‘Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it’s the universe that’s breathing.’
Dôgen
Dogen
Part 6 Zazenshin: Acupuncture Needle of Zazen, by Shohaku Okumura
‘Is there a way we should aim at beyond the framework of zazen that has not yet been accomplished?’ Is there some kind of formless samadhi besides this sitting using this body and mind, besides ‘polishing a tile’, or not?
The Emotional Climate of Nondualistic Practice, by Ken Jones
At home in our Buddha nature, but doubtless no less aware of our still persistent delusiveness, we open in ready compassion to the misfortunes and stupidities of others…
Part 2 Zazenshin: Acupuncture Needle of Zazen, by Shohaku Okumura
In our zazen we have to let go of any kind of thinking, even thinking about dharma. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to prepare lectures before sesshin started. I had to prepare the lecture during sesshin. To be a teacher in that kind of practice was very difficult to me. Please have compassion for teachers…
Law suit against reality, by Ken Jones
‘This’ versus ‘that’ is, I believe, the starting point for an understanding of Dogen. The theme that runs through the essays in his great collection the Shobogenzo is the unmasking of this delusive dualism, and demonstrating the Great Way of opening to a sense of duality which is freed of the self-neediness which drives dualism…
Discomfort without Aversion: A Little Miracle, by Corrado Pensa
You might remember a famous illustration that the Buddha gives of what a healed mind is like. He said, ‘In what is seen, there is only what is seen. In what is heard, there is only what is heard.’…
Motoko Ikebe, by Arthur Braverman
Historically, the Japanese have considered women to be the proper interpreters of the teaching of the gods. In fact, the first spiritual and political leader of Japan on record was Himiko (or Pimiko), a queen whose authority was based on her religious or magical powers. She was a Shaman who the Chinese chronicles describe as unmarried with a thousand women attendants and one man, and who spent her time with magic and sorcery. She was a mediator between the people and their gods…
Notes on Buddhist meditation
Buddhist Meditation is not normally thought of as a process of attainment or failure. Learning about ourselves is its practice and awareness is its function…
Buddhism now 