“No practice exists in isolation.”

-Idries Shah

Practice Meetings

Friday Apr 17, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Blue Cliff Record #79
“Every Sound is Buddha’s Sound”

A monk asked Touzi, “Every sound is Buddha’s sound.  Correct or not?”

Touzi said, “Correct.”

The monk said, “[Then] Venerable, aren’t [your] farts the chirping sound of the Buddha’s bowl?”

Touzi hit him.

He again asked, “Coarse words and fine speech all return to the primary meaning.  Correct or not?”

Touzi said, “Correct.”

The monk said, “May I call the Venerable to be taken for one donkey?”

Touzi hit him.

[Xuedou added] “Fart.”

“If you love another person, you have to become a no-self, a nothing. When you love, you have to become a nobody. When you are a nobody, love happens. If you remain somebody, love never happens.

One becomes afraid of love, because love opens the inner emptiness.

Love is not an effort. If love is an effort, it is not love.

It is the same case with the ultimate experience, it happens when you do not make an effort. Then you can simply float with the river to the Ocean.” 

-Swami Dhyan Giten

Practice Meetings

Friday Apr 10, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #68
“Kassan Brandishes the Sword”

A monk asked Kassan, “What if one sweeps away the dust and sees Buddha?”

Kassan said, “You must brandish your sword. If you do not brandish your sword, the fisherman dwells in a nest of reeds.”

The monk mentioned this to Sekisô and asked him, “What if one sweeps away the dust and sees Buddha?”

Sekisô said, “He has no country. Where can one meet him?”

The monk reported this to Kassan. Kassan ascended the rostrum and said, “As for the facilities in the garden, the old monk is superior to Sekisô, but for deep discourse expounding the true principle he is one hundred steps ahead of me.”

“It’s only the ego that wants to surrender the ego; the real meaning of surrender does not involve anything external. It means to surrender to your true nature.”

-Enza Vita

Practice Meetings

Friday Apr 3, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #35
“Rakuho’s Obeisance”

Rakuho came to Kassan and without bowing stood facing him. Kassan said, “A chicken dwells in the phoenix nest. It’s not of the same class. Go away.”

Rakuho said, “I have come from far away, hearing much about you. Please, Master, I beg you to guide me.”

Kassan said, “Before my eyes there is no you, and here there is no old monk.”

Rakuho shouted, “Kaatz!”

Kassan said, “Stop it, stop it. Don’t be so careless and hasty. Clouds and the moon are the same; valleys and mountains are different from each other. It is not difficult to cut off the tongues of the people under heaven. But how can you make a tongueless person speak?”

Rakuho said nothing. Kassan hit him. With this, Rakuho started to obey Kassan.

“In the midst of darkness, he alone sees the dawn; in the midst of the soundless, he alone hears harmony.”

-Zhuangzi

Practice Meetings

Friday Mar 27, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #98
“Most Intimate”

A monk asked Tôzan, “Among the three bodies of Buddha, what body does not degenerate into numbers?”

Tôzan said, “I am always most intimate with it.”

“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor.

If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.”

-Elizabeth Lesser

Practice Meetings

Friday Mar 20, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #94
“Tozan is Unwell”

Tôzan was unwell. A monk asked, “Your Reverence is unwell. Is there anyone who does not become ill?”

Tôzan said, “There is.”

The monk said, “Does the one who does not get ill take care of Your Reverence?”

Tôzan said, “The old monk is properly taking care of that one.”

The monk said, “How about when your Reverence takes care of that one?”

Tôzan said, “Then the old monk does not see that there is illness.”

“If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.”

-Chogyam Trungpa

Practice Meetings

Friday Mar 13, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #89
“Place of No Grass”

Tôzan instructed the assembly and said, “At the beginning of autumn and the end of summer, you, brothers, are departing east and west. But you should go directly to the place of no grass over ten thousand miles.”

And again he said, “How will you go to the place of no grass over ten thousand miles?”

Sekisô said, “When you go out of the gate, there is grass!”

Taiyô said, “I would say: Even if you don’t go out of the gate, grass is abundant everywhere.'”

“Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any more than Truth is the property of Christianity. Neither the Buddha nor the Christ belongs exclusively to the communities that were founded in their names. They belong to all people of goodwill, all who are attentive to the secret which lives in the depths of their breath and their consciousness.”

-Jean-Yves Lloup

Practice Meetings

Friday Mar 6, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #56
“The White Rabbit”

When Uncle Misshi and Tôzan were walking together, they saw a white rabbit run by in front of them.

Misshi said, “How swift!” Tôzan said, “In what way?”

Misshi said, “It is just like a person in white clothes being venerated as a prime minister.”

Tôzan said, “You are such an elderly and respectable man, and still you say something like that?”

Misshi said, “Then how about you?”

Tôzan said, “A noble of an ancient house is temporarily fallen into poverty.”

I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Practice Meetings

Friday Feb 27, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Book of Serenity #49
“Tozan and the Memorial Service”

When Tôzan held a memorial service for Ungan before his portrait, he mentioned the episode with the portrait.

A monk came forward and asked, “When Ungan said, ‘Just this!’ what did that mean?”

Tôzan said, “At that time, I almost misunderstood my master’s meaning.”

The monk said, “I wonder whether or not Ungan really knew that IT is.”

Tôzan said, “If he did not know that it is, how could he say like that? If he knew that it is, how did he dare say like that?”

The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.

Robert M. Pirsig

Practice Meetings

Friday Feb 20, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Blue Cliff Record #43
“Dongshan’s Cold & Heat”

A monk asked  Dongshan: “So, how avoid the coming of the winter cold and summer heat?”

Shan said. “Why not turn to the place without cold and heat?”

The monk said, “So, what is the place without cold and heat?”

Shan said, “In the cold time, the cold kills the preceptor; in the burning time, the burning kills the preceptor.”

Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.

-Ray Bradbury

Practice Meetings

Friday Feb 13, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Gateless Gate #3
“Juzhi’s One Finger”

Whenever Gutei Oshõ was asked about Zen, he simply raised his finger.

Once a visitor asked Gutei’s boy attendant, “What does your master teach?”

The boy too raised his finger.

Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the boy’s finger with a knife.

The boy, screaming with pain, began to run away.

Gutei called to him, and when he turned around, Gutei raised his finger.

The boy suddenly became enlightened.

When Gutei was about to pass away, he said to his assembled monks, “I obtained one-finger Zen from Tenryû and used it all my life but still did not exhaust it.”

When he had finished saying this, he entered into eternal Nirvana.

Mumon’s Comment

The enlightenment of Gutei and of the boy does not depend on the finger.

If you understand this, Tenryû, Gutei, the boy, and you yourself are all run through with one skewer.