Vine of Obstacles Online Support for Zen Training: Applications Now Being Accepted

Last updated on: August 10, 2013 at 2:47 pm By Dosho Port

Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training is a new way of studying Dogen Zen, integrating just-sitting and koan approaches. Designed for practitioners living at home who yearn to realize and actualize the great matter of birth and death, we acknowledge both the difficulty of following through with our practice aspirations in the midst of daily life and the truth that this very bind can be a dharma gate. We practice enlightenment through daily zazen, koan-inspired Dogen study, and... Read more

What is the Minimum Amount of Asceticism Required?

Last updated on: August 6, 2013 at 6:19 pm By Dosho Port

“What is the minimum amount of asceticism required?” That’s the question a fine young practitioner put to me at Boundless Way Zen Temple during the homeleaving workshop last month. Reminds me of another fine young practitioner I once knew who slept on plywood, cushioned only by a thin cotton sheet. He denied any ascetic impulses – in the true spirit of asceticism – and claimed that he was comfy cozy. And then he almost always nodded out in zazen, providing... Read more

Do Not Waste Your Time Admiring a Painted Rice Cake: Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment

Last updated on: July 28, 2013 at 11:53 am By Dosho Port

Pamela D. Winfield has undertaken a wonderfully detailed and intelligent study, Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment, suitable for hopeless Dogen geeks (or Kukai geeks if there be such people) like myself and Buddhist scholars, of course, but maybe not the masses. This morning, Amazon has the book at #680,626 – so, okay, for sure not the masses. However, there is much here that informs the practice of Zen. And some that doesn’t.... Read more

A Gentle, Caring Way of Life: Dreaming of Dharma Transmission Plum Blossoms

Last updated on: July 24, 2013 at 8:04 pm By Dosho Port

One of the many sweet things about teaching through the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training (click here for the latest update – another due out soon) is sharing some of my old teacher, Katagiri Roshi, with the students through his recorded talks that are connected with the sections of the first course, Guidelines for Studying the Way. A couple practitioners have asked for transcription projects to work more closely with Roshi’s teaching. Here’s one that was transcribed... Read more

Shikantaza: Busy, Busy Karmic Consciousness – When Will it Rest?

Last updated on: July 20, 2013 at 5:23 pm By Dosho Port

My friend and teacher, James Ford, has a recent Monkey Mind post (click here), “Assuming the Position: Zazen as a remembrance of things past and Zazen as awakening,” and has awakened me from a summer-time blog slumber. James begins by reflecting on the purpose of the dharma talk and whether it is “to encourage practice” or “direct pointing to the matter at hand.” The venerable then goes on to address what has become a common perspective on practice in the... Read more

Lose Your Body Beneath the Patched Robe

Last updated on: July 9, 2013 at 11:08 am By Dosho Port

“Lose your body beneath the patched robe” is a line from a Stonehouse poem (p. 11), brought to us by the great translator, Red Pine. The patched robe refers to the kesa (or o’kesa for those of the Irish persuasion), the top garment worn by those committed to full time practice since the time of the Buddha. Stonehouse, a 14th Century Chinese Ch’an master, was one of the transmitters of Ch’an to Korea via one of his students. He also had... Read more

Repaying Our Debt of Gratitude to Those Who’ve Gone Before Us

Last updated on: June 30, 2013 at 9:22 am By Dosho Port

For the upcoming workshop on the spirit, principles and practices of Zen priest home leavers at Boundless Way, I’ve been reviewing a number texts about the fine points of Zen decorum – how to sit, walk, bow, wear the kesa, use the bathroom, etc. It strikes me that we’re a tradition in major transition – from a slightly post-feudal monastic culture and into the global market place. We have the great good fortune to have the opportunity to receive the... Read more

Zen in America and Exclusive Humanism

Last updated on: June 27, 2013 at 2:53 pm By Dosho Port

Here’s the first buzz of my square head, administered by my dad with big sister peaking in. Oh, my, how many more head buzzes I’ve had. Oh, my, how far we’ve come. That applies to American Zen too. This comes up for me today as I prepare for the Zen Priest Home-Leaving: Spirit, Principles, and Possibilities workshop at the Boundless Way Temple, coming up in a couple weeks. What are some of the differences between American Zen and it’s predecessors... Read more

Peaceful Sitting: Sitting for Peace

Last updated on: June 24, 2013 at 2:47 pm By Dosho Port

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede (front and center) recently sent this photo (me, back and right) from a 1982 UN Disarmament vigil that we both participated in. Goodness, how the time goes. Goodness, how the weight comes. This was in the early Reagan years and many of us were convinced that he’d see us blown to bits in a full-out nuclear war. The vigil was the brain child of Ty Cashman, a student of Katagiri Roshi, and was one of the first... Read more

Zazen: Just Turn the Light Around

Last updated on: June 5, 2013 at 8:46 am By Dosho Port

The essential instruction for zazen practice in the Zen tradition from Shitou’s (700-790) “Song of the Grass Hut Hermitage” to Dogen’s (1200-1253) “Universal Recommendations for Zazen” to today is just this simple phrase: “Just turn the light around to illuminate.” Reading Charles Egan’s Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown: Poems by Zen Monks of China, I stumbled upon a striking little tidbit of context for this phrase. Egan translates the phrase as “shine the reflections back” and notes that the Chinese phrase... Read more