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Treeleaf Zen

(BENDOWA XXI) As the chain reaction brought about by Zazen continues, we see all the world … earth, grass and trees, stones, wind, water, fire, other sentient beings … aid the person who sits Zazen to exhibit realization and know the Buddha’s truth. In turn, the person who sits Zazen, rising from the Zafu and…

(BENDOWA XX) In this section of Bendowa, Master Dogen is using some powerful images to describe a kind of chain reaction brought about by Zazen … The person who sits Zazen “drops body and mind”, thus attaining, experiencing and understanding the natural and pure mind of a Buddha. At that point, the person also, in…

(for technical reasons, there will be no sitting broadcast today) This is something I preach from time to time, but I thought it worth saying again. Perhaps it is good to shout it clearly. Namely, in Buddhism, we have a strange attitude toward life and the universe … I would not call us “theists“. And…

(BENDOWA XIX) Last time we saw how a moment of Zazen –is–Buddha sitting, makes all the world right, just the way everything should be.   But it is not so simple as just saying that, for it must also work the other way … and one must actually get free of body and mind, dropping judgments…

Please join our weekly “Live from Treeleaf” Zazenkai meditation … We start with 3 floor prostrations (or deep Gassho), then chant the Heart Sutra in ENGLISH (see below), then sit about 40 minutes of Zazen, then 10 minutes of Kinhin, closing with the chants of the “Verse of Atonement” and “Four Vows“.Please join in, one…

(BENDOWA XVIII) In other words …     In a moment of sitting Zazen, you and all things of the universe are no less than the Buddha sitting Zazen under the Bodhi Tree, attaining realization and commencing to teach (the meaning of “turn the Dharma Wheel“), expounding and expressing the profound state of Prajna. (Prajna is…

(BENDOWA XVII) In very poetic language below, using many Buddhist images, Master Dogen is expressing a taste of the deep inter-connection of all the world and all beings.  Well, recently someone in our Sangha wrote of a similar taste, but expressed in modern, ordinary language. Don’t let the “daily life” packaging, and references to “e-mail”…

(remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended) To subscribe to “Treeleaf Zen” click here.

I sometimes talk about an aspect of our Zen practice I call “acceptance without acceptance” … By that I mean an approach to all the ugly and painful aspects of life and this world which are just so hard (perhaps impossible) to accept. We can accept and not accept simultaneously, repair what needs to be…

DUE TO VIDEO RECORDING ISSUES (the recording stopped in the middle) … COMBINED WITH A CASE OF THE FLU (I fell off the Zafu twice and sneezed through my talk) … THIS IS A REBROADCAST OF THE MARCH ZAZENKAI … Please join our APRIL (really MARCH) MONTHLY 4-hour ‘Live from Treeleaf’ ZAZENKAI, recorded in “real…
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