Student: I’ve been struggling a lot recently, and I would appreciate your pointing finger. I’ve been struggling with the kind of life I live. Every day I go to work for a big corporation, and every day I hear over and over how we need to make more money and push people to buy more, […]
Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don’t worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only […]
This world is already complete before anything can be said about it. Then why do we have sutras and dharma talk and articles, such as the one you are reading now? It is only because we forget that we are already complete that we have all these words. Dharma talks and kong-ans and poems and […]
Dear Sangha, We are entering a new decade in 2020. In this world, many changes are happening at exponential speed. As natural process goes, the good comes with the bad. We see both laudable feats in science and technology, at the same time more frequent and unpredictable climate related disasters and now Covid-19, all over […]
Since most people are not aware of their karma, they cannot connect the dots between cause and effect. Only sometimes, when results happen immediately after the cause—for example, when we put our finger into boiling water—are we able to connect those dots and learn the lesson. With karma, we only have a choice: either karma […]
We come into this world empty-handed. What do we do in this world? Why did we come into this world? This body is an empty thing. What is the one thing that carries this body around? Where did it come from? You must understand that, you must find that. So, if you want to find […]
Practicing with don’t-know means practicing with focused awareness coupled with the question, What is this? When something happens as huge as the Earth’s climate change, it can be difficult to face it and to know what to do. There can be the tendency to want to put our heads in the sand. When I first […]
Student: What is the relationship between asking “What am I?” and the flow of thoughts, perceptions, etc.? For example, do you address the question to particular thoughts, pains in the knee when sitting, etc.? When a thought comes, do you ask whom this thought is coming to? How do you work with problems such as […]
Once a student went to the Zen Master and said, “My meditation is horrible!! I feel so distracted…. my legs hurt… sometimes I fall asleep. It is just horrible!!” The teacher replied, “Don’t worry, it will pass.” A week later, the student came back to his teacher and said, “My mediation is wonderful!! I feel […]
In Zen we talk a lot about life and death and sometimes we may take this literally. But life and death happen in this moment, right in front of our eyes. “Life and death” point to the never-ending appearance and disappearance of phenomena. If you pay attention when you are sitting in meditation, and even […]