By: Eihei Dogen
“Even if we don’t have lofty temple buildings, if we practice, the place can be called a dojo of ancient buddhas.”
“We hear that ancient people practiced on the ground or under a tree. Such places are sacred forever. A single person’s continuous practice creates a dojo for many buddhas.”
Commentary by Shohaku Okumura: “We don’t need a formal zazen hall. When we vow to establish a dojo or sangha we should not forget this.”
The sailor cannot see the north, but knows the needle can.
By: Katagiri Roshi
Being told that it’s impossible,
One believes, in despair, “Is that so?”
Being told that it is possible,
One believes, in excitement, “That’s right.”
But whichever is chosen,
It does not fit one’s heart neatly.
Being asked, “What is unfitting?”
I don’t know what it is.
But my heart knows somehow.
I feel an irresistible desire to know.
What a mystery “human” is!
As to this mystery:
Clarifying
Knowing how to live
Knowing how to walk with people
Demonstrating and teaching,
This is the Buddha.
From my human eyes
I feel it’s really impossible to become a Buddha.
But this “I,” regarding what the Buddha does,
Vows to practice
To aspire
To be resolute,
And tells me, “Yes, I will.”
Just practice right here, now
And achieve continuity
Endlessly
Forever.
This is living in vow.
Herein is one’s peaceful life found.
By: Ken McLeod
If compassion is the wish that others not suffer, one approach, certainly, is to address material and emotional needs—struggles with poverty, hunger, illness, and fear in all of their innumerable combinations, as well as the many ways in which people are treated as less than human. This form of compassion seeks to alleviate suffering and pain as much as possible and takes expression in society as kindness, care, and justice.
To bring an actual end to suffering is another matter entirely. Suffering comes to an end only when a person is so in touch with life that he or she is completely at peace, regardless of physical or emotional circumstances. The wish to help others find that kind of peace is a very different form of compassion.
Bodhicitta evolves out of this second kind of compassion. Bodhicitta, as awakening mind, is the intention to awaken to life in order to help others awaken to life. It is not simply a feeling or an emotion or a sentiment. It has a vertical dimension that runs at right angles to our social conditioning and embraces a knowing, a seeing, into the nature of experience itself. It may grow out of a compassion that sees to alleviate suffering, but it is qualitatively different.
Bodhicitta permeates every aspect of Mahayana teaching and practice. Broadly speaking, it is a quality (many might say it is the quality) that moves us in the direction of awakening.
From: Bodhicitta Explained (Tricycle magazine, Summer 2018)
By: Norman Fischer
Real altruism isn’t self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, a guilt-driven sense that we should be good, we should be nice, we should be kind. It is the profound recognition that self and others are not fundamentally different, only apparently different. Because of this the range of activity and feeling of bodhicitta is much wider than we would expect. A whole world of altruism and its effects upon up before us. We now see that the only we that we could lover ourselves is by loving others, and the only way that we could truly love others is to love ourselves. The difference between self-love and love of others is very small, once we really understand. Taking this truth into our hearts and actions is truly life changing. And once we open to it, it becomes impossible to go back. It becomes impossible to fool ourselves anymore with selfishness and resentment. To be sure, we will probably have plenty of selfish and resentful feelings, but now we know them for what they are, and they are far less compelling, because we have seen for ourselves how stupid, how childish and blind such feelings actually are.
From: Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong
By: Taigen Dan Leighton
A key aspect of Bodhisattva practice is the commitment or dedication to the way of awakening and to carrying out this commitment and practice for the benefit of all. The aspiration to care for and to awaken all beings (in Sanskrit called bodhicitta, literally “enlightening mind”) is considered mysterious and auspicious. This heartfelt care for suffering beings and fundamental questioning into the meaning of our lives arises unaccountably amid the multitude of psychological conditionings in our experience, known and unknown…
Although bodhisattva qualities may unfold over great stretches of time, the initial aspiration of beginners seeking the Way is said to be identical in nature and value to that of an advanced bodhisattva.
By C.G. Jung
The serious problems of life are never fully solved. If ever they should appear to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost. The meaning and the purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly. This alone preserves us from stultification and petrification.
By Charlotte Selver
I don’t want to take away from you your discoveries. I don’t want to give you pre-chewed knowledge. I think you have enough of that. You have to get going yourself. One thing you probably have noticed—not only in what we say but in what we do in class: that the emphasis is on finding out for yourself. Not saying, “This is right,” and “This is wrong,” you know. Not giving instruction as to how to accomplish something, but giving the person an occasion to find out for himself. This is very basic in our work! Giving the honor to the person to explore, and not to teach him how things “ought” to be.
