Our minds are filled with confusion. We obsess endlessly. We anticipate, we regret, we brood and we scheme. We want what we don’t have, and we don’t want what we have. At times we feel under assault. At times we feel forgotten.
The Sanskrit word for this is dukha. It…
Read More...Buddhism teaches us that we make our own life. We’re quick to blame other people. We’re quick to make a dream life of our likes and dislikes. We fall into a fantasy, and sometimes it’s said, “like a drunken stupor”. We get lost in a drunken stupor of our likes,…
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 Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Cloud is mountain, mountain is cloud.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Originally no cloud, no mountain.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Cloud is cloud, mountain…
Here’s a question for everybody: How can you get out of samsara, how do you get out of suffering? We’re really lucky because we have a good practice situation. We can help and support each other, come here freely and nothing is…
Read More...Kwang Myong Sunim JDPS: This workshop is entitled “Death, Dying, and Kong-ans.” Maybe we could start with a kong-an: what is death?…
Read More...Coming empty-handed is going empty-handed. Going empty-handed is coming empty-handed.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Originally — no coming, no going.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Coming empty-handed is…
Read More...Don’t know mind is compassion mind, compassion mind is don’t know mind.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
No don’t know mind, no compassion mind.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]…
Read More...On February 6, 2000, Roland Woehrle-Chon received inka from Zen Master Wu Bong at Berlin Zen Center.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
In the 30th case of the Mu Mun Kwan, the famous Zen Master Matsu is asked: “What is Buddha?” He answers: “Mind is…
Read More...This is the workshop on Zen and psychotherapy. First of all, be aware that this is about Zen and psychotherapy, it’s not about Zen and psychology. There…
Read More...Transmission is no transmission. No transmission is transmission.
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Originally, nothing. What is transmission?
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Sky is blue; trees are green.…
Read More...[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
The whole world is suffering. Sickness and death everywhere. For what purpose do we come into this world? Only to suffer?
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
No world, no coming, no going, no suffering, no…
Read More...So, someone left the retreat last night. That’s not unusual in a retreat. It’s part of growing up. Whatever we do in our practice, we learn from. If we keep a…
Read More...Oh Jo said, “It’s like a water buffalo passing through a window. Its head, horns, and four legs have already passed through. Why is it that its tail cannot?”
Commentary:
If it passes through, it falls into a ditch;
If it turns back, it is destroyed.
This trivial
…
Read More...When Buddha was born he said “in the heavens above and the earth below only I am holy.” But William Blake said “Everything that lives is holy.”
[Raises Zen stick over head, then hits table with stick.]
Bodhidharma said…
Read More...The first thing the Buddha said after his great enlightenment was that everything had Buddha nature. The problem is that we don’t know that. Because we are ignorant of our original nature, we use it to produce suffering. Not good, not bad, but…suffering.
Several months ago there was a story…
Read More...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…
Read More...Last summer, the Institute for World Spirituality in Chicago hosted a weekend Christian – Buddhist retreat led by Father Kevin Hunt OCSO and Zen Master Dae Kwang. Two days of silent meditation, with both Christian and Zen…
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