It is often said that Buddhist groups in the West are not very welcoming of children, and miss chances to communicate basic teachings and practices to kids. In both Asian Buddhism and for other religions in the west (but, somehow, not so much for "Western Buddhism"), "religious holidays" can be a time for families to unite, to bond through customs and practices, and to bring children into the spirit of the time through the celebration. Holidays can be an important time to expose children to Budd...
Dec 18, 2010•10 min
What is the meaning of Koku? What is Koku? What is not Koku? Visit the Forum for this topic!
Dec 13, 2010•10 min
So many folks are losing their jobs these days, sometimes after many years of loyal and hard work at a business. Almost nothing more to do but let it go, move on, trying to keep a roof over our family's head. When I was a kid, my own father went through a hard bankruptcy after many years of being the president of his own small company making furniture. Leon was not a "Buddhist" by any means, but still I would call him one of those "naturally Zen" folks. I recall how, when he lost the business, h...
Dec 10, 2010•8 min
Rohatsu is coming. Celebration, quality time, quiet time. My wish is for you to enjoy your retreat. Not to rush it or wish you could be somewhere else. Just surrender to each action and moment as it is. Visit the Forum for this topic!
Nov 29, 2010•9 min
Our Annual 'AT HOME' Two Day 'ALL ONLINE' ROHATSU (Buddha's Enlightenment Day) RETREAT IS COMING UP ... to be LIVE NETCAST on the weekend of December 4 and 5, 2010. This Retreat celebrates the 'official' closure of our ANGO (100 day Special Practice Season) at Treeleaf, is a part of current preparations for our JUKAI (Undertaking the Precepts) Ceremony in January, and marks ROHATSU ... the traditional holiday in Japan celebrating the time of the Buddha's Enlightenment. I will also soon be postin...
Nov 24, 2010•11 min
Space...Gap or stretch? something out there or just plain close? Something we are part of or something we travel and walk through? Dogen, a simple man in medieval Japan, loved space. He wrote a whole collection of talks about it. Dogen made it very clear: we are space and as such we may experience space. Sitting with its moving boundaries and constant shivering-shifting is space itself. Carving a Buddha out of wood or stone? A Buddha made of naked hands, a Buddha of flesh is what Dogen was all a...
Nov 15, 2010•10 min
Someone asked me today during our Zazenkai if FOLKS IN ZAZEN CAN LEVITATE. Well, I am open minded about such things, but I have never seen so in person. The only photos I have seen look either like they have been photoshopped, or there is something wrong with the photo (such as the dark background and sleeves in these photos which surely hide a platform) ... ... or the person is "bouncing" more than flying ... I have had sensations like levitating off the ground during long Zazen, great lightnes...
Nov 13, 2010•8 min
It is hard for any of us to remember in this consumer driven world, but there is a wonderful freedom in living simple, living small. The psychologist Abraham Maslow said that man really needs just a few things for peace and happiness ... a certain amount of food and a healthy environment, shelter and physical safety, the love and friendship of others. Beyond that, anything else might be seen as a luxury! What is more, we can be prisoners of "things" if we crave them to excess, hang our happiness...
Nov 08, 2010•10 min
When Dogen was in China he wrote this: Break open a single particle and all the sutras grow clear: the great merit-wheel of the dharma turns as a whole. The womb of a donkey gives birth to the noble horse Each time you look, you'll see it new. Mysteriously, the skin-bag is the Buddha field. Even a failure, imperfect, raw, half-baked, crooked, call-it-whatever, everytime it will shine, both different and the same. This endless practice shows that impermanence is the body of Buddhas. Nothing you c...
Nov 01, 2010•10 min
I hear from folks every day touched by the bad economy ... jobs lost, houses foreclosed, marriages under stress, people in crisis. These are hard times for so many. Over the coming weeks, I will offer a series of talks on what Buddhism has to teach about the economics of "hard times". Some of it will cover big topics that impact the whole system, with our consumerism, materialism and wasted resources. The future is at stake! But some of it is small, and right at home. Today, we will start with a...
