TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

We continue from last time's passage of the Xin Xin Ming ...
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
...
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality.
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
Neither entangled in things, nor a captive of sweet emptiness. Rather, encountering each as one ... stillness in motion ... the sweetness in the bitterness ... the silence speaking assertion and denial ... the things of the world as a dream, as real ...
This echoes other chants and writings ... The Heart Sutra ...
Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form
... The Identity of Relative and Absolute ...
To be attached to things is primordial illusion;
To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.
... The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch ... reminds of how to live with Wisdom in a word of good and bad, beautiful and ugly .... Do not throw them aside, nor cling to them or be stained by them ...
Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad men and good men, bad things and good things, heaven and hell; they are all in the midst of emptiness. The emptiness of human nature is also like this. Self-Nature contains the ten thousand things..."
"Although you see all men and non-men, evil and good, evil things and good things, you must not throw them aside, nor must you cling to them, nor must you be stained by them, but you must regard them as being just like the empty sky. ...
Seeing through-and-through this dusty world, even as we live and roam this dusty world.
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

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!

Please visit the forum thread here!

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!

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.

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.

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

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!