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Sitting with Eyes Open in the Flames of the World 516. Dharma Hall Discourse The ancestral teacher N›g›rjuna said, “Zazen is exactly the Dharma of all buddhas, and yet, those outside the way also have zazen. However, those outside the way make the error of attaching to its taste and to the thorns of false views. Therefore it is not the same as the zazen of buddhas and bodhisattvas. The two vehicles of Ÿr›vakas [and pratyekabuddhas] also have zazen. However, those two vehicles [seek to] control their own minds, and have the tendency of seeking after nirv›˚a. Therefore, this is different from the zazen of buddhas and bodhisattvas.”96 The teacher Dßgen said: The ancestral teacher N›g›rjuna spoke like this. We should know that although the name of zazen (sitting meditation) is used by those of the two vehicles and those outside the way, it is not the same as the sitting transmitted by buddha ancestors. These days in the mountains and temples of Song dynasty C

I heard the essence of this teaching directly from Maezumi Roshi and just found the source.  It holds very special place in my heart. What Is Intimacy? 59. Dharma Hall Discourse Here is a story. Zen Master Fayan [Wenyi] once visited [his teacher] Zen Master [Luohan Gui]chen. The teacher asked, “Reverend, where are you going?” Fayan said, “I will travel around on pilgrimage.” Guichen asked, “What is the meaning of pilgrimage?” Fayan said, “I don’t know.” Guichen said, “Not knowing is most intimate.” Fayan suddenly was greatly enlightened. The teacher Dogen said: If this were Kosho [Dogen, in this situation] I would respond to Dizang [Guichen]: Is not knowing most intimate or is knowing most intimate? I completely leave the greatest intimacy to intimacy, but now I ask Dizang [Guichen]: What is this intimacy?

https://youtu.be/5PISVqKWCPU

If you are carving your own dragon, says Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, you will never see the real one. That’s why true zazen requires giving up your personal style of practice. Dogen Zenji says, “Don’t practice your way like a blind man trying to find out what is an elephant.” A blind man touching an elephant may think an elephant is like a wall or a robe or a plank. But the real elephant is not any of those. And he says, “Don’t be suspicious of the true dragon, like Seiko.” In China there was a man named Seiko; he loved dragons. All his scrolls were of dragons. He designed his house like a dragon-house and he had many figures of dragons. So a real dragon thought, “If I appear in his house he will be very pleased.” So one day the dragon appeared in his room, and he was very scared of him, and almost drew his sword to cut him. The real dragon said, “Oh, my!” and he hurriedly escaped from the room. “Don’t be like Seiko!” Dogen Zenji says. The instant you think, “This is the true

Lion's Roar Shikantaza is Understanding Emptiness Shunryu Suzuki 2 months ago Suzuki Roshi explains that the purpose of Shikantaza — a practice commonly known as “just sitting” — is to actualize emptiness and move beyond our interpretations of reality. When we remember there is another world beyond our limited experience, we can empty ourselves of preconceived ideas and accept things as they are. Photo by Masaki Komori. Shikantaza is to practice or actualize emptiness. Although you can have a tentative understanding of it through your thinking, you should understand emptiness through your experience. You have an idea of emptiness and an idea of being, and you think that being and emptiness are opposites. But in Buddhism both of these are ideas of being. The emptiness we mean is not like the idea you may have. You cannot reach a full understanding of emptiness with your thinking mind or with your feeling. That is why we practice zazen. When you see a plum blossom, or hear

Sorry functioning in the so-called ‘real world’ is recognizing those different perceptions and opinions, the conventions that we use. Driving on the left or the right, what something’s worth: those are just society’s fictions that we use to get through a day and to function as a human group. And if we hold them lightly in that way, if we loosen our grip on the world, rather than it becoming ‘less real’, we mysteriously find ourselves more totally at home with it. If you love the world completely, you let go of it. The more tightly you hold on to it and want to keep and own it, the more alienation you create between yourself and it. That’s the principle of letting go or non-attachment; you’re not trying to nullify your life and your feelings out of a dismissal of the world. Rather, ironically and mysteriously, when you let go of the world you find yourself at home in it. That’s the human drama. You still have all your desires and ambitions, but you don’t grasp them. Aj

Solzhenitsyn once mused that it would be so easy if evil was an absolute and we could just isolate it and wipe it out, unfortunately: ‘The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.’ The Buddha’s teachings also indicate that there is no such thing as an absolute evil. According to Buddhist myth, Mahā-Moggallāna was Māra (the devil) in at least one of his previous lives (M 50.8); that great saint, both fully enlightened and a chief disciple of the Buddha, had at one point been Satan, the Lord of Lies. Or there is the example of Aṅgulimāla, a mass murderer who became a disciple of the Buddha and an Arahant (liberated being); and not only an Arahant, but also protector of expectant mothers and their babies. It is a beautiful irony that 2,500 years later, his verses are still chanted to impart blessings to pregnant women. All this shows that we can never be irremediably lost. Even if we think these examples are just fairy stories, their symbol- is

trouble. As Ajahn Mun’s ‘Ballad of Liberation from the Five Khandhas’ says: Wanting what’s good, without stop: That’s the cause of suffering. It’s a great fault: the strong fear of bad. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are poisons to the mind, like foods that inflame a high fever. The Dhamma isn’t clear because of our basic desire for good. Desire for good, when it’s great, drags the mind into turbulent thought until the mind gets inflated with evil, and all its defilements proliferate. The greater the error, the more they flourish, taking one further and further away from the genuine Dhamma. (Ven. Thanissaro, trans.) Also, in the Verses of the Third Zen Patriarch: When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity. (Richard B. Clarke, trans.)

If there is nothing to put pressure on the citta, it tends to become lazy and amass kilesas until it can barely function. A tiger can help to remove those kilesas which foster such a lazy and easy-going attitude that we forget ourselves and our own mortality. Once those insidious defilements disappear, we feel a sense of genuine relief whatever we do, for our hearts no longer shoulder that heavy burden... To say a monk has confidence that Dhamma is the basic guarantor of his life and practice means that he sincerely hopes to live and die by Dhamma. It is imperative that he not panic under any circumstance. He must be brave enough to accept death while practicing diligently in fearful places. When a crisis looms – no matter how serious it seems – mindfulness should be in continuous control of his heart so that it stays steadfastly firm and fully integrated with the object of meditation. Suppose an elephant, a tiger, or a snake threatens him: if he sincerely

Ãcariya Mun insisted that in order to live in comfort a monk must comport himself like a worthless old rag. If he can rid himself of the conceit that his virtuous calling makes him somebody special, then he will feel at ease in all of his daily activities and personal associations, for genuine virtue does not arise from such assumptions. Genuine virtue arises from the self-effacing humility and forthright integrity of one who is always morally and spiritually conscientious. Such is the nature of genuine virtue: without hidden harmful pride, that person is at peace with himself and at peace with the rest of the world wherever he goes. The ascetic practice of wearing only robes made from discarded cloth serves as an exceptionally good antidote to thoughts of pride and self- importance.

https://youtu.be/cdKPd19b_Is

He has no notion of 'recluse' or ' brahmin' or ' I am better' or I am equal' or ' I am inferior.'  (A.4,185)  … when he thinks, he thinks only of his own welfare, the welfare of others … the welfare of the whole world.