500 Blessed Lives

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 3/26/25 - The Zen koan "Baizhang’s Fox" explores the nature of cause and effect (karma) and enlightenment and is taken up in this talk. Shugen Roshi explores how freedom is not about escaping cause and effect but understanding its nature, and seeing that we have an enormous effect through our thoughts, words and actions. Our intentions and perceptions are what truly binds us. Freeing ourselves and others involves shifting our understanding of how our intentions have much to do with karma—through our ways of working with causes and conditions—and not grasping on to fixed ideas or opinions.