When you see someone cut a tree in a cartoon or movie, they will often saw straight through the trunk of the tree. But that’s now how professionals cut trees. When professionals cut trees, they carve out an indentation on each side of the cut. If you cut a straight line through the trunk,…

Today, Roshi wanted to take a moment to discuss the foundation of our pratice, Zazen itself. Some people say you can either live an authentic, real life and be present; or you can continually be obsessed with distractions and mental creations. It’s an either / or situation. But this is not true, because you…

Rōshi returned from a sesshin at Tetsugyuji, his monastery in Japan. While there, he had the privilege to meet with Aoyama Rōshi, the abbess of the only Buddhist nunnery in Japan. The 30-minute appointment turned into almost two hours, so much did they enjoy each other’s company. He was able to get permission for…

Roshi continued with our discussion of the Lotus Sutra. By Chapter 15, so many incredible things have happened, and all of the gathered emanations say to Shakyamuni: we love this, want to protect the Lotus Sutra and make it the law of the land.  Shakyamuni says, that’s okay, you don’t need to do that.…

Roshi continued with the second half of Chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra, right after Shakyamuni’s revelation that Devadatta was once his teacher. At this point Prajnakuta asks, “Well, are we done here now? We’ve been here a while, can we leave?” Shakyamuni says, “Let’s stay, and talk about wisdom.”  So he calls on…

Having reached Chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra, Roshi wondered aloud whether we had yet asked ourselves an important question: was the author, the person who actually wrote down all of this dramatic, fantastical material, on drugs? Roshi offered four states of mind that he thought could have inspired the Lotus Sutra. First, it…

Roshi continued with Chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra. Chapter 11 starts with a contradictory pair of statements: those who live by the Lotus Sutra will find that their pain and suffering are relieved, however the Lotus Sutra may also cause more pain and suffering. It’s an interesting question: how can something that eases…

As he promised last time, Roshi continued our exploration of the Lotus Sutra with a discussion of Shakyamuni’s cousin Ananda, whose role has gone largely underappreciated in the history of Buddhism.  Shakyamuni, in his prediction for Ananda, tells him that the two of them have been on this journey side by side for many…

Roshi spoke about Chapter 8 of the Lotus Sutra, which involves the prophecy of the 500 arhats. As the 500 arhats gather around Shakyamuni, he begins to make predictions about each one, and their futures as Buddhas. He comes to his devoted disciple Purna, to whom he says “you’ve been on the path of…

Roshi moved on to Chapter 7 of the Lotus Sutra. He began with a definition of the term kalpa.  A kalpa is a very long unit of time — originally 4.3 billion years in the Hindu tradition, then 16 million years in Buddhism. Other writings define a kalpa in terms of how long it…