“In zazen practice, we stop our thinking, and we are free from our emotional activity. We don’t say there is no emotional activity, but we are free from it. We don’t say there is no thinking, but our life activity is not limited by our thinking mind. In short, we can say that we trust ourselves completely, without thinking, without feeling, without discriminating between good and bad, right and wrong.”

-Shunryu Suzuki

Gateless Gate Case #44: Basho’s Stick
Basho said to the assembled monks, “If you have a staff, I will give you one. If you have no staff, I will take it away from you.”

“Instead of fixating on what you want and trying to get reality to accede to your wishes, as we’re taught to do from an early age in our achievement-oriented culture, listen closely to the current of life as it flows through you, and allow it to carry you where it will. Ultimately, you realize that you’re not actually in control of your life at all—you’re being lived by life itself.”

-Stephan Bodian

Practice Meetings
Friday Nov. 20, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Blue Cliff Record Case #33: Chinsô Has One Eye
National Minister Chinsô went to see Shifuku.
When Shifuku saw him coming, he drew a circle.
Chinsô said, “Your student has come, and that’s already a failure. Why do you bother to draw a circle in addition to that?”
Thereupon Shifuku closed the door of his room.
(Setchô said, “Chinsô has but one eye.”)

“This odd sense of an unfindable ‘watcher’ to which all of life is happening yet which is seemingly separate from all that is happening, which sometimes seems in control of ‘us’ and yet sometimes seems at the mercy of reality—what is it really? What is going on here?”

-Daniel Ingram

Practice Meetings
Friday Nov. 13, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Equanimity Case #75: Zuigan’s Everlasting Principle

Zuigan asked Gantô, “What is the intrinsic, everlasting principle?”
Gantô said, “It has moved.”
Zuigan said, “What if it moves?”
Gantô said, “You can’t see the intrinsic, everlasting principle.”
Zuigan thought for a moment. Gantô said, “If you acknowledge it, you are not yet free from the roots and their dust. If you do not acknowledge it, you are immersed in endless birth and death.”

“It’s ironic that the thing that terrifies people the most is the fact that their ‘self’ doesn’t exist, but it’s this exact same realization that gives rise to liberation. Indeed, the liberation from ‘self’ is what you are seeking.”

-Adyashanti

Practice Meetings
Friday Nov. 6, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Equanimity Case #43: Razan’s Appearing and Disappearing

Razan asked Gantô, “What if things appear and disappear without ceasing?”
Gantô scolded him saying, “Who appears and disappears?”