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“Reading the history of the emperors and dynasties in quietude, one feels nothing profound about the changes and caprices of the past; only when one experiences various challenges and difficulties in life does one gain a thorough understanding of the impermanence of worldly affairs.” - Master Hsu Yun |
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Recent Dharma Essays
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On Spiritual Friendship
Kalyanamitra is the Sanskrit word for spiritual friendship. This friendship is something much more than someone to hang out with, but rather connotes a person or even a thing that becomes our guide, a teacher, and serves to inspire us along our path to awakening.
There is a common Zen expression that when the student is ready, the teacher ... Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao | 25 August 2010 Read more . . .
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 As we sat across the table from each other, at our usual coffee shop overlooking the beautiful Australian east coast, I noticed the look of distraction on his face, a face I have known for over 10 years. He seemed perplexed and I could see he was looking for answers. With hesitation, he said, "I'm on edge mate." "What's going ... Yin Shan of Australia | 8 June 2010 Read more . . .
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 Anyone who has spent much time reading about Zen has encountered the term "Self" many times over. Some may even conclude that Zen is all about Self. They would not be wrong. While some people think that Zen is about sitting in lotus position, contemplating the space between the end of a sentence and the period that fo... Chuan Zhi | 4 March 2010 Read more . . .
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 My first encounter with a Zen teacher happened when I was in my late twenties. Zen had been an interest of mine for nearly a decade before this chance encounter with a person of Zen. I had never thought seriously about actually DOING Zen, but I liked reading the philosophies that came from Zen literature. Doing Zen was, well, something ... Chuan Zhi | 19 February 2010 Read more . . .
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 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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Reader's Favorites
 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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 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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 A Warning for Forum Aficionados! The Internet has a peculiar way of grabbing us and taking us off course, often without us even being aware it's happening. Recently as I was searching the Internet for a particular book I came across a list of forum posts relating to religious beliefs. I don't generally take the time to read ... Fa Guang, OHY Read more . . .
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 Consider our first multi-day meditation retreat. After a couple of days of discomfort, both physical and psychological, the rebellious ego begins to question the authority of the "strange Oriental monk" with his odd and inscrutable methods. We begin to search our mental archives and apply some unique application of a "post-modern certainty" to why we're here at all. After all, ... Fa Gong, OHY Read more . . .
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 A friend asked me to elaborate on how, as Buddhists, we should deal with concepts, words, and emotions that seem to go against what we're taught but still seem to be as "real" as they were before we came to Buddhism. He asked, specifically, about the concepts of hope and faith. He had been listening to a discussion between a ... Yin De, OHY Read more . . .
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 How is it that the "spiritual" person, for whom we might assume humility to be an essential characteristic, so often presents as aloof and arrogant? It is bad enough that the "holier than thou" attitude which often flaws the religious character is common to monastics, priests, gurus, teachers and devotees of all traditions, but, being a devotee of Zen, I ... Fa Gong, OHY Read more . . .
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 This essay is about problems - the kind we all share. Big ones and little ones, problems that we cause ourselves and problems that the world inflicts upon us.A man once came to see the Buddha because he heard that the Buddha knew how to solve problems. The man had more trouble than he could handle and so he knelt ... Yin Yao, 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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 The simplest of foods or the meanest of meals is a banquet if we appreciate it for what it is -- sustenance, a gift from the earth and the fruit of the labors of men and women. A simple noodle is fit for a king when we appreciate its texture and subtlety of flavor. Even crusty old Lin Chi recognized ... Fa Dao, OHY Read more . . .
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New to Zen/Chan? Try starting with one of these . . .
 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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 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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 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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 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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 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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 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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 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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 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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