Oct 30, 2010•7 min
"EVEN AS" ... an ordinary phrase that one hears used a lot around here: Drop all thought of "this and that" ... even as we live in a world of "this and that" ...Drop all thought of anything to achieve ... even as we keep moving forward to get things done ... Drop all thought of anyplace to go ... even as we have places to go and people to see. Drop all thought of "time" ... even as we watch the clock. This even as sounds so ordinary ... even as nothing is ordinary! Today’s Sit-A-Long video follo...
Oct 28, 2010•6 min
A frequent visitor to our Sangha gifted us with a lovely post ... on Zazen and choices ... on "sitting with" questions ... Zazen is compass-ionate Yes, folks, indeed it is. Take what is tumultuous, sit it down in zazen Like a true compass, zazen points And in that pointing, all directions thereby are known Take what is submerged, sit it down in zazen Like a bubble of air, tugging toward ‘up’ No amount of being rolled around by life’s undertow Can mask the fact ‘Up’ is ‘up’ zazen, if not now, in ...
Oct 25, 2010•10 min
Well, the cat is home from the hospital ... minus his tail, bandaged up and down. Somehow, he seems okay with it ... too "simple minded" and "dumb" to rehash the past, worry about his limited future, his options, to be traumatized by the drama, concerned about his scarred looks, to mourn for his missing tail. He just sits with it all ... and purrs. Oh, what we might learn from poor, dumb animals! Where did the cat's tail come from, where did it go? Visit the forum thread here!...
Oct 22, 2010•6 min
This lovely poem of Dogen is an attempt to convey through sound and breaths his real and original face. The mountain of samadhi, the moon of awakening, the white and changing nature of rice, cloud and water. This is also a precise description of what takes plcae when one sits, the no-self being realised when everything is invited adn included in a lively process of expanding in all directions. On a portrait of myself 1249, Echizen Fresh, clear spirit covers old mountain man this autumn. Donkey s...
Oct 18, 2010•11 min
NOTE: PART OF END OF TALK WAS CUT OFF ... BUT THE POINT GETS ACROSS! There's an old Chinese story about the son and the broken leg ... A farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to console him over his terrible loss. The farmer said, "What makes you think it is so terrible?" A month later, the horse came home--this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer's good fortune. Such lovely strong horses! The farmer...
Oct 16, 2010•7 min
An old Zen poem, the 'Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi' ... When the wooden man begins to sing, The stone woman gets up to dance. Visit the Forum for this topic!
Oct 13, 2010•10 min
It’s almost to the point that there’s a flavor of Buddhism for everyone, especially in the West! From A is for Amida to Z is for Zen, there are groups and teachings of all stripes … the monastic and the “out in the world” types … traditional and tradition breaking … many teachers in between, mixing and matching. The Western Buddhist world comes in ten thousand colors and flavors! And that can be GOOD! I have never been a “my way or the highway, one size fits all” kind of Buddhist. Different folk...
Oct 09, 2010•9 min
The topic came up in another thread about worrying too much about what others think of us ... I have a tendancy to take a lot of what people say to me, personal. ... Can anyone give me some tips from a buddhist or zen-perspective, how to stop myself from constantly being so busy with what other people think of me (or, better put: what I think that other people think of me) Link to thread Well, ultimately there is no "you" there, nor "others" ... so no need for you to worry what others think! How...
Oct 06, 2010•10 min
Dogen writes: Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?" "Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche repli...