By Rev. Issho Fujita
Meditation practices which emphasize something psychological—thoughts, perceptions, feelings, visualizations, intentions, etc.—all direct our attention to cortical-cerebral functions, which I will loosely refer to as “Head.” Most meditation, as we conventionally understand it, is a work that focuses on the Head. In Oriental medicine we find the interesting idea that harmony among the internal organs is of greatest importance. All the issues associated with Head are something merely resulting from a lack of harmony among the internal organs, which are the real bases of our life.
Because of our highly developed cortical-cerebral function, we tend to equate self-consciousness, the sense of “I,” with the Head—as if the Head is the main character in the play and the body is the servant following orders from the Head. However from the point of view of Oriental medicine this is not only a conceit of the Head, but is a total misconception of life. Head is just a small part of the whole of life, and need not hold such a privileged position.
While most meditation tends to focus on the Head, zazen focuses more on the living holistic body-mind framework, allowing the Head to exist without giving it any pre-eminence. If the Head is overfunctioning, it will give rise to a split and unbalanced life. But in the zazen posture it learns to find its proper place and function within a unified mind-body field. Our living human body is not just a collection of bodily parts, but is an organically integrated whole. It is designed in such a way that when one part of the body moves, however subtle the movement may be, it simultaneously causes the whole body to move in accordance with it.
The entire article may be found in the Spring 2002 issue of Insight Journal, a publication of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
To harden into a Buddha is wrong.
Ikkyu (1394-1481)
By Zen Master Sokei An
Your body is not bounded by the surface of your skin, you know. The sun and the moon are your body. The ocean and rivers are your body. The whole universe is your body. The Buddha based his religion upon this Mind, this consciousness. Sometimes you call it “one-body.” Then you observe that your mind is as boundless as the sky, and the endless universe, and your present state, this moment is here…that is all. All the teachings are in your heart, they are inherent, the intrinsic law of your nature. You cannot find this anywhere outside yourself.
You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head. This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way. These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is itself the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state.
By Jane Hirschfield
It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.
It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.
At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?
Now it is almost over.
Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.
It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.
Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.
It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.
Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.
By Charles Brooks, from Reclaiming Vitality and Presence
The reader who is interested in such experimentation may feel like trying it out deliberately …[as we have practiced it]. This is fine if you have the time and patience. Otherwise, wait for some occasion when you are obliged to stand anyway. There are bound to be plenty of them. Perhaps you are waiting in line at the bank or in the supermarket or at some other location. Instead of allowing your energies to sour into impatience or boredom, you may channel then into experiments like these. You do exactly what feels agreeable and interesting, merely making the decision to forego your customary inertia and to give yourself, as fully as is practicable, to exploration. You may explore anything that comes to you. The only condition is that you give it your respect and time. If you can explore without hopes or expectations, but with the same kind of care you might give to doodling at the telephone, something will come of it.
By Charlotte Selver, from Reclaiming Vitality and Presence
I wish you would once in a while look into the eyes of a healthy baby, and would see with what earnestness, interest, great power of concentration—a basic saying yes—such a child has. The child doesn’t yet want anything special; it is equally interested in everything that comes. When the child takes something and looks at it from all sides, or when somebody goes through the room and the child’s while attention follows…that is how we started. And it is also what we can come to—when this natural inner drive for full relating is unearthed and set free.
We wouldn’t be all the time so full of expectations and wishes, but we would be seeing more clearly that any world in which we live can be as astonishing as the world of the baby. And then all things are precious.
From Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks, Reclaiming Vitality and Presence:
In Zen they say, “Buddha is in everybody.” That's not a shallow statement. It means something. Buddha is in everybody. Buddha is in you and in you and in you and in you. Buddha is in all of us. That means something in us knows. Something in us can teach us. Something in us can inform us how it wants to be. So that we can feel whether we are coming in touch with another person in such a way that we can be open for the other person, or whether we are not open for the other. We can feel whether we speak the truth or whether we go a little off the truth. We can feel whether we're putting pressure on something or whether we only give our weight to it. We can feel whether we allow our breathing to function as it wants to function or whether we manipulate it. We can feel whether we're dealing with a person and letting the person have his own way of being or whether we manipulate him. And so on and so on. In other words we have the ability within ourselves--if we become more awake--to feel more clearly what our own nature has to tell us. That's the thing that interests me.
