Sublime

are we practicing just to express this limitless being, or because we think we’re not a limitless being? And once we discover we are a limitless being, will we continue practicing? Well, of course. That’s what limitless beings do. This is Dogen Zenji’s practice-enlightenment, practice-realization. This practice itself expresses the limitlessness th

As the Zen master Suzuki Roshi says: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

The koan’s been working on me, and I on it. For a while, I’ve been working on the idea that the koan itself is a container, like this: “I don’t need to work on anything else, just these words of the koan; I don’t need to fall apart if I’m having a bad day.” The big negative emotions aren’t scaring me. I like to see how they feel in my body rather t

Although both Buddhism and psychoanalysis can be said to share a common goal of relieving suffering, Kodo Sawaki Roshi’s admonition that zazen is “useless” should put us on notice that the “relief” being offered may be either indirect at best or, more likely, wholly different from whatever sort of relief we had in mind when we began to practice.

With his Zen sense of restraint he pushed the focus of the tea ceremony away from ostentatious shows of wealth and toward the spiritual communion of two or more people who, in a state of calm and controlled abandon, could meditate on the beauty and transience of life. Although Sen no Rikyu is often credited with being the father of the tea ceremony

The ground of the true artist includes peace and coolness, as well as unconditional beauty. It is free from neurosis.

Hui-neng’s teaching is that instead of trying to purify or empty the mind, one must simply let go of the mind-because the mind is nothing to be grasped. Letting go of the mind is also equivalent to letting go of the series of thoughts and impressions (nien) which come and go “in” the mind, neither repressing them, holding them, nor interfering with