Oct 03, 2010•11 min
Last time, in our series on Zazen for Beginners (we are all always beginners), I used the analogy of clouds of thoughts and emotions drifting through an open, clear, boundless blue sky. I said, in Shikantaza “Just Sitting” Zazen, we do not resist the clouds, do not attempt to silence the thoughts and emotions forcefully. Instead, we just return our attention again and again to the clear sky, and allow the clouds to drift out of mind. Be focused on “everything and nothing at all,” just as the sky...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
Rev. Taigu continues his comments on sitting posture for beginners. (We are always beginners.) He says: “What I am suggesting is to give the body-mind a direction, namely to sit up but not to do it. If you instruct yourself to sit straight and do it, with a straight spine, all you are going to do is to use a lot of tension and will end up taking a very rigid, military-like position. Once you instruct but drop the doing, the undoing takes place and gets the body-mind free. You cannot do an undoin...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
We continue our video series on how to do Zazen, and how to allow the thoughts and emotions that appear during Zazen to drift from mind. I often use the analogy of clouds (of thought and emotions) drifting in and out of a clear, blue spacious sky (a mind open and clear of thoughts).Our mind in Zazen may be compared to the sky; We are open, clear, spacious, boundless, like the clear blue sky… Our attention is focused on everything and nothing in particular, just as the sky covers all the world wi...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
It is important to understand from the very outset of beginning practice that Shikantaza (“Just Sitting”) Zazen is a radical, to-the-marrow, dropping of all need to attain, all “running after.” And we work very very diligently to attain this “non-attaining!“ Last time, I compared it to a foot race in which we keep on pushing forward for our whole lives, but knowing that each step-by-step of the race itself is perfectly “just running.“ No destination to “get to”… the trip itself is the destinatio...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
Rev. Taigu offers a few more perspectives on the “sitting” of “just sitting.” He says: Sitting on a cushion is what we normally do. The actual flexibility of this cushion called a zafu makes it possible to position it at an angle which makes sitting much more comfortable. A zafu is a very personal item and one should search around to find the right thickness for the cushion. When putting hands together to form the zazen mudra, we usually put the left hand on top of the right, palms up and thumbs...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
Continuing our “How to” series on Zazen… Shikantaza “Just Sitting” is an unusual way of meditation, and might be compared to running a long distance foot race in a most unusual way. In most ordinary races, people run to win something, seeking to cross the finish line at the end of the course, far down the road and over the distant hills. So the runners keep on pushing ahead, striving with all their might to get to that goal, the crossing of which will finally make them victors. In Zen, that dist...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
There was a devastating earthquake in the news yesterday — great human suffering. So much sadness in this world… war and violence, poverty, hunger, disease. Yet, in our Shikantaza Zazen, we are to instructed to sit with life without thinking “good” or “bad,” dropping all resistance and judgments about how things are, not wishing that our self or the world ’should be’ or ‘had better be’ some other way than just as we find them. We drop all thoughts of “good” and “bad,” “right” vs. “wrong,” “just”...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
Like me (Jundo Cohen), Rev. Taigu Turlur is also teacher at Treeleaf Sangha. Born in France in 1964, he started Zazen early — at age 13! — and received Shukke Tokudo ordination in 1983 — at age 18! — from Rev. Mokudo Zeisler of the Deshimaru Lineage, and Dharma Transmission from Chodo Cross in 2003. A lifelong student and servant of sewing the Kesa (Buddhist robes), he now resides near Osaka, Japan. Taigu will be speaking in our series “Zazen for Beginners” (because we’re always beginners) on si...
Sep 28, 2010•9 min
Continuing our series “Zazen for Beginners” (because we’re always beginners) ... Here’s a basic perspective of Buddhism: Our mind creates conflict and separation from this life/world because our mind is constantly filled with thoughts dividing this from that, worries and “what if’s“, desires and “if only’s,” judgments of good and bad and high and low, resistance to situations, fears for the future and regrets about the past … all kinds of junk in the mental trunk. In this way, our “self” creates...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
So, today, let's begin “Zazen for Beginners.” Because we’re always beginners. We’ll talk the basics of “Just Sitting” Shikantaza Zazen… There’s a bit more to “Just Sitting” than “just sitting around.“ In a series of talks over the coming days, Taigu and I will discuss this and that about “Just Sitting,” which has much to do with dropping thoughts of “this” and “that.” We’ll talk about where you can expect to “go” in your practice, and what you can expect to attain, which is, of course … ABSOLUTE...
Sep 28, 2010•10 min
Rev. Taigu closes his series on the Ten Oxherding Pictures… “In the world, entering the marketplace… as we get up and leave our hermitage, we just don’t leave Shikantaza behind. If we do so, what would be the real meaning of our practice? Merging with people, being nobody, we disappear into the crowd. But we let the life of Shikantaza shine through and reveal the real face of this, every single sentient being is truly met and perceived. We don’t teach or instruct, but open our hands, our eyes an...
Apr 12, 2010•10 min
