Just back from walking Bodhi and shooting this, reminding me of a favorite Zen story. It was cooking beneath the surface because it comes up in the first Keep Me In Your Heart Awhile Webinar (btw, there’s still room – begins on 8/15 so register soon). It goes like this: Layman P’ang cried out, “Difficult, difficult, difficult, like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree!”“Easy, easy, easy,” returned Mrs. P’ang, as would any true Zen... Read more

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Here’s a tiny excerpt from another Katagiri Roshi teisho, transcribed by Gary Shodo. While in graduate school at Komazawa University most of Roshi’s peers wrote their master’s thesis on something wonderful like ālāyavijñāna (storehouse consciousness), but Roshi wrote his master’s thesis on “manas” (ego or obstruction) consciousness. He was kinda funny in that way. Roshi often spoke about the eight consciousnesses (click here for more on that) as a way of explaining Buddhist practice and enlightenment. It seems fitting to... Read more

The above is by Soen Nakagawa Roshi (thanks to Genmyo Smith for allowing me to share this calligraphy, a gift to him from Maezumi Roshi that appears in his Prairie Sky Newsletter and includes a well-done talk by Genmyo on Zazenshin). Soen Roshi’s calligraphy is a pattern concealed in a freedom and so is difficult to read. It might be “Buddha” or “New” or something else. It conveys what I have in mind to say today. In his Extensive Record,... Read more

If you, like me, are interested in developing the themes from Keep Me In Your Heart Awhile: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri and exploring the possibilities for meaningful dharma conversations via internet technology, you are invited to participate in this series of four investigative dharma conversations (plus a technology check, see below). Here are the details: Presenter: Dosho Port; Facilitator: Steve Harrington What: Four investigative dharma conversations based on themes from Keep Me In Your Heart Awhile: The Haunting... Read more

Here’s Greg Fain w/ Ben Austin, “Our Hero,” about the Bodhisattva Never Despise. Click Sweet. Read more

I’m back from a camping trip, eh, up to Canada’s Sleeping Giant Provincial Park (which was wonderfully huge and beautiful) with a side trip to Kakabeka Falls, pictured here along with boy and dog. It warmed up and stopped raining so we’re not wearing wool sweaters and rain ponchos. Last night at the Dogen study group picked up the Genjokoan again and began investigating the most difficult section on firewood and ash. A piece of which goes like this: We... Read more

What? 100 days of sitting and dharma study. When?Thursday, September 10 (or Saturday, September 12 for online participants) through Thursday, December 17 (or Saturday, December 19 for online participants). Register by September 3. Background100-days of zazen and dharma study will help stabilize and deepen your practice – if you turn the dharma wheel, the wheel will turn back. It is inspired by the 90 or 100-day practice periods during the rainy season that monks and nuns have done since the... Read more

A full weekend with a family reunion – the Polish side of the family – and a day at my brother’s cabin. In-between I’ve been nibbling on Jeffrey Hopkin’s Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism. It has a lot to say, and oh those Tibetan Buddhists can say it so! clearly, about the Genjokoan passage that we’re working with in the Dogen Study Group. …When we conceive our body and mind in a confused way and grasp all things... Read more

Jon asks in a comment to my last post: “…The hara point always escaped me. They say it is about 3 inches below the navel, but HOW EXACTLY does on concentrate on it? How do you teach it? Is this something that one should try to feel for? What does it feel like?” For zazen, especially for beginning students, I recommend first sitting upright. Here’s how I put it in Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile: The Haunting Zen of... Read more