Go Dark -- Feel Your Way Along the Wall
Don’t light a lamp—there’s no oil in the house.It’s a shame to want a light.I have a way to bless poverty:Just feel your way along the...
Before Before. Beyond Beyond.
This primary intuition of the strangeness of it all, of our single selves as unspeakably fragile and brilliant observers of a grandeur...
Falling Down and Waking Up
Layman Pang was once selling bamboo baskets. Coming down off a bridge, he stumbled and fell. When his daughter, Lingzhao, saw this she...
Belonging
Wherever you are, just take the role of host, and that place will be a true place. --Linji Sometimes I feel like I was raised by wolves,...
Stop!
“Stop the sound of the distant temple bell.” --Zen Koan Often it seems as if life is an ordeal, even a punishment, to be endured....
Koans are Alive
A student asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not? Zhaozhou answered, “No!” On a regular basis I have people asking me...
Continuously Renewed Immediacy
Continuously renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch, lies at the base of religious living. Let us explore together...
Transformation and Loss
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the...
This is It! The Realm of God, the Ancient Buddha
The koan: What is the heart-mind of the ancient buddha? Flowing grasses. Forests of many colors. As the sun rises, and the bird calls....
Speak for Yourself!
The koan: A student said to Yunmen, "The light serenely illumines the whole universe..." before he had finished Yunmen interrrupted...
