Koan Confessions #4

Last updated on: July 10, 2012 at 6:04 pm By Dosho Port

Note: See the previous two posts for confessions #1-3 of 8. Confession #4: Koan Zen is generally more effective at developing the initial breakthrough, especially for non-monastics. The mu insight turned out to be very familiar. I’d had numerous tastes of it through just-sitting Zen. Just-sitting students, obviously, also have kensho experiences. Now that I’m working with koan students, I’ve seen several who have done just-sitting for decades move through mu and the checking questions with inspiring ease. What makes... Read more

Koan Confessions #2 and #3

Last updated on: July 8, 2012 at 8:40 am By Dosho Port

Note: This is the second of a series that I call my koan confessions. It is a “coming out” of sorts in that I share my views about just-sitting Zen and koan Zen (labels I prefer to Rinzai and Soto because there’s so much variation within Rinzai and Soto that the terms don’t distinguish sufficiently). Specifically, I’m taking a stand in favor of kensho – something that is frowned upon these days in many just-sitting lineages. I confess that this... Read more

Koan Confessions

Last updated on: July 7, 2012 at 12:23 pm By Dosho Port

Note: This is the first installment in a series of seven or eight that I call my koan confessions, although I confess that most of the confessions aren’t confessions in the usual sense. I wrote the whole piece a few months ago upon request, although it doesn’t look like it’ll be used for it’s intended purpose so (desperate for fresh blog food), I’ll post it here, one confession at at time. The beginning has some introductory material that regular readers... Read more

A Lazy Bastard Living in a Suit: Leonard Cohen’s “Old Ideas” is Superb!

Last updated on: July 1, 2012 at 9:51 am By Dosho Port

http://youtu.be/-saMZaooAbE (See the lyrics for “Different Sides” below). This is the best Cohen since Ten New Songs. Now I enjoy Dear Heather too. “There for You,” for example, is a powerful dharma tune with a biting double meaning as an old Zen dog, long-time practitioner with Sasaki-roshi, shows his zazen heart. But on my Omaha road trip last weekend, I listened to his new offerings on Old Ideas. Repeatedly. The old boy delivers on every track with irony, longing, biting... Read more

Raising the Solitary and Destitute Flower

Last updated on: June 28, 2012 at 6:31 pm By Dosho Port

Last weekend I visited my old friend Nonin at the Heartland Temple in Omaha and led sesshin. I had a delightful time with the whole crew. Now Adam over at Sweeping Zen has put up the talks – “Buddha Raises a Flower” and “Solitary and Destitute” based on cases 5 and 10 of the Gateless Barrier. If you like the Sweeping Zen site, btw, how about offering some dollars to... Read more

Not the Ultimate Zen Koan But We Are In Deep

Last updated on: June 26, 2012 at 6:06 pm By Dosho Port

Okay, not funny. But the situation isn’t either. The economic world will impact the dharma world like form is emptiness and emptiness is form. So if you have some money that you’ve invested – or don’t – Paul B. Farrell says you’ve made the wrong call in “The Ultimate Zen Koan: Every Investment Strategy is Flawed So What To Do?” Farrell says there’s nothing you can do. What impact will... Read more

Entering the Market Place: A Review of a Really Important New Book, “The Zen Leader” by Ginny Whitelaw

Last updated on: June 17, 2012 at 9:55 am By Dosho Port

About a week ago, I had a really rough day at work with three events that left me limping home, thinking, “Gawd, I’ve gotta make some kind of inner shift!” As synchronicity would have it, there in the mail box was a new book for review, The Zen Leader: 10 Ways to go From Barely Managing to Leading Fearlessly, by Ginny Whitelaw. Fortunately, I was going for a week-long vacation to the Northeast the next day – sweet! Now I’m... Read more

What To Do With This One Great Life?

Last updated on: June 2, 2012 at 12:07 pm By Dosho Port

A student recently reminded me of this talk, posted here a while back. With thanks to Steve and Mark, I’m reposting it today: Today we will be wrapping up our work on Dogen’s Tenzokyokun (Instructions for the Cook), focusing on the joyful, nurturing and great minds. These three minds answer the question, “What is mature practice?” Dogen gives us many ideas about what mature practice looks like, how we could cultivate a mature practice and then condenses it to just one... Read more

What Is Zen?

Last updated on: May 27, 2012 at 6:47 am By Dosho Port

Way back when I was first in Japan at age 26, I went to Soto sesshin at a remote mountain temple. I arrived a few days early in order to settle in and found myself intrigued with a little old man and his quiet brightness. He looked a bit like this fellow that I pulled off “Images.” He didn’t talk much and I assumed he didn’t speak English. I learned that he had participated in a koan-Zen sesshin when he... Read more

Tracking Bodhidharma

Last updated on: May 18, 2012 at 7:10 pm By Dosho Port

Back in the 1980’s, the scholarly perspective that Bodhidharma was a myth began making the rounds in practice places. Seems like the earliest reports of the old dog that the scholars could find were a couple hundred years after his purported death. I was surprised because … well, I suppose I was surprised mostly because I was young and naive and believed stuff, especially Zen stuff, without much skepticism. I brought the Bodhidharma matter up with Katagiri Roshi who first... Read more