The weedy bones (wandering thoughts) are already rotten. Why was it necessary to cry out ‘Oh Heaven’?
Koan practice
Snatching the Whiskers of a Dragon, by Master Kusan
We keep on working. If we can continue in this manner for one to three weeks, suddenly our mind and truth will mesh; we will understand the cause and conditions of the big matter…
Hearing Sounds Through the Eyes, by Jisu Sunim
Sometimes people feel afraid because they don’t know what the teacher is talking about! `How we can face our own reality?’ But the teacher also has difficulty in getting the student’s discursive mind to understand what he is talking about. The best policy for the teacher, then, is to let practitioners continue with their practice, giving them time for some perspective to slowly come into focus. The most chronic disease for people who find it difficult to face reality is, indeed, this discursive mind…
The Illusion of Attainment, by Kusan Sunim
In the course of one’s practice it is as though one has to take hold of the hua-t’ou [Koan] two or three times anew. At the stage of emptiness when nothing at all appears, one clings to the emptiness. Likewise, at the stage of vivid quiescence and the emergence of the brilliant spiritual light, one clings to this brilliant light…
Investigation of the Live Word, by Taego Pou
Do not do anything (good or bad) and do not even do this not-doing; then straightaway one reaches that place where there is no concern for external affairs, that vast and peaceful place where there are absolutely no obstructing thoughts…
Zazen is not step-by-step learning meditation, by Harada Sekkei Roshi
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…
