TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

October 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk (Wild Ways of the Precepts in Japan)

Reading: "Wild Ways of the Precepts in Japan"
It is not known if the precepts in sixteen articles resulted from
Dogen’s own innovation or if he borrowed this group from another source.
[Dogen, in a writing describing the ordination ceremony for his
priests] states that the ordination ceremony described therein is
exactly the same as the one conducted by [Dogen's Teacher in China]
Ju-ching in 1225 when he administered the precepts to Dogen. The
reliability of that assertion, however, seems doubtful. [from "Dogen and the Precepts" by Prof. Steven Heine]
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:October 2nd-3rd, 2015 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

September 2015 Talk - Make Room for the Misfits!

When SweepingZen asked for a talk on International Blasphemy Rights Day (September 30th), I joked that I do that with most of my posts!
A nice thing about Buddhists is that we rarely kill, burn at the stake
or imprison our critics, dissenters, heretics and the doctrinally
different (although we have our scattered extremists too, the same as
any religion). We are pretty non-violent, but even we aren’t totally
immune from forbidding and punishing blasphemy and unwelcome voices.
Keep room in Zen Buddhism for the misfits, square pegs, tradition
breakers and “original non-thinkers” on the edges. Learn to distinguish
the con artists, shysters, abusers and predators from those who have
simply walked their own path, attended the “monastery of hard knocks”,
are doing something good even if not how you would do it. Having “set standards” and “required training paths”
is useful and generally necessary for helping to assure substance,
experience, dedication and ethics in our teachers. Someone can do a lot
of harm when falling down in those things, like an untrained doctor or a
drunken lawyer. However, keep room for exceptions and “special cases”
too. Look at who the priest has become, not so much only how she or he
got there.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:INTERNATIONAL BLASPHEMY DAY: Make Room for the Misfits! »

September 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk (Ango Season Begins)

What is Ango in our day and time, for householders in the modern West? Is it Ango as the Buddha, Dogen and all the Ancestors Practiced?
The meaning of the Japanese word Ango [安居] (Skt : varsha or varshika; Pali: vassa ) is “tranquil dwelling”. The origin is the “rainy-season retreat” , the period when Buddhist monks in India stopped their travels and outdoor activities for the duration of the rainy season and gathered at some sheltered location to devote themselves to Practice, study and discipline. One practical reason was because the heavy rainfall made traveling and outdoor activities impractical. But it was also a time when the individual monks in Buddha’s time, spending most of the year scattered here and there in small groups or individually, could gather and unite as a community and Practice together. During the rainy season in India, monks traditionally dwelt in a cave or a monastery for three months—from the sixteenth day of the fourth month to the fifteenth day of the seventh month. During this period the monks learned the Buddha's teachings, engaged in meditation and other practices, and repented their harmful behavior and weaknesses. The tradition is said to have begun during the time of Shakyamuni, was brought to China, and in Japan the three-month retreat was first observed in 683. Now it comes to us.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:
September 4th-5th, 2015 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! ANGO SEASON BEGINS! »

August 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 6

We continue with Why Zen Students Fail!
One reason is because they trust the Zen Teachers too much sometimes.
Another reason is because they trust their Teacher not enough sometimes.
Sometimes they are blind to a Teacher's flaws, victims of excess devotion, faith and obedience (yes, it sometimes happens, as described HERE)
Sometimes students expect a Zen Teacher to be flawless, saintly and superhuman, and run away at the first sign of humanity.
Students should realize that the teachers are really just mentors,
"friends on the way", folks who have been around the block, guides who
have walked the path and can help point out the generally good
directions and the dangers and quicksand. Learn from the voice of
experience and the wise advice, but in the end, each student must do
their own walking.
In all cases, the student should learn to see through the Teacher to the Teaching, seeing this messy world and the Pure Land as One.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Why Zen Folks FAIL!! (6) - Trusting the Teacher »

