Roshi opened his talk with a well-known passage from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. … Old Marley was as dead…

Tesshin Roshi opened his talk this week with a note of gratitude to the Sangha, thanking everyone for giving him the opportunity to study the Dharma more deeply as he prepares these weekly talks. He then continued our exploration of the Samurai koans. Last week, Roshi spoke about the founding of Enkaku-ji, the “Perfect Mirror…

Roshi used his talk this week to continue our exploration of the Samurai Koans. He began by reminding us that in 13th-century Japan, Zen practice was spreading beyond monks and clergy to new groups, including the samurai. A major challenge at the time was that most Zen teachers were Chinese and did not speak Japanese.…