Soto Zen
-
The light will not break – Kusen Collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen Book Of Serenity, Case 36: Master Ma Is Unwell The Case: Master Ma was unwell. The monastery superintendent asked, “Master, how is your venerable state these days?”The Great Teacher said, “Sun face buddha, Moon face buddha” Commentary: “unwell” is a euphemism. Master Ma (Baso) was mortally ill, and died the following day. Sun
-
Body of the Ground – Kusen Collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen No. 91 “Those who fall to the ground get up relying on the ground” Interdependent origination is difficult for us because we have an unexamined idea of time: it is like an arrow, going from past to future, yet past, present and future don’t have equal weight. The past is like an accumulating
-
Momentary State – Kusen Collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen Zazen is often called the mountain still state, the balanced state. What we need to understand is that the state is momentary. It is a quality of this moment. Not the person, the moment. This moment rolls in and out of balance. When out of balance, self, world and linear time all arise,
-
Listen with Our Listening – Kusen Collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen A pernicious and invisible delusion for practitioners is that there is an inside and an outside to experience: We should cleanse inner experience by eradicating thoughts and noise, and our experience of the world will be transformed. But of course, there isn’t an inner and an outer, there’s just this experience, within which
-
Smeared Across Time – Kusen Collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen Poetry Dogen’s ‘Everyday Life’ [adapted] On Unseen MountainA scarecrow isNot in vain Commentary: The scarecrow standing over a small rice paddy would often be dressed in black, like a monk. He protects that which feeds all beings. So, Dogen is talking about the practitioner and the dharma, and the relationship between them. Because
-
Full Dynamic – Kusen collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen When we do zazen, we may imagine that we are sitting quietly. But our weight is dropping down into the earth. We are pushing the earth with all our strength. And the earth is pushing back. We can feel this push up our spine, up through the top of our head. There is
-
Space, Earth and Sky – Kusen collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen We can talk of our practice and life in terms of form and emptiness, or delusion and enlightenment. We can also talk of both in terms of ground and space, earth and sky, heaven and earth. In Inmo, Dogen comments on the phrase “Those that fall to the ground get up relying on
-
Mountain Still Still – Kusen collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen We are told that we should sit like a mountain. Zazen is described as the still-still state, the mountain – still state. The mountain is the ground made visible. Just because the mountain endures and accepts everything, we cannot say it has no feeling. Because it is the ground made visible, it is
-
Myriad – Kusen collaboration with John Fraser
John’s Kusen A principal way in which we maintain ourselves in delusion is imagining that our life and practice should be something other than it is. We locate delusion in the wrong place. We imagine that our transient thoughts and emotions are obstacles, and if somehow we got rid of them, we wouldn’t be deluded