Here’s some real talk about pretend animals in Zen groups. This has been floating around in a couple recent blog comments and so I’d like to enter the field of play too. T and I have been kicking this around and so I’d like share the “credit” for this post with her. Okay. First, there are, of course, many different animals out there but a couple predominate. The most common is the domestic sheep. They tend to get a bad... Read more

A recent thread here has been about the Japanese Zen tradition – the main source of our practice here at Wild Fox. In my book (Plug! Plug!), in the “Gazing at the Moon” chapter, I wanted to deal some with the history of Zen in Japan. My editor at Wisdom didn’t think that it fit in this book and it is rather a lot for a blog post (there are even footnotes!), but what the heck. Somebody might find this... Read more

Here’s the “Pick Up the Newspaper!” story and some commentary from Keep Me in Your Heart a While that I referenced in my last comment: Ego, though, and our thinking about entering into birth and death or not can cause us to hold back, missing the opportunity of birth and death that is us, right now. We can hide behind a tree and remain in the watcher position for a long time.  During our nonresidential practice periods at the Minnesota Zen Center, students took turns... Read more

In a comment to my last post, Mike Cross raises the issue of Zen phoneys (especially those who don’t know they’re phoneys) using Japanese words like “sesshin” to portray a false sense of legitimacy – that’s my reading of his point. Mike also suggests that there is another type who know they’re phoneys and generously includes me in that noble camp. I notice that the moment that I take the bait, pretentiously believing in any reflection of the self, I’m... Read more

Sesshin (接心) literally “gathering the mind” or “collecting the mind,” is the word for an intensive period of practice. Common translations include “to unify” or “to touch” or even “to correct” the mind. The last rendition, correcting the mind, comes from mishearing how a Japanese person might say the “l” sound. “Touching the mind” is too stretchy for my translation tastes as the character doesn’t seem to have anything to do with touching. What would touch the mind that was... Read more

As I mentioned recently, I’ve started to work on “Bodhi Mind” or “Way Heart,” looking at some translations of Dogen and playing around with a commentary by Hashimoto Roshi. It might become a book project, another six years in the making. Then yesterday a thought bubble passed through about an old Katagiri riff that started with something about “Way Nose,” which means something like being able to pick up the scent of the dharma and follow through, upstream. Katagiri Roshi... Read more

Thanks, Hogen, for pointing this out:  You will find in digitized, searchable format the Platform Sutra (John McRae, trs.), Baizhang’s Zen Monastic Regulations (Shohei Ichimura, trs.), and Shobogenzo Vol. I (Nishijima & Cross).  Read more

Sit on your cushion and think non-thinking;  play vividly and energetically and don’t be fooled by any demonic spirits.  – Dogen Zenji Although we are two months from the beginning of the next training session, I’m posting this now so that participants can prepare. The application deadline is February 5th. This should give people time to have conversations with near-and-dear ones about participating, make arrangements to allow for an increase in the practice-focus of their lives, and communicate with me.... Read more

January 6th is the day in 1253 that Dogen Zenji wrote his last fascicle of the Shobogenzo, “Hachidainingaku” (“The Eight Truths of Great People”). Shakyamuni Buddha first spoke of these eight truths in his final hours.   Here is Hashimoto Eko, one of Katagiri Roshi’s teachers, on the context in which Dogen wrote “Eight Truths of a Great Person”:  Dogen-zenji had wanted to leave behind 100 fascicles [of Shobogenzo]. However, the year before he died, even while sick, he incessantly continued to... Read more

Here’s a summary of the recent research on happiness from Psychology Today (thanks to Tetsugan): The Pursuit of Happiness: Has the happiness frenzy of the past few years left you sad and anxious? Herein we report the surest ways to find well-being. Happiness/well being isn’t realization but it isn’t moldy oatmeal either.  Read more