When I was training at Bukkokuji Zen Monastery in Obama, Japan, on the twelfth day of every month, we all took a short walk around the bluff to a small hermitage that lay a short distance outside the wall of our neighboring monastery, Hosshinji, to perform a memorial ceremony at the retirement home of the late Harada Daiun Sogaku (大雲祖岳, Great Cloud Ancestral Huge Mountain, October 13, 1871 – December 12, 1961). The hermitage was a place of lingering radiance.... Read more
Why nineteen ways to translate one poem? As Eliot Weinberger explains in his 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei (thanks, Joe Daichō, for =this wonderful book!), “Great poetry lives in a state of perpetual transformation, perpetual translation: the poem dies when it has no place to go.” (p. 3) Just like a great kōan! The newest edition of Weinberger’s book, by the way, has twenty-nine translations of Wang Wei’s (701-761 C.E.) four-line poem! As... Read more
You can’t do what alone? Traditionally in the buddhadharma across schools, samādhi (calming, concentration or absorption) and vipaśyanā (insight, or in Zen, “kenshō,” seeing true nature) are regarded as the two wings of meditation. And although there seems to be wide agreement in the general tradition that both are necessary for waking up and living accordingly, there is a wide range of views on the emphasis of the two wings, including within the Zen tradition. At it’s best, the present just-sitting... Read more
This year at both the Nebraska Zen Center and the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training we’ve studied one of the essential texts in the Sōtō Zen liturgy, “Harmony of Difference and Sameness” (Japanese: Sandōkai; Chinese: Cāntóngqì 參同契), supported by Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. In order to work my edge and offer something fresh to students, I translated the text as we were going along. You’ll find that below. The... Read more
Ronald E. Purser has written a very important book, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, about the limitations, fake claims, and sleight of hand in the contemporary secular mindfulness product. The underlying perspective of Purser’s critique isn’t fully unveiled until the last chapter, “Liberating Mindfulness.” It boils down to a great vehicle (Mahayana) take-down of the narcissism and limitations of the individual vehicle (Hinayana). In addition to the run-of-the mill great vehicle bodhisattva’s tools like ethics and compassion, Purser, a... Read more
Is Zen weak on compassion teachings? Zen teacher Norman Fischer Rōshi has written that he considers it “… a serious weakness in Zen: its deficiency in explicit teachings on compassion.” (1) In this post, I’ll present another perspective, however, I’d like to note that although I disagree with Fischer Rōshi on this point, his book, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, has helped many people to remember and actualize the buddhadharma in daily life. In addition, a... Read more
Was Hakuin Ekaku (1686 – 1768), the great Japanese revitalizer of Rinzai Zen and the inspiration for much of modern-day kōan introspection, a hater of that other Zen school – Sōtō Zen? What would have happened if Hakuin and a Sōtō monk had met face-to-face? The short answer to the first question is “No, Hakuin was not a Sōtō hater.” The short answer to the second question is that it happened a lot and, well, see below. From Hakuin’s reports,... Read more
My wife and co-teacher, Tetsugan, and I have been noticing how participation falls into five types (give or take): visitor, member, student, apprentice, and successor. In this post, I’ll briefly flesh out those levels of participation. By the way, and with synchronicity, James Myōūn Ford Rōshi has a recent post, Zen Practice for Everyone, with two levels: Openers of the Way and Followers of the Way. What I’m doing here is offering a way to see James’ “Followers of the Way” with... Read more
Overview This program offers Zen practice under the guidance a senior Zen teacher, Dōshō Port (see bio here, listen to talks here), and interactions with a mature community of practitioners. Read more
I forgot a few important things when writing the last post, “The Dharma of Taking Food: The Zen Art of Oryoki,” but thankfully, I have been reminded by caring others. So in this post, some more about an important practice opportunity. First, I’ll share a bit more about Wiping Cloth Sensei, and then unveil the Gansho Oryoki Incident Drama Scale (GOIDS), modelled after the better know Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS). We also have a solid... Read more
Wild Fox Zen
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