Zen Space

If one has a practice of the Zen Buddhist kind, practice correctly and sufficiently, and with help of teacher and sangha, awaken. Practicing with the help of a teacher and sangha is advantageous but not necessary, according to the Buddha's own example. Old Golden-Face had five teachers. Yes, he sur...

Enver, The story of Mahakasyapa's awakening or realization is a great one. I'd say that ideally "Mahakasyapa's ' zen ' " is also ours (the one that is available to us, I mean, and whether we come realize it or not: "No-mind"). Of course, what's required to awaken to it -- realize it -- is correct pr...

Mason, another association strikes. I'm recalling the poetry contest between Hui-neng (who became the 6th Ancestor of Chinese Ch'an), and the head monk of the monastery (whose name we don't as readily remember, funny). ;) The head monk was guided by a "wiping-and-cleaning" notion of practice, to cha...

Mason, I think this could be an interesting thread. What, for you, is the essence of practice? Can you condense it into a few words? For me it would be: "Let go." Yes, this IS interesting. :) I've heard from other practitioners I've known in several sanghas their "practice words". Whether the recall...

If one has a practice of the Zen Buddhist kind, practice correctly and sufficiently, and with help of teacher and sangha, awaken. Awakening is the entry to the empty state, and, yes, to the lived- and living-experience of emptiness. Further practice after awakening can allow the continued dwelling i...

Things like this happen almost every week (on Zen Buddhist sesshin, or Ch'an Buddhist retreat).

The amazing days of our practice are not "over", by any means.

Strong practice, All,

--Joe

Did somebody say "Astronomy"?

Granted, going "back" 24 1/2 years, there, in that old. old reference. But the Universe -- or whatever it is we have here -- is quite a bit older.

--Joe

Just practice correctly, and the false 'mind' will "slow". Better, "die". REALLY slow. ;-) The true mind can/will then open its single wing and not be impeded by false appendages intervening. Not that there's a true mind. There's no mind, while one is awake. While one is not, or no longer awake, the...

Well, it is news to me that a student would work "in closest consultation" with other students about an assigned koan. I and all other students I knew always did our own work individually, as far as I know. Anything less would invalidate it. Also, for me, "accord" with the koan was always the consi...

I doubt that this may be truly Wabi-Sabi, ...but, that's part of the Art.

A temporary coffee-stain, on the O'keefe and Merritt porcelain stove top.

Title: "Sleep-Walker, With Elephant Trunk"

--Joe

Not my photo, in that I did not expose (photograph) it. Nonetheless, I'd like to share.

Interested readers could use this bookplate image to print onto gummed paper and paste into their own books. Or, employ variations thereof (or not of).

--Joe

Where is that Mason fellow?

rgds,

--Joe

True practice is the truest rest, sitting in the cave with the Elder and the community, when wordlessness and actionlessness is what constitutes communion and communication, ...after all is said and done (please take me literally/actually). This goes back a number of millennia, if not many. There ar...

Hi, Linda. All's well, I think. Do you mean that you did not post the text of the koan? Not sure how to interpret. Plus, I don't know what your saying "independently" means, here/there. Of course, koans can be discussed in terms of the moving-mind. But, that was never their purpose. That's my point ...

Better not to assume that ignorance can net any particular advantage, no.

--Joe

From The New Yorker:

What's the only thing proven to stop falling hair?

[SPOILER]

The floor.

The admission or observation, proper attribution, and identification of dependent origination is a part of the circumstance of the experience of it that eventuates at awakening, and in the weeks and months afterwards while still awake. Take it for a fact, otherwise, but it comes at nowhere near the ...

Mailbox repair. The sheet-metal formed clasp that held the mailbox door closed wore thin, over three decades, and parted (broke), from daily friction. I replaced it with a formed and carved piece of American Cherry (wood). So far so good, six months into the change. The mail-carrier complimented me ...

This crossed my path again this weekend. I have heard it many times. here u go: The Gateless Gate, by Ekai, called Mu-mon, tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps [1934], at sacred-texts.com 5. Kyogen Mounts the Tree Kyogen said: "Zen is like a man hanging in a tree by his teeth over a precipice. His hand...