Our dharma brother Houn Jeff in Japan wanted to express his gratitude to our sangha for the support that we have shown him, not just recently but over the years, so he sent us this gift of tea and snacks. Soshin will be leaving in a couple of days late Monday night, she will…

Last week we looked at a very, very early Buddhist teaching and it was both inspiring and disgusting, and a little disturbing. But we could see the roots of Buddhism in it. If not the Zen that we understand, we could see the evolution a bit. Roshi wanted to jump ahead a couple centuries…

There is a man that Roshi follows sometimes who is a very well spoken “Zen Priest” who never actually got ordained, never went through the years of practice. They read a number of books and thought it was cool, and they found the robes somehow, and they have a fairly successful large sangha. Occasionally…

While we essentially finished off the book of Zuimonki, Dogen told this story in it that is basically a koan. As soon as Roshi brought it up, he realized it needed to be its own discussion. Dogen says: Remember the story of Ryosui who visited Zen Master Mayoku. The lecturer Ryosui visited Mayoku, a…