TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

DON'T Sit-a-Long with Jundo: THE END OF TREELEAF!

It is the first day of April here in Japan, the start of Spring, and that is a time to think of endings and beginnings ...
SO, I AM VERY SAD TO ANNOUNCE THE END OF TREELEAF SANGHA as it has been until now ...
... and the BIRTH OF A NEW AND IMPROVED TREELEAF ...
We are just trying to make BUDDHISM SEXIER!
We asked for your suggestions, and we listened ... to all of them! Even the really really dumb ones!
In fact, this may be THE END OF BUDDHISM AND ZEN!
There is no Zazen sitting to accompany today's talk ... as we have done away with the sitting too. To be honest, I never really got much out of it.
Visit the forum thread here...or don't...whatever.

SIT-A-LONG with Taigu FUKANZAZENGI 5

Furthermore, the whole body far transcends dust and dirt: who could believe in the means of sweeping and polishing? In general, we never depart from the place where we should be: of what use, then, are the tiptoes of training?
De plus, le corps dans sa totalité est au delà de toute poussière, qui peut croire qu’il est besoin de l épousseter et le polir ? En général, jamais nous ne quittons cet endroit mémé, pourquoi se soumettre alors a un entrainement diligent?
This section refers to the legendary contest in the Platform Sutra between the talented and gifted student and the ignorant and inspired kitchen boy , Huineng, who will ultimately receive the transmission and robe.
The knowledgeable student writes...
The body is a Bodhi [Perfect Wisdom] tree,
the mind a standing mirror bright.
At all times polish it diligently,
and let no dust alight.
and Huineng answers:
Bodhi is no tree,
nor is the mind a standing mirror bright.
Since all is originally empty,
where does the dust alight?
Of course, both poems are valid. They complement each other, offering both sides of the same coin.
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: WHAT'S NEXT!?!

Almost each week someone asks me, "What comes next in my practice? How do I deepen it? What should I do now? What book should I read with all the secrets? I feel like something is still missing and that I must do more."
But how can I respond to such a question when the very heart of this Path is learning to live and be this life radically FREE OF THE NEED FOR 'WHAT'S NEXT', LIBERATED OF 'SOMETHING MORE THAT NEED BE DONE', FULFILLED OF 'ANYTHING MISSING'!
Oh, don't misunderstand. I typically respond that, together with daily sitting, there are some 'this and thats' that we can do to deepen our practice ... such as another 'Zen Book' to read or 'Zen Talk' to hear, studying a bit more of Buddhist and Zen teachings, attending more retreats, adding more practices such as Samu, Bowing, Chanting, Sewing, studying the Precepts or undertaking a Jukai, learning to bring 'Zazen' off the Zafu and to all aspects of life ... ALL ENRICHING WAYS TO DEEPEN THIS PRACTICE!
And, though there is "nothing ever missing or in need of adding and doing" ... that does not mean that there are not things to lose, gain or do! Learning to be free of the "need for change" is a REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE ... a change helped along by things we need to do and change, such as learning to be less driven by GREED, ANGER and IGNORANCE! In this crazy-sane practice, we master how to live 'without need for change' by changing some things about us ... including the view that anything is ever in need of change ... thus bringing about an EARTHSHAKING CHANGE in how life is encountered! Oh, a CRAZY-SANE KARMIC KATCH-22!
However, the fundamental Heart of this Path must remain learning to be so intimately At Home, At One with life ... that there is no need for "what's next" ... no hole to fill as "something missing". Our way to do so is simply to sit Shikantaza, dropping all thought and desire for "what's next" ... all while welcoming and embracing whatever comes next.
So, please learn ... in one's heart of hearts ... that "what's next" is learning to live freer and freer of "asking and needing, running after or away from 'what's next'"
I sometimes hear other teachers speak of flavors of Buddhism that promise to liberate us from this world, to encounter states of mind-and-body free of time and space! Many promise to take us from this world or ordinary being to another world or state of being. They seek for such states as "what needs to be done" and (hopefully, if the practice works out) "what's next". I don't much care for such Buddhism.
That's because this Way of Shikantaza, if properly mastered, liberates us from this world right in this world. Time and space are fully realized, dropped away and found again, in each instant of time and inch of space. Our way takes us from this world of ordinary being ... and leaves us squarely right back in this world of ordinary being ... NOW REVEALED AS ANYTHING BUT 'ORDINARY' ALL ALONG.
All that, simply by dropping to the marrow 'what's next'.
'What's next' then turns out to be ...
'NOTHING ELSE IS NEXT, THUS EVERYTHING IS NEXT!
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!

SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: Fresh wisdom

Don't become a living clutter, a collection of piled up items.
Practice is meant to free you out.
When freedom is, wisdom blooms.
I don't get wisdom from quotes, books, or experiences.
from this moment,as is, it comes.
And often it doesn't.
And I could not care less.
Do you want to be like a pretty dead dry fish
of just alive, fish in the sea, sea in the fish, sea-fish boundlessly here?
We don't need insight.
We don't need whaou moments.
When they happen, let them happen. They will soon vanish.
In just being, no insight:
the seen and seing are one.
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming -(XV)- Ultimate Finality

We close this series on Master Seng-ts'an's XIN XIN MING ... FAITH IN MIND ... a simple, but subtle recipe ...
止動無動 Consider movement stationary and the stationary in motion,
動止無止 both movement and rest disappear.
兩既不成 When such dualities cease to exist
一何有爾 Oneness itself cannot exist.
究竟窮極 To this ultimate finality
不存軌則 no law or description applies.
契心平等 For the unified mind in accord with the Way
所作倶息 all self-centered straining ceases.
狐疑盡淨 Doubts and irresolution's vanish
正信調直 and life in true faith is possible.
一切不留 With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
無可記憶 nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
虚明自照 All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
不勞心力 with no exertion of the mind's power.
非思量處 Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination
識情難測 are of no value.
眞如法界 In this world of Suchness
無他無自 there is neither self nor other-than-self
要急相應 To come directly into harmony with this reality
唯言不二 just simply say when doubt arises, 'Not two.'
不二皆同 In this 'no two' nothing is separate,
無不包容 nothing excluded.
十方智者 No matter when or where,
皆入此宗 enlightenment means entering this truth.
宗非促延 And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
一念萬年 in it a single thought is ten thousand years.
無在不在 Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
十方目前 but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.
極小同大 Infinitely large and infinitely small;
忘絶境界 no difference, for definitions have vanished
極大同小
不見邊表 and no boundaries are seen.
有即是無 So too with Being
無即是有 and non-Being.
若不如此 Don't waste time in doubts and arguments
必不相守 that have nothing to do with this.
一即一切 One thing, all things:
一切即一 move among and intermingle, without distinction.
但能如是 To live in this realization
何慮不畢 is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
信心不二 To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
不二信心 Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
言語道斷 Words! The Way is beyond language,
非去來今 for in it there is
.......................... no yesterday
.......................... no tomorrow
.......................... no today.
... taking us back to the start ...
至道無難 The Great Way is not difficult
唯嫌揀擇 for those who have no preferences.
但莫憎愛 When love and hate are both absent
洞然明白 everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Today's talk is a little longer than usual, as it was part of our monthly Zazenkai at Treeleaf. Please note that there is no video in one portion due to "technical non-problems".
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHOLLY HOLY WHOLE

