Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening, by Guo Gu Laoshi (available now for preorder and preview) is a wonderful expression of the buddhadharma from beginning to end. As you probably know, Guo Gu is an important contemporary Chan teacher, a successor of the great Sheng Yen. He also has one of the coolest websites around: click. In Silent Illumination, Guo Gu offers a strikingly fresh perspective on the significance of the phrase, silent illumination, grounded in the Chinese Chan perspective, compellingly… Read more

  I’m so pleased that The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans will soon be out in the world. It’s been four years in the making, beginning early in the Trump era when I was on retreat with my wife, Tetsugan Sensei, sitting and doing some studying of Hakuin. In the midst of the divisiveness and ugliness of those early Trump days, a strong aspiration arose to do something new to help show the beauty of this one… Read more

During our nonresidential practice periods at the Minnesota Zen Center in the 1980’s, students took turns giving talks at 4:30 a.m. Katagiri Roshi usually sat very quietly with his inverted half-moon mouth, a world-class frown, and very seldom made any comment about our wobbly efforts to express the dharma. One morning Roy, a longtime student of Katagiri Roshi, began his talk verbally stumbling around. “While I was walking to the zendo I began crossing the street just as a piece… Read more

This summer in the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training we’ve been focussed on the teaching of Zen Master Dàhuì Zōnggǎo (1089–1163; 大慧宗杲), thanks to the recent translation of The Letters of Chan Master Dàhuì Pǔjué, by Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe. Dàhuì  is probably best-known today among Zen students for his instructions on what NOT to do in keyword practice (e.g., “mu”). In The Letters there are three overlapping lists of what not to do in (letters #10.5, #14.8, and… Read more