snow covered peaks

Pajapati (later known as Mahapajapati, or Great Pajapati) was the aunt of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, she was also his mother figure as she helped raise him after the death of his mother and Mahapajapati’s sister – Maya, who died shortly after Siddhartha’s birth. Around the same time Mahapajapati had also given birth to…

“Listen with your body, your heart, your eyes, your energy, your total presence. Listen in silence, without interrupting. Fill any spaces of silence between you with love. The moments when I can listen like this, to my children or to anyone else, are rare.  Yet these words inspire me with a sense of possibility, and…

All-accepting Kanzeon is the gateway to buddha mind. InKanzeon we are one with buddha; in cause and effect, related toall buddhas, to dharma and to sangha. Our true nature is eternal,joyous, selfless and pure. Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

I started feeling unwell Sunday night, and still felt that Monday morning and decided to stay home from work. This afternoon I meditated for 25 minutes, and then went through my Zen documents – my Precepts and Wagessa, my wedding ceremony, and my Lay Disciple documents. I imagined the hundreds (thousands?) of sticks of incense…

If you bring forth what is in you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. Gnostic Gospel of Thomas as Spoken by Jesus, quoted in The Mind of the Clover by Robert Aitken

I performed my Jisha duties Sunday and had time to do sanzen with the Abbot. After we finished and walked back to the Sodo I was looking at the ground, at nothing in particular, perhaps the patterns of rocks and dirt on the ground. Abruptly but quietly the Abbot stopped and pointed to a raptor…

This week in the Lineage class my teacher is leading we are studying China, including major figures like Bodhidharma and Huineng. I was somewhat familiar with one version of the myth around Bodhidharma, specifically that he brought Buddhism to China. However, that seems not to be the case. According to Zen’s Chinese Heritage by Andy…

The sixth-century Buddhist monk Fuxi wrote: The empty hand grasps the hoe handleWalking along, I ride the oxThe ox crosses the wooden bridgeThe bridge is flowing, the water is still (“Zen’s Chinese Heritage”, translation by Andy Ferguson)

After a lot of hesitation I finally signed up for a seminary class and if I am honest the primary motivation for overcoming the hesitation was that my teacher is leading the class. The syllabus follows everything after the Shakyamuni Buddha – from Mahākāśyapa and Ananda onward, from India to China, Japan to the US.…