As expressed in these words, we vow to awaken to the Way of Buddha. To receive the precepts means that by repeatedly making repentance, it is possible to awaken to the Dharma and this is why we chant these vows. Using these four vows as a common guide for all mankind…
If you say there is not enough, there is nothing lacking. This is the mind which neither increases nor decreases and which is completely free and unrestricted. To really study and investigate this mind is the Dharma vehicle of the ancient Buddhas; it is the gate to the Dharma…
No matter how much we think about the past, it isn’t possible to change it…
As long as you do not understand the Way of Buddha, you think that practice is the result of the Way. This is a great contradiction. While in the midst of the Way, you don’t clearly understand what the Way is…
Many people think Zen is something difficult. However, the Chinese character used for ‘Zen’ means ‘to demonstrate simplicity’. As this character implies, Zen is an extremely clear and concise teaching. Zen is also said to be the Buddha-dharma itself. The Chinese character for ‘Dharma’ is written with the components for ‘water’ and ‘to leave’. This implies that water flows from a high place to a low place. Zen, then, is to realise the Truth (the natural principles of things) which is completely separate from the judgement and intervention of the ego-self…
With regard to religion, we tend to think of it as belief in something outside of ourselves. But please understand and accept that in Buddhism, the person who conveys the teaching as well as the person who hears and listens to the teaching are both you…
The habit of dividing the essential nature of oneness into self and other, life and death, pain and pleasure, rising and falling, and so on, is the source of all delusion and anxiety…
In the Instructions of Dogen Zenji, there is the following passage: The successive Buddhas and Patriarchs were all seekers of the Way. Without this mind that seeks the Way (bodhi-mind), everything one does is in vain. Hence, monks must generate… Read More ›
