Enlightenment in Dementia “Let go of Enlightenment.” – Zen Master Dogen in ‘Shobogenzo Daigo’ (Great Enlightenment) Dementia sucks. When a loved one has it, we
8 Points to Optimizing Zazen “You are perfect as you are, and there’s plenty of room for improvement.” Shunryu Suzuki Roshi Tweet Table of Contents
Wishing You a Long Life Who doesn’t want to live a long life if they are healthy and happy? If we live with confidence in
Dragons Roar and Cranes Whoop Introduction Religious beliefs are many. Some people believe in heaven. Others believe in reincarnation. Some believe there’s only one God,
Zen is not stoicism. Many people see it otherwise. Stone faces and stiff upper lifts, and a non-challan attitude. But all the Japanese Zen teachers I have trained with were never shy about expressing their true feelings. I’ve seen Zen masters share their joys and sorrows, their hates and their loves, their equanimity and their anxiety. Never did they not care about what was going on around them. They felt it all and felt it fully.
“Bodhidharma’s Emptiness,” is a story often pointed to as a foundational Zen text, yet one of its central concepts – merit – is assumed intelligible to any western reader. I studied this story for my “Shuso Ceremony,”# and though I became intimate with it some 20 years ago, there’s much of it that I’ve taken for granted. The story appears as the second case in the Shoyoroku, or the Record of Serenity, and as such is of primary importance for understanding Zen. How is it that “merit” has gotten so overlooked?
Just quietly sit down and notice what’s right in front of your eyes. It’s simple. No need to go somewhere. Dogen Zenji says, “The Way is basically perfect and all pervading. What good does it do to travel around to practice?” Wake up with the circumstances present in your life right now. Don’t wait for some future time when things will be “better.” That future time may never arrive.
Plunge into Free Fall Meditation Zazen as Freefall Zen Master Jingqing asked one of his students, “What’s that sound outside?” The student replied, “It’s the
We are constantly judging and comparing ourselves with our previous self, the self we want to become, or the selves of other people, wanting to become something other than what we are today. However, Enlightenment in the Soto school is impossible to attain by self-improvement. While practice never precludes continual refinement of our actions and following the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts, it’s about accepting where and who we are in this moment, because in the next moment the strong winds of life change us, just as the cloud transforms into a different shape, second after second. Like the cloud, it is not us (=ego self) that changes ourselves, but life that transforms us.
Bald Eagle Mountain range was not named after the bird, as I once thought, but a leader within the Lenape (better known as the Delaware) tribe, a community of indigenous people that still exists today. This tribe has three clans within it, one of which is known as the “Muncy.”