August 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk

Today's Talk:
Theory of Zazen for Three Personality Types
Sankon-Zazen-Setsu by Keizan Zenji
(translation by YASUDA & ANZAN, with some adjustments from Masunaga and Kennett)
In traditional Buddhist descriptions, there the three levels of capacity that Buddhist practitioners exhibit (sankon 三根; Sk. trīṇi indriyāṇi): dull (donkon 鈍根), middling (chūkon 中根; Sk. madhya indriya), and sharp (rikon 利根; Sk. tīskṣṇa indriya) capacities. These are three different capacities that Buddhist practitioners exhibit.
Dogenologist & Historian Carl Bielefeldt comments (Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation, footnote 33 on p.152):
Here [in the “Theory of Zazen for Three Personality Types”] Keizan distinguishes three levels in the understanding of zazen (corresponding to the traditional Buddhist disciplines): the lowest emphasizes the ethical character of the practice; the middling, the psychological character; the highest, the philosophical. The second, he describes as ―abandoning the myriad affairs and halting the various involvements, ‖ making unflagging effort to concentrate on breathing or consider a koan, until one has gotten clear about the truth. (In the highest zazen, of course, this truth is already quite clear.) In his influential Zazen yojinki as well – though [Keizan] repeats the Fukan zazen gi passage on nonthinking—Keizan recommends the practice of kanna [Koan phrase centered Zazen] as an antidote to mental agitation in zazen (ibid. 497b).
Further reading for this talk is available in the Zazenkai forum thread:
August 2015 Zazenkai Forum Thread »

July 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 5

So many Zen students think that the longer they sit the better. They believe 10 years surpasses 10 months or 10 days, which must be better than 10 hours, which is better than 10 minutes or seconds. They treat Zazen like a taxi meter or points to rack up, the more they sit the closer they are to the goal. They equate more and more sitting with going deeper and deeper, or becoming more and more peaceful, or more and more "Buddha-like", or more and more "enlightened".
However, Zazen only truly hits the mark when all measure of time and score, goals and attainment are dropped away. Only then does a moment of sitting contain all time, only then does one realize the destination ever present. Zazen is thus very unlike many forms of meditation (not to mention very unlike our usual clock watching, tally counting, comparing and measuring, goal oriented attitude toward the rest of our busy lives) in which deeper and deeper attainments, and greater and greater achievements, add up with time. In Zazen, one attains the deepest attainment and the greatest achievement, namely, the timeless which is right in each tick of the clock, the goal ever reached again and again in each passing mile on the road across town. But one only realizes so when one sits as the still and round face of the clock which holds all time as the hands make their circles ...
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Why Zen Folks FAIL!! (5) - Watching The Clock Rackin Up Points »

July 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk

FOR TODAY's TALK: Soto Zen Teacher Kokyo Henkel explains the "basics" of Mirror Awareness very nicely …
The true nature of mind is mirror-like awareness, always just reflecting what’s happening, whether we notice this or not. It never shuts off or stops functioning, even when we’re completely engrossed in conceptual thinking or strong emotions. A mirror just receives whatever object is placed before it, neutrally and naturally. It has no opinions about the object. The mirror doesn’t prefer red over blue, it doesn’t discriminate among these things, and yet it doesn’t block them out, reject them, or alter them in any way. It is just open receptivity, without adding any commentary. … All these qualities of the mirror are also qualities of the nature of mind, the naturally present open awareness of Buddha-Nature.
… During zazen we can open to this receptive mirror awareness. If we try to look directly at it, try to grasp the mirror, we won’t be able to; we will only get to see our ideas of it reflected in it. Therefore the practice is, rather than trying to see the mirror, simply to be the mirror. If we try to be the mirror and also try to figure out what the mirror is, then such figuring is simply reflections on the mirror. It seems quite challenging to just reflect like a mirror, since we are so accustomed to discriminating, preferring, assessing, and getting caught up in the objects placed before us. Though it is challenging, it is also very simple, almost too simple for us to accept. http://sweepingzen.com/mirror-awareness-the-true-host
Further reading for this talk is available in the Zazenkai forum thread:
July 2015 Zazenkai Forum Thread »

June 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 4

Last time in this series on "Why Zen Folks FAIL!", we looked at NOT KNOWING HOW NOT TO CHASE! Folks don't know how to be totally still. This time, the reason "Zen Folks FAIL!" is because of complacently NOT KNOWING HOW TO CHASE! Folks don't know how to keep climbing and moving!
Saying about this life and world that "there is nothing in need of change" --does not-- mean "there is nothing in need of change". Simply because all things are "perfectly complete, just as they are", that --does not-- mean that all things are "perfectly complete, just as they are". Saying so is only from one beautiful perspective. In fact, to realize profoundly that "there is nothing in need of change", we must change our human tendencies of excess desire, anger, jealously and other divisive thoughts of ignorance. There is a lot about us in need of change in order to realize that nothing was ever in need of change from the first, not a drop.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Why Zen Folks FAIL!! (4) - NOT CHASING ENOUGH! »