Trusting Your Experience

…

Inka Speech, Anne Rudloe

[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]

Zen is about experience, and yet it uses many words.

[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]

Speaking is an experience, and yet experience transcends words.

Words are words, experience is experience.

[Raises Zen stick over head, …

This Clear Moment

From a dharma talk during Summer Kyol Che at Warsaw Zen Center.
Student: It is very difficult to practice without expectation. Because we are putting in all the energy and time and… So how to do it?
Zen Master Bon Shim: Experience the expectation. Experience whatever you feel: experience it …

Volcano, Earthquake, Tsunami, War

[Raises the Zen stick over his head, then hits the table with the stick.]
BOOM!
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Our world is always changing-sometimes fast, sometimes slow. When the change is fast, we suffer a lot. Our world changing fast means volcano, earthquake, tsunami, war. Everything is changing …

Inka Speech

[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]

Attainment is no attainment. No attainment is attainment.

[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]

No attainment, also no “no attainment.”

[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]

Attainment is attainment. No attainment is …

Happy Buddha’s Birthday

When Buddha was born, he sprang out of his mother’s hip, walked seven steps, said, “Heaven above, earth below, only I am holy.”

[hits table with zen stick]

When you and I were born, we sprung from our mother’s uterus, dropped into the doctor’s arms, and screamed, “WAAAAAAAAH!”

[hits table …

A More Direct Route

In response to a question about group practice vs individual practice on May 22, 1988

Most people start out by practicing by themselves. They read books, they do some things, they try doing it themselves, and that’s okay, but in lots of ways it’s like reinventing the wheel. It’s a …

The pilgrimage to awakening

A formal dharma speech given on Buddha’s Enlightenment Day ceremonies at Providence Zen Center on December 6, 1986.

Holds the ceremonial Zen stick above his head,? brings the point of it down on the altar table with force.

Buddha saw a star, got enlightenment.

Hits the table again.

Guchi’s attendant …

Kyol Che: Together Completely

The following talk was given at the opening ceremony of winter Kyol Che 1983.

It’s very nice to be here in this brand new Dharma room at the beginning of Kyol Che. Soen Sa Nim gave us a 1983 New Year poem last night, and in it he asked, “So …

What is that Rock Saying?

One Sunday night at the Providence Zen Center, Seung Sahn Soen-sa told the story of Su Tung-po’s enlightenment. Afterwards he said to his students:

“What do we learn from this story? That Zen teaches us to cut off all discriminating thoughts and to understand that the truth of the universe …