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“The more true wisdom a person has, the greater will be his humility.” - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv |
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Recent Dharma Essays
 I just love all creatures great and small. From Gorillas to Bengal Tigers and from Lungfish to bizarre Stick Insects, they all play a tremendous role in the various cycles of our planet. These wonderful creatures are also some of our greatest signposts in our observance of inter-connection and inter-relatedness.
As a mother at the risk of her life watches ... Yin Shan | 17 January 2010 Read more . . .
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"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy." A. Einstein
Some Unitarian Universalists claim a belief in "God" in one form or another. Some consider themselves Agnostic and others happily call themselves Atheists. Some Unitarian Universalists are Buddhists, and some Buddhists speak of "Gods" and "Hell Realms". Some Buddhists av... Yin De Shakya | 7 January 2010 Read more . . .
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 THE FLOWER SERMON:
Toward the end of his life, the Buddha took his disciples to a quiet pond for instruction. As they had done so many times before, the Buddha's followers sat in a small circle around him, and waited for the teaching.
But this time the Buddha had no words. He reached into the muck and pulled up a lotus flower. An... Fa Che Shakya | 3 November 2009 Read more . . .
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 Among the great questions.... Who are we? Why are we here? and What purpose do we serve? Perhaps we should also ask, Why do we suffer? and, What can we do?
Why do we Suffer?
Listening to late night radio back in my twenties, I heard an English Buddhist monk tell a story of how he travelled all over the world conducting ... Yin Shan | 3 November 2009 Read more . . .
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 It is fortunate that many people who gain some acquaintance with Buddhism decide to engage in its practice. Yearning for enlightenment, they set about establishing a practice, and this normally leads them to read as much as possible about the topic, and, very often, to chose a teacher. Many find it hard to establish a fruitful practice on their own, ... Fa Zhang Shakya | 1 September 2009 Read more . . .
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 Asceticism has come to be characterized in contemporary culture as an extreme form of religious practice; in particular, as a retreat from society, and as an even more extreme form of self-denial. We may conjure up an image of a monk sitting on a dirt floor, ribs protruding, eyes sunken, and beard infested with insects. Or, we may imagine a ... Chuan Zhi | 27 August 2009 Read more . . .
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 Among the most admired of Zen masters are those who have eschewed the temple life and opted instead for the life of a Mountain Ascetic. Asceticism is a cross-cultural, cross-religious and multidisciplinary practice. Like nearly all forms of spiritual practice, asceticism covers a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices and hardly any religion has been without some of its forms ... Fa Lohng (Koro Kaisan) | 27 August 2009 Read more . . .
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 With so many labeled human conditions in our world these days like Autism, ADHD, Bi Polar, Cerebral Palsy etc, one would wonder if Zen is only available to the so called ‘normals' or does it encompass our ‘disabled' friends and family as well?
The faults of others are easily seen, but one's own faults are seen with difficulty. One ... Yin Shan | 14 August 2009 Read more . . .
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 A compass is a navigational instrument with a magnetized pointer that aligns itself with the earth's magnetic field, always pointing north. We have used the compass for millennia to find our way. It's been used by seafarers, explorers, and travellers alike to help get from one place to another. When we lose our way, we pull out ... Upasaka Fa Chao, OHY | 15 June 2009 Read more . . .
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Reader's Favorites
 When we stop to analyze our daily lives, we discover how many of our activities are constructed to assuage a fear of being alone. We wait in lines at restaurants and take several hours to eat a meal that we could quickly have prepared at home. We go out to crowded malls shopping for things we don't even need. We ... Chuan Zhi Read more . . .
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 Right Speech is not just about morality, or even limited to wisdom teachings. It is also about Right Mindfulness and contemplative discipline, about identifying, labeling, and being mindful of thoughts -- all of the ego's chit-chat. We can, in fact use Right Speech as the bedrock and cornerstone of our entire moral and meditative practice, a complete "spiritual technology" in ... Fa Gong, OHY Read more . . .
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 The tools with which we are born and with which we come to know the world are our five sense organs - our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. We often say that our eyes look out upon the world. But what intrigues me is that it isn't so much our eyes looking out as what is projected onto us, ... Fa Shen Read more . . .
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 Today, I'd like to talk about the Second Noble Truth of Buddhism - desire and craving, the cause of suffering. It's human nature to want more of what we like and to have better than what we have - not only for ourselves, but for our children and the people we love and care about. Yet the Buddha determined that ... Yin De, OHY Read more . . .
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 Deep inside each of us lurks a presence that is our full human potential, but it remains hidden from us - an aspect of the unconscious. It hides because of our fear of it. Its aspect is wisdom, understanding . . . compassion, yet it remains hidden. The question we must ask ourselves is, do we remain closed up in ... Chuan Zhi Read more . . .
