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Treeleaf Zen

How to “sit Zazen” when one has the flu, and can’teven sit? Just be “at one” with your runny nose, your aching bones, sneeze each sneeze as aperfect sneeze … and when you barf, taste that it is just the Buddha Barfing!   There is Just Barfing, and it is a wonder. That’s how.  …

The start of April is the day when we traditionally celebrate in the Zen world the birth of that great Vietnamese Zen Patriarch, Master ‘Duc Tho’ (or as he is more commonly known to those who love him ‘Su su’) Master Duc Tho is, of course, well known in Asia and, for the last few…

(BENDOWA XVI) The “Six Realms” refer to the six heavens, hells and earthly states into which one may be reborn in traditional Buddhist thought. SIX REALMS But, even if we do not take that literally, we can also say that this means just all sentient beings everywhere, throughout all space and time, many of whom…

(BENDOWA XV) “Tathāgata” is a name which can have several meanings and interpretations, including one who has thus gone and one who has thus come, or one who has found the truth. It may also be taken as the one who has gone to suchness or the one who has arrived at suchness Yet there…

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…

Just the other day, we could celebrate the warm coming of Spring …. It’s spring! But now, Spring is hiding itself, and a cold wet wind is blowing. All things come and go … I am reminded of this Koan (Blue Cliff Records 43) … A monk asked Master Dongshan, “Cold and heat descend upon…

(BENDOWA XIV) “Mudra” means a spiritual or powerful gesture, often performed with the whole body. In this case, “Zazen“. Uchiyama Roshi explains … “When one displays the buddha mudra with one’s whole body and mind” means with one’s three kinds of actions: physical, verbal and mental. We sit in full lotus with our body, put…

(BENDOWA XIII) We’ll spend a few days with the words of this passage from Bendowa. Here, Master Dogen presents his view that, as you sit Zazen, the stones, grass, trees and stars are sitting Zazen. All the Buddhas and Ancestors sit Zazen in that moment, all sitting Zazen through and as your sitting. And what’s…

.. Almost every day, somebody asks me to judge whether they are making “progress” in their Zen practice … a practice that’s based on dropping all idea of “progress”. Yet, there are some ways to know that there’s been some “progress”, though it’s usually something for the student to confirm for the student, more than…

.. More frequently than ya might think, no kidding … folks ask me for advice on things like what to do in the stock market? HUH? I think the picture below about captures my surprise! Do they ask their stock broker for spiritual guidance? I actually have little if anything to say on the subject…
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