Falling flowers
We named our Spring Sesshin this year ‘Falling Flowers Sesshin’. You might think it’s obvious, as to why. But if you don’t, let’s explore the whole matter. It turns up in a beautiful koan in the Blue Cliff record... More
Tonight I’d like to take up the central and most fundamental matter that Buddhism concerns itself with: suffering. ... More
A Practice is a Strange and Beautiful Thing
So why is it so strange and beautiful at once?
Strange, because it is a pattern breaker: it breaks the patterns that hold us in what we call suffering, and that leaves everything fresh and unfamiliar in a good way. Just to be still and quiet begins to break the constant pattern of interrupting ourselves in the act of just being, with trivia and irritation and dissatisfaction and negativity. More
There is a path to joy
There’s a tiny spider in my room which is building a very elaborate web on the wrong side of the glass. On the side of the glass that is not exposed to the breeze, to the insects, to the wild empty world. And I’m in a quandary -- should I, before he goes too much further, help him out to the other side? ... More
The value of nothing
So today’s Teisho is really about the value of nothing, the true value of no-thing. Any matter of value is deeply related in the end to our own mortality. ... More
‘With our open response to such abuse’
Tonight I’d like to speak about Torei Zenji’s very fine challenge in his Bodhisattva’s Vow, ‘That we and all beings may become mature in Buddha’s wisdom’. What is maturity in Buddha’s wisdom? What might it look like in action? ... More The hazy moon of enlightenment
The Case I would like to spring into this from is from the Blue Cliff record, and it is called ‘Chimen’s Lotus Blossom’.
A monk asked Chimen ‘When the lotus flower has not yet emerged from the water, what is that?’ Chimen answered ‘Lotus blossom.’ The monk continued ‘And after it emerges from the water, what is that?’ Chimen replied ‘Lotus petals.’ ... More
Where will we meet after death?
I dedicate the talk tonight to my fellow teacher, Sexton Bourke, who is meeting every moment in a long, slow engagement with terminal cancer. I could not call it a fight, since Sexton’s equanimity is so clear and calm, a great teaching. Tonight I want to speak about where to meet after death. ... More
When we go all the way into that ‘Who are you really?’ we find a glimpse of the whole universe blazing right there in the final disappearing-point of ‘Who?’... More
They reckon we may have to endure at least twelve thousand miracles in the morning and around another four hundred in the afternoon. So, please sit comfortably… You have probably noticed that we invent the world constantly for ourselves. ... More
Tonight’s talk is called Extremely Good News. And this is because of two things Chogyam Trungpa said, that very Zen Tibetan teacher, two fine elucidations of the Way. He said, ‘Meditation is just one insult after another.’ And he also said, ‘Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news. ... More
I am wearing a fancy rakusu again today, not because we are having another ceremony, but because I want to talk about love, which is always a kind of ceremony. ... More
Jukai is the ceremony of commitment to the Way and a way of saying ‘thankyou’. The Way always remains simply the Way. You could say it’s the natural grain of things, the Tao. To give yourself to this is not to be mistaken for joining an order, a religious order, or even becoming a Buddhist or turning more Zen, because that is impossible ... More
… ‘So when I pick it up this earth is like a grain of rice in size. I cast it down before you. All you black lacquer buckets can’t make it out. Beat the drum. Everyone, gather look for it.’ This koan has the flavour of a dream in some ways, and of a great joke in others. ... More
Today I’d like to take up the second of the three questions put by the monk to Xitou, that we began to explore yesterday. The first was ‘How do you get free?’ to which Xitou replied, ‘Who has bound you?’ The second question put was ‘What is the Pure Land?’ - by implication, ‘Where is it and how do we reach that state?’ And Xitou replied with another well-aimed question. ‘Who has defiled you?’... More
‘Hundreds of thousands of millions of kalpas’ is a very long time. A kalpa doesn’t mean a lifetime or a moment or anything like that, or does it? It is said to be the amount of time it takes to wear down a great mountain if a butterfly alights on it once every, hmmmmm, thousand years, and brushes it with its wings. ... More
|
