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Treeleaf Zen

. In Dogen-speak … wholehearted Practice is realization … … each moment of Practice is purely what it is … … Zazen is enlightenment itself. Therefore, we do not discuss intelligence as superior and stupidity as inferior. Let us not choose between clever persons and dull ones. If we make effort devotedly, that is just…

. The classical pianist, Arthur Rubinstein, was once approached on a New York street near the grand concert hall, Carnegie Hall, and asked, “Pardon me sir, but how do I get to Carnegie Hall?“ Rubinstein replied, “Practice, practice, practice.“ Therefore, we do not discuss intelligence as superior and stupidity as inferior. Let us not choose…

.In our Zen Practice … … to be intelligent is a hindrance, if we are overly analytical, philosophical, lost in words … … while being simple is a ‘natural zen’, if we are accepting, present, open to life. Yet to be intelligent is a benefit, for we can study the philosophy of Buddhism, learning from…

.Monks are on the march in Burma. Should Buddhists engage in protests? Is it in keeping with our Precepts? In fact, should we hold political views at all, knowing that all such views, and human opinions, are ultimately illusion? And if so, which political views are Buddhist ‘Right’ views? Can we hold views and drop…

Master Dogen, and all other Zen Teachers, speak of our experiencing this world before labeling sights and sounds, without thought and opinions, through the Practice of Zazen. … But is such a strange experience of the world ‘Real’?. Recent neurological research indicates that our experiences of timeliness, self-lessness, oneness and the like during Zazen may…

If you say that making a fist, giving a shout, holding a staff or showing a needle are but ordinary actions … … you are absolutely right, yet completely wrong. If you say that they are magical actions that swallow the universe … … you are absolutely wrong, while completely right. In her lectures on…

. Zazen is a ‘reset’ button on the human brain and our thinking, allowing a balance and clarity free of assembled opinions, memories, dreams, categorizations, judgments, likes and dislikes. The world is thereby perceived as free and simple. Dropping our sense of a separate ‘self’, we drop the many ways in which that ‘self’ resists…

. Nothing to think. No opinions. No names. No comparisons. We see in the past that those who transcended the ordinary and transcended the sacred and those who died while sitting or died while standing, relied totally on this power. Moreover, changing of the moment through the action of a finger, a [flag]pole, a needle,…

. Traditionally, Zen Teachers would give a shout of ‘KATSU’ … arising from somewhere, spreading everywhere … beyond thinking or discrimination … power to swallow the universe whole …. . … Such as in these stories of Master Rinzai (who was a little physical): A monk asked: “What is the essence of Buddhism?“ Master Rinzai…

.Yesterday trains, now planes … My family and I are heading back to Florida for a few weeks. We have to pack up things, say farewell to a few friends, after many years of splitting our time between there and Japan. Plane trips always are particularly good times for Zazen, in part due to an…
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