mind of ours tends to get camouflaged with desires and fantasies. It’s hard to let go of wishing and wanting, yearning and craving, and come to a stop, here, where we are. We may even think that…
Buddhism now 