TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST
Episodes
Thursday Sep 29, 2011
October 1st, 2011- OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI!
Thursday Sep 29, 2011
Thursday Sep 29, 2011
The Talk this time will be on Master Hongzhi's 'Guidepost of Silent Illumination' ...
http://www.treeleaf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4226
A little more about Master Hongzhi (Wanshi in Japanese) here ...
http://www.elqui.mailworks.org/Hongzhi-Zhengjue/index.html
And for our true "Dharma Wonks", an essay by Soto teacher, translator and historian Taigen Dan Leighten on ...
Hongzhi (Silent Illumination), Dogen and the Background of Shikantaza
http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/articles/the_art_of_just_sitting
Please visit the forum thread here!
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: Wonder
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
Please visit the forum thread here!
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (IV) - EYE OF STORM
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
Sunday Sep 25, 2011
TODAY'S SIT-A-LONG WAS PRE-RECORDED LAST WEEK BECAUSE JUNDO IS IN NORTHERN JAPAN TODAY, IN THE REGION HIT BY THE EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI/NUCLEAR ACCIDENT AND HIT AGAIN BY LAST WEEK'S BIG TYPHOON
Daily life is filled with many storms. They blow around us great and small, and the circumstances of life can sometimes knock us right off our feet! They blow within us, as the mind reactively rages and storms with emotions and thoughts about those circumstances ... fears, "what if's", anger, clutching, resistance, all manner of mental lightning and thunder.
Today's passage of the Xin Xin MIng counsels us not to become mentally entangled in the outside storms. Be serene, allow, 'let go', do not judge ... experience the wholeness of life, both clear and sunny times and storming days. However, neither seek to remain trapped in the calm, quiet, still, boundless "eye" at the center of the storm which Zazen reveals. Rather, know BOTH AT ONCE, AS ONE ... the calm that is the storm, the stillness at the heart of each and every chaotic gust, a subtle serenity and 'allowing' even when terrible and deadly winds rage within and without. Find the wholeness of 'Eye' and 'Storm'. Neither seek to be totally unmoving, stiil, frozen or passive, nor let life and the mind blow one around wildly here and there. Rather, live stillness in action.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness.
Sometimes I remember when we used the live in Florida, and some literal hurricanes came our way. One would try to take action while remaining calm and collected ... neither panicked nor passive, gathering water and supplies, battening down the windows. A time for action, yet hand-in-hand with inner stillness and balance, pre-storm Samu work practice! On the other hand, should we try to artificially "stay calm", try forcibly to hold down the mind, the thoughts-emotions might start running even more like a freight train! Instead, I remember spending a couple of nights huddled in a dark closet with my family, the walls shaking and windows breaking. Moments of fear might come and go, and thoughts of "what if the roof comes off!" ... the mind's storm reacting to the storm outside. However, one could also know calm and "allowing" amid the terrible noise and commotion, not entangled by the circumstance, calm even as the storm did its worst. I would sit Zazen there, and at some point just let the storm do what it would ...
... as if throwing out one's arms, merging into the sound, letting the wind carry one where it will.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended
Please visit the forum thread here!
Tuesday Sep 20, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: An URGENT ANGO CAUTION!
Tuesday Sep 20, 2011
Tuesday Sep 20, 2011
I would like to offer an important reminder and CAUTION to ALL THOSE UNDERTAKING ANGO, RAKUSU SEWING FOR JUKAI and such at Treeleaf ...
... both those who say "it is all going well" ... and those who say "it is not going well" ...
... those who say that "all has been smooth as silk" ... and those who have encountered bumps and places to trip ...
... those who say they have met every goal they set for themselves ... and those who have not.
Do not forget about "Goalless Goals", about having no place to fall even when we trip and fall! There is no place not the "place for Ango" when lived as such!
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY!
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (III) - AT THE MALL!
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011
Wednesday Sep 14, 2011
The town next to ours here in Ibaraki, Japan, is known for two attractions: Its Giant Buddha Statue, over 100 meters tall (never too big!)... and the new "Outlet Mall" looking like it could be transplanted right from Southern California, each clearly seen from the other.