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 Many spiritual seekers get frustrated as they become lost in the myriad approaches to enlightenment presented in Buddhist literature and by various spiritual teachers: take this path … or that path; study this sutra, then that sutra; do these things … don't do those things. There is also much discussion of psychology, philosophy, science -- a billion things to occupy ... Chuan Zhi Read more . . .
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 We can, each of us, experience Wu! -- that emptiness, that relief -- every time we give up our attachment. When we have a job to do, we simply do it - without grumbling, without daydreaming about all the other things we could be doing instead, without any sort of attachment whatsoever. When we meet a person, we simply meet ... Fa Liang, OHY Read more . . .
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 Once upon a time, there was a little wave. The wave loved being a wave going up and down and playing all day and night. The wave was surrounded by lots of other waves and it had fun watching them, too. Then one day, the little wave noticed that something seemed to be happening to the waves in ... Fa Liang, OHY Read more . . .
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 Buddhism brings many of us to understand that individualism does not exist and is a delusion: that there is no birth, no death, no self, no "I" that exists as an independent reality. We come to recognize that all things are connected through interdependent co-arising. Why is it that we lose sight of this fundamental ... Fa Che, OHY Read more . . .
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New to Zen/Chan? Try starting with one of these . . .
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When we stop to analyze our daily lives, we discover how many of our activities are constructed to assuage a fear of being alone. We wait in lines at restaurants and take several hours to eat a meal that we could quickly have prepared at home. We go out to crowded malls shopping for things we don't even need. We go to a book store to browse the shelves for half an hour and spend two hours in the coffee ... Read more . . .
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 Suffering is integral to the Zen path. It is, in fact, a prerequisite. Zen is not an easy path and we must be highly motivated in order to travel it. In physics as in Zen, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. No human being wants to suffer. All desire an end to pain. It is suffering and its end that supplies a person with the necessary impetus to get onto the path. And it is the memory of ... Read more . . .
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 What is the nature of Self? In Chan, the answer is a spiritual one, dependent on self-reflection, and one that cannot come fully until we achieve a degree of spiritual awareness. In the secular domain, we can investigate Self in terms of what it is not - it is not the self we identify as our ego. We all recognize the characteristics of ego - they manifest as arrogance, pride and conceit. While it's easy to see these characteristics in ... Read more . . .
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 Everyone who enters Zen's Gateless Gate, has a story to tell. Mine begins one summer evening when I received a call from a friend who had recently moved to another state. "I found a Buddhist Priest who teaches Zen." He told me. "Last night she gave me a pranayama exercise called the Healing Breath." I was immediately interested. I had a hobby, of sorts, of collecting meditation exercises. I was master of none but proud of my collection, nonetheless.
The ... Read more . . .
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Many spiritual seekers get frustrated as they become lost in the myriad approaches to enlightenment presented in Buddhist literature and by various spiritual teachers: take this path … or that path; study this sutra, then that sutra; do these things … don't do those things. There is also much discussion of psychology, philosophy, science -- a billion things to occupy the mind and distract from the simple, direct approach to Self-realization. While all these things are, in and of themselves, ... Read more . . .
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 As westerners brought up in different religious traditions and cultures, we won't ever have the same Buddhism as the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, or the Vietnamese. Nor should we. Our psyches are shaped by western cultures, not eastern ones. A religion will invariably speak uniquely to each culture that adopts it, but is there value in abandoning the core foundation of a spiritual tradition? Giving thanks to the ocean that supports the boat we ride in, acknowledging and honoring ... Read more . . .
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 How do we begin with Zen? We don't start climbing Mt. Everest from the third base station. We start at the very bottom, climb a bit, set up camp, wait for a few days to let ourselves adjust to the altitude, then move on up again, slowly, step by step. This is the same way we proceed in Chan. We start at the bottom, and work our way up, slowly, step by step. To do otherwise will beckon sure failure. ... Read more . . .
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Deep inside each of us lurks a presence that is our full human potential, but it remains hidden from us - an aspect of the unconscious. It hides because of our fear of it. Its aspect is wisdom, understanding . . . compassion, yet it remains hidden. The question we must ask ourselves is, do we remain closed up in our shells, living in the ego-world where our actions are dictated by unconscious forces, or can we push those shell ... Read more . . .
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 In order to prepare ourselves for meditation, we must first begin to put our lives in order and act in accordance with what is right and good, both for us and for others. It is no simple task, for it requires that we act caringly instead of selfishly. It's not what we do that's as important as the motivations behind what we do. It's not whatwhy we think what we think that needs to be explored. It's not ... Read more . . .
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