Vine of Obstacles Zen Featured Vine of Obstacles Zen Training: What's the Point? Wholeheartedly doing the training just for the love of the buddhadharma.
Paid-members only Platform Sutra "Do I Need A Teacher or Not?" The Quirky Perspective of the Platform Sutra
Hakuin Featured True Kensho: An Ordinary Person Wakes Up "Remember that he was an ordinary person. Nevertheless, through only three days and nights of intensive zazen, he was able to clarify the meaning of his being. Where is your brave determination?"
Dogen Gifts for the Seven Wise Sisters from a Couple Brothers with the Same Mother Hakuin Zenji emphasizes the importance of dharma expression to benefit living beings, especially by offering poison words that disrupt delusions and allow the pure wind of wild awakening to blow forth.
Special Experiences Do Special Experiences Mean Anything? We're in a strange moment in Zen in the West where, in at least nine of ten zendos, all "experiences" are lumped together and dismissed.
Keizan Featured What Is The Heart of Zen? Reflections On The Transmission of Luminosity The Record of the Transmission of Illumination (J. Denkoroku) by Keizan Jokin Zenji (1264-1325) is one of the most important dharma texts available to us today - so important that the great master Harada Sogaku Roshi (1871-1961) chose it for his reformed koan curriculum. In a recent post, I shared
Keizan A Black Lacquer Person Runs Through the Night: The Sudden Awakening of Keizan Jokin Sudden, great awakening is the life blood of the Zen school, both Soto and Rinzai.
Awakening We Are All This Luminous Mind: The Possibility and Importance of Awakening An article by me (with the help of many friends) that appeared in Tricycle, 1/29/22. Their heading: "A Zen view of what awakening is and isn’t, with personal stories from contemporary practitioners."