I came across a discussion on the internet this week about "how to Shikantaza" ... and much good and solid advice was given. Some folks follow the breath, some "Just Sit" in boundless spaciousness, some advised this or that on the posture and letting thoughts go. All wise and good, and talk of posture, focus and such are all a necessary setting of the stage.
However, in my view (and that is all it is, and hopefully a viewless view too) SOMETHING VITAL WAS LACKING AND LEFT OUT OF THE CONVERSATION, something without which Zazen is perhaps left incomplete and lacking ...
... TO WIT, THAT NOTHING IS EVER LACKING, EVER MISSING, EVER INCOMPLETE, EVER NOT FULLY HELD AND FULLY REALIZED IN A MOMENT OF ZAZEN! A moment of sitting is THE BUDDHA, THE PURE LAND, NIRVANA ATTAINED! Each instant of Zazen is the only act, the only place to be, in and holding all time and space in that moment!
The meaning of that may confuse some folks ... but those who don't get it JUST DON'T GET IT (in my view and viewless anyway)!
What don't they get?
That to realize that one is never, from the outset, in need of change is an earthshaking CHANGE! There is absolutely nothing about you and the universe (not two) to add or take away, and tasting that there is "nothing to add" is an vital addition! Just Sitting to-the-marrow, radically dropping all goals, judgments, dropping all desire to get somewhere and attain a realization ... gets one somewhere, and a revolutionary realization! Truly understanding that everything is completely beyond need for change is a complete change, and finding that there was never a place to get to is finally getting somewhere.
Posture, breath, not grabbing onto or stirring up thoughts, living by the Precepts ... all are vital to our Way. Yet, neither are they sufficient. Zazen is not some "method", some "process" or "recipe". There is no "method" for there is "no goal" or destination!
Why?
By sitting the Wholly Holy Whole without need for change ... there is thus the most radical change of no longer wishing for change or needing change amid the every changing changeless ... thereby Shikantaza is the perfect medicine for the dis-ease and dis-satisfaction of Dukkha.
SHIKANTAZA MUST BE SAT AS THE ONE AND ONLY PRACTICE NEEDED AND ALL COMPLETED. In fact, rising from the cushion, all of life's acts ... the most mundane ... can thus be encountered as each and all Whole and Sacred too. Likewise, daily chanting, bowing or praying are each "Shikantaza" when encountered as Wholly Holy Whole. In fact, Zazen itself ... though never less than complete ... is not enough, and all of life and ethical living is our place of practice and realization! Not one piece of life is left out as 'Shikantaza' seen for such. Yet ... we sit Shikantaza seated Zazen each day as our way is to sit.
Fail to emphasize this point(in my view, and that is all it is ... hopefully viewless too) and one is just teaching meditation, milk toast, perhaps a kind of shikantaza ... but not SHIKANTAZA!
A bit more to hammer this home:
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: the sound of a bell

In the very begining of Shobogenzo, Dogen quotes a famous poem of Nyojo, his teacher:
My late master, the eternal buddha, says:
Whole body like a mouth, hanging in space;
Not asking if the wind is east, west, south, or north,
For all others equally, it speaks prajñā.
Chin ten ton ryan chin ten ton.
Free, careless, empty, the bell and the sound cannot be broken in two. Is the bell just a bell? Isn't the bell bigger, much larger? How large, how big is it? And where are you in the picture?
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming -(XIV)- Child Comes Home

Our little daughter has come home from the hospital today, after we might have lost her just a week ago. HURRAH! HORRAY!! Mom and Dad are AS HAPPY AS HAPPY CAN BE!
Yet, just as a few days ago when things were dark and we were so sad, we still do not push any of life away, including happiness ...
... And neither do we run toward the days like this, clutching at happiness. Such is True Happiness, Equanimity and Contentment!
Equanimity does not mean that one should be emotionless! One can have one's DHARMA CAKE AND EAT IT TOO! Last time I wrote ...
Life is sometimes sickness and sometimes health. I know that human beings prefer only the healthy days ... but Buddhas have no such preferences.
However, that does not mean a Buddha can't enjoy a good celebration and the happy times too!   One can be glad and joyous AND STILL BE wonderously, simultaneously not desirous at all, open to whatever life next brings! Strange, this Buddhist Wisdom, isn't it?
If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be release from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
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!