What better place than the mall to look at today's passage from the Xin Xin Ming?
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Nevertheless, we run to the mall, credit cards in hand, to fill temporarily the "lacking" and boredom we feel. Here are the perfect cards to bring!
The advertisements on TV show us that there can be "no excess", that one can never have a big enough house or new enough car, never enough money in the bank. But that is not quite what the Buddha had in mind by "nothing is in excess". Rather, nothing is ever lacking ... nothing is ever in excess ... so live with moderation, simplicity. Sure, there is no need for lay folks to live like monks ... but know what one truly needs for life, appreciate the simple and small, do not be a slave to wants and material things.
In fact, in the Buddha's Mall, nothing is ever lacking or overstocked, there's is always an open parking space ... and the best stuff is totally free!
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.
Sunday Sep 11, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: No views, please
Sunday Sep 11, 2011
Sunday Sep 11, 2011
Koun Ejo's text is here:
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/C%20-%20Zen/Ancestors/Zen%20Master%20Ejo/Absorption%20in%20the%20Treasury%20of%20Light.pdf
gassho to all
Taigu
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHOLENESS
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
Today's talk was offered during our September ZAZENKAI to make the start of our annual JUKAI (Undertaking the Precepts) season of Rakusus sewing, sitting and Precepts study, as well as the continuation of our ongoing ANGO (90-Day Special Practice Period) at Treeleaf Sangha ...
If I were pressed to describe the heart of all our Practices in one word ... Zazen, living by Precepts, all we do from sewing a Rakusu to bowing to chanting a Meal Gatha ... that one word is WHOLENESS.
This way allows us to realize ... and to make real in this life ... that Wholeness that is all things, that is you and me too. It is a Wholeness that sweeps in even the seeming broken pieces, both the happy and sad, the ups and downs, the beautiful and ugly. Somehow, this Way allows us to experience the Wholeness that is each and all, all along ... and to avoid perspectives and behavior that cause us to see and make this world, our lives, as broken into shattered pieces. It is a Wholeness often hidden in the divisions and frictions of the ugly mind, yet never truly hidden to a Buddha's Eye.
................ WHOLENESS
TODAY'S TALK (ABOUT 20 MINUTES) WAS PART OF OUR MONTHLY ZAZENKAI, AND IS FOLLOWED BY A SHORT PERIOD OF ZAZEN and KINHIN
Please visit the forum thread here!
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (II)
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
Thursday Sep 08, 2011
Last year I spoke about the little girl that my wife and I have been trying to adopt from China for five years to no avail, caught in red tape and creeping bureaucracy. She is just a name to us, a shadow, an empty child's room that has gathered dust. Our little son always asks for his absent sister, year after year. Now, after much pushing through obstacles, wrangling with regulations, negotiating, simple waiting (there are so many families in like position, and we did not want to push ahead of others, so waited our turn like everyone else), procedures and endless forms, this year's earthquake and adventures, adoption and immigration lawyers and legal fees to fix the tangled legal snafu, there is a good chance (too soon to be sure yet) that she will come to us by the end of this year!! :)
If all goes forward (we'll see), 51 year old me is gonna be daddy to a 1 year old!
Some things in life are WORTH PROTESTING FOR, SHOUTING FOR, FIGHTING FOR ... WITHOUT VIOLENCE OR ANGER, OF COURSE! Be it a wrong to right, a war to stop, an injustice to prevent, a disease to cure ... it is okay to take to the streets (like those monks in Burma did), fight the good fight ... if peacefully.
Yet today's passage from the Xin Xin Ming tells us:
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
Having no opinions, no for or against ... yet standing up for what's right? Sounds like a great contradiction! These need not be in the least! Opinions with equanimity, pushing forward with no place to get, protest hand-in-hand with total acceptance!
Seen with a Buddha's eye ... there is no contradiction at all.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.
Please visit the forum thread here!