TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

Koku 1

What is the meaning of Koku? What is Koku? What is not Koku?
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Buddhanomics: Job Search

So many folks are losing their jobs these days, sometimes after many years of loyal and hard work at a business. Almost nothing more to do but let it go, move on, trying to keep a roof over our family's head.
When I was a kid, my own father went through a hard bankruptcy after many years of being the president of his own small company making furniture. Leon was not a "Buddhist" by any means, but still I would call him one of those "naturally Zen" folks. I recall how, when he lost the business, he sat in front of the window for a couple of weeks, depressed and not shaving, wondering where to go from here. But, after a few days of that, he picked himself up and found himself a job as a salesman in a discount department store, working for commission and for somebody else. Most importantly, he never lost his humor for long, and kept a "that's just the breaks, we still have each other" attitude which I will never forget. And though he was now not the "boss" but working at a job he did not choose, he did it diligently, optimistically and with great energy. In fact, he kept at it, going onto the sales floor each day (with co-workers 50 years younger), until he was 77 years old ... all so his family had bread and I could get through school.
Fortunately, too, he never lived "rich" even when times were good, always having the same small house and same plain car. In that way, the "ups" and "downs" were never too much of a fall.
In times like these, there are some good lessons there.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Our Next Retreat, Just A Few Words

Rohatsu is coming. Celebration, quality time, quiet time. My wish is for you to enjoy your retreat. Not to rush it or wish you could be somewhere else. Just surrender to each action and moment as it is.
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RETREAT!! RETREAT!! 2010

Our Annual 'AT HOME' Two Day 'ALL ONLINE' ROHATSU (Buddha's Enlightenment Day) RETREAT IS COMING UP ... to be LIVE NETCAST on the weekend of December 4 and 5, 2010.
This Retreat celebrates the 'official' closure of our ANGO (100 day Special Practice Season) at Treeleaf, is a part of current preparations for our JUKAI (Undertaking the Precepts) Ceremony in January, and marks ROHATSU ... the traditional holiday in Japan celebrating the time of the Buddha's Enlightenment.
I will also soon be posting LINKS TO A SERIES OF 'SIT-A-LONG' TALKS WHICH SHOULD BE LISTENED TO before the Retreat. They cover such hot topics as "How to Oryoki" "How to Bow" "How to Go To The Bathroom during a Retreat" (Really) and many others.
TODAY'S SIT-A-LONG LOOKS AT THIS QUESTION: If there is 'nothing to attain' in Zazen ... why sit an intensive retreat at all??
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Space

Space...Gap or stretch? something out there or just plain close? Something we are part of or something we travel and walk through? Dogen, a simple man in medieval Japan, loved space. He wrote a whole collection of talks about it. Dogen made it very clear: we are space and as such we may experience space. Sitting with its moving boundaries and constant shivering-shifting is space itself. Carving a Buddha out of wood or stone? A Buddha made of naked hands, a Buddha of flesh is what Dogen was all about. Eloquent space. Silent dharma talk. gassho to all Taigu
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LEVITATION!

Someone asked me today during our Zazenkai if FOLKS IN ZAZEN CAN LEVITATE.
Well, I am open minded about such things, but I have never seen so in person. The only photos I have seen look either like they have been photoshopped, or there is something wrong with the photo (such as the dark background and sleeves in these photos which surely hide a platform) ...
 
... or the person is "bouncing" more than flying ...
 
I have had sensations like levitating off the ground during long Zazen, great lightness and motion, but that turned out not to be so when I looked down. Oh, the mind can play tricks during Zazen.
HOWEVER ... I KNOW THAT LEVITATION EXISTS IN ZAZEN, FOR SURE! REAL LEVITATION IS ALWAYS IN ZAZEN ... FLYING EVERY WHERE AT ONCE!
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Buddhanomics: Live Small

It is hard for any of us to remember in this consumer driven world, but there is a wonderful freedom in living simple, living small.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow said that man really needs just a few things for peace and happiness ... a certain amount of food and a healthy environment, shelter and physical safety, the love and friendship of others. Beyond that, anything else might be seen as a luxury! What is more, we can be prisoners of "things" if we crave them to excess, hang our happiness on them, run after them, hoard them, cling to them. Thus, we should learn the freedom of a Zen monk, who finds the whole universe in a small, nearly empty room ... who has few possessions, and is not very much attached to even those.
It is hard to do these days for most of us in the west (me too), but there is great good in not running after or being tied to material things.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Each Time, New

When Dogen was in China he wrote this:
Break open a single particle and all the sutras grow clear: the great merit-wheel of the dharma turns as a whole. The womb of a donkey gives birth to the noble horse Each time you look, you'll see it new.
Mysteriously, the skin-bag is the Buddha field. Even a failure, imperfect, raw, half-baked, crooked, call-it-whatever, everytime it will shine, both different and the same. This endless practice shows that impermanence is the body of Buddhas. Nothing you can do about it. If you want Heaven, Amida-land outside here and now, as it is, outside of the womb of this donkey...How can it be?
gassho
Taigu
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