From Charlotte Selver and Charles Brooks, Reclaiming Vitality and Presence:
We have nothing to teach you. We only help you to discover what is already there, inside you. Our method is that there is no method. It is a very sensitive inquiry, a very sensitive discovery which everybody makes for himself through his own experimentation into what we actually become aware of when we begin to use our biological equipment more sensitively, more sensibly. It's not an empty phrase to say, for instance, when something doesn't fit fully into reality that it is nonsense. And this sensing -- this possibility of becoming more alerted in our senses, and using them more fully and more altogether -- this is the content of our work.
Six Tenets of a Whole Life Path (from A Whole-Life Path: A Lay Buddhist’s Guide to Crafting a Dhamma-Infused Life, by Gregory Kramer):
Kramer identifies “six tenets” of what he calls a "whole life path". Writing from the perspective of a Theravada practitioner, he describes a practice of "the tenet sweep", where one asks, in sum, "What is my relationship to the Dhamma right now?" Kramer notes: "As you become more familiar with the content and attitude of the tenets, each bare tenet will reveal its full wisdom tone. Soon you might well be able to mentally touch each tenet using hardly any words. The tenet sweep is best undertaken with an attitude of kindness and patience. We are all ripening gradually in wisdom."
The “tenet sweep”:
1. Ground in the Dhamma. What teachings can I apply to my life right now? Do I sense the working of natural laws: in my mind, in relationship, in the world? Can I name them, learn from them? As I study or reflect or engage in conversation, am I considering what I am saying from the standpoint of the early Buddhist teachings? Other wisdom traditions?
2. Engage all the teachings as practices. Am I merely thinking about the Dhamma or actually practicing it right now? When I read or hear about a teaching, do I put it to work in my life? Which approaches to enacting the Dhamma fit best right now: close observation of thoughts and behaviors, deep reflection on the teaching, concrete physical actions and social engagement?
3. Exclude no moment, experience or teaching. Is this one moment, now, guided by wisdom? Am in excluding anything from the path: my intimate personal life, my art or craft, my playtime? Am I avoiding teachings that are difficult to understand? Am I excluding teachings that challenge my belief systems?
4. Find each teaching in the here and now. Whatever teaching or practice I’m reflecting on or enacting, do I feel it is available for me to experience right now? How is this teaching manifesting in my thought processes, in my bodily experience? What is deeply true in this teaching, and how does it feel to touch that truth here and now?
5. Let all the teachings in fully. Which teachings are closest to my heart right now? Which am I guarded against or pushing away? Can I feel the possibility of an unintoxicated mind, balanced and clear? Can I sense in my body the energy, challenge and possibility of the teachings? Am I moved and inspired by this Dhamma-rich path?
6. Engage the teachings individually, in relationship and socially. Can I feel that the person I am with right now is a spiritual friend? How am I treating them—with compassion, with generosity? How might we engage the path together, right now, in our conversation or what we’re doing? Could our togetherness be a doorway out of a heroic and lonely stance? How am I supported and morally challenged by society and humankind as a whole? How can I, alone and collaboratively, bring the wisdom of the Dhamma into these relational and social encounters?
Chanting meditation is an important aspect of daily Zen practice. At first you may not understand. But after you chant regularly, you will understand. Chanting meditation means keeping a not-moving mind and perceiving the sound of your own voice. Perceiving your voice means perceiving your true self or true nature. Then you and the sound are never separate, which means that you and the whole universe are never separate. Thus, to perceive your nature is to perceive universal substance. With regular chanting, your center gets stronger and stronger. When your center is strong, you can control your feelings, condition and situation.
[At Lotus Heart Zen] we practice together. At first, people come with strong opinions, many likes and dislikes. For many people, chanting is not easy: much confused thinking! However, when we do chanting meditation correctly, perceiving the sound of our own voice and those around us, our minds become clear. In clear mind, there is no like or dislike, only the sound of the voice. Ultimately, we learn that chanting is not for our personal pleasure, but to make our direction clear, in order to save all beings from suffering.
When you are chanting, you must perceive the sound of your voice, and when you do, you and the universe have already become one. Suffering disappears,; true happiness appears. This is called nirvana. If you keep nirvana, your mind is clear like space. Clear like space minds clear like a mirror. Red comes, red. White comes, white. Someone is happy; I am happy. Someone is sad; I am sad. Someone is hungry; give them food. The name for this is Great Love, Great Compassion, the Great Bodhisattva way. That also means Great Wisdom. This is chanting meditation, chanting Zen.
From The Teachings of Don Juan, by Carlos Castaneda
Submitted by Susan Suntree
Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think is necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same; they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor’s question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.