Podcasts

Zen practice goes deeper than New Year’s resolutions; deeper than just deciding to start again. In our way of practicing, the way we start again is by giving up everything–to give up all sorrow and to give up all joy. When we do this, we find the present moment: sparkling,

Jesus was born in a lowly place. Buddha, on the other hand, came from nobility, as a prince. But he had to leave that place and go into the wild. It was only there after he’d humbled himself and lost everything that he could be born anew.

Whenever you’re not thinking, just experiencing, that is your Buddha mind. However, once you think “I’m experiencing Buddha mind” you’re no longer experiencing it! “Mirror mind” is another way of expressing this concept, and illustrated by the story of the fifth and sixth patriarchs of Zen. Weston T. Borden speaks

Ryokan, whose name means “great fool, good and broad”, was empathetic to a fault, unafraid to show emotion or use emotion as a teaching. Koshin Cain speaks at the Zen Center on December 11, 2016.

We’ve covered a lot of ground looking at the Heart Sutra–hopefully by now the sutra is more alive for you. The hard work we’ve been doing in sesshin is learning to lighten our load, to get a taste of the freedom to move; to just go along for the ride.

The last night of sesshin is sometimes a time when we lean forward into the next day and our preparations for going home. Try to plant firmly in this moment here and now. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at the fall sesshin.

What are we to make of the lines in the Heart Sutra saying “no eyes, no ears, no tongue..”? There’s a truth underneath us having things like tongues, ears and eyes. The Heart Sutra points to our human tendency for rigid categorization. Koshin Cain speaks at the fall sesshin,

The striking of the han is a call to recommit to this practice; to notice change. Likewise, sesshin is a call to feel yourself change; to feel what it’s like to move with time. Koshin Cain speaks at the fall sesshin.

We see form more concretely than emptiness, but the Heart Sutra is telling us to delve deeper into form as well as emptiness. Form and emptiness are equivalent and completely intertwined. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at the fall sesshin.

It’s actually kind of good to get sideswiped by something that throws you off completely and you have to start from scratch. These are the real gifts we get from practice. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at the fall sesshin,