In 1975, a man called See Hoy Liau met Zen Master Seung Sahn in Los Angeles. See Hoy had been reading an enormous amount of Zen literature in an attempt to grasp the meaning of Buddhism and satisfy his yearning for a more purposeful life. His favorite book was The …
Read More...At the heart of Buddhism and Zen lies the great question of life and death: What am I? What is a human being? Why do we suffer so much? Why are we here on the planet earth? Are we here to make money? Are we here for sex, food, or …
Read More...[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 …
This is an excerpt from a talk given by Zen Master Seung Sahn to the members of Hwa Gye Sah, our temple in Seoul, on the evening before Buddha’s Enlightenment Day. Traditionally Buddhists will stay up all night practicing meditation on this night in emulation of the Buddha before his …
Read More...This is an excerpt from a talk given by Zen Master Dae Kwang on October 5th, 1996 at the Whole World is a Single Flower Conference. The gathering was held at the Sixth Patriarch’s temple on T’ao Che Mountain in southern China, about 200 miles north of Canton.
Twenty-five hundred …
Read More...Do you want to see this? If you want to see it, your eyes fall out.
(raises stick and hits table)
Do you want to hear this? If you want to hear this, your ears fall off.
(raises stick and silently touches the stick to …
Read More...When Zen Master Huai Jang first visited Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch, he was already an experienced practitioner. After he bowed, Hui Neng asked him, “Where do you come from?” Huai Jang replied, “From Sung Shan.” The Patriarch then asked, “What thing is it that you have brought here?” Huai …
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