SokukoJi Buddhist Temple Monastery

https://youtu.be/RGzIZ_NlLvU

This teaching comes out of the Tiantai, or Tendai tradition, which came to Japan around the ninth century. It is similar to Zen Buddhism. The four moments are: forethought, immanent arising, actual arising and passing away. This is about seeing the actual coming and going of things, much more stark, much more vivid, and empty of a self and empty of an other. You probably won’t be able to tune into...

There are sixteen vows, but the basic vow is to be with all things. Whatever arises in your life stream, don’t object to it, don’t agree with it and certainly don’t ignore it. Those are the three poisons. It’s incredibly simple, yet impossible to accomplish. The vow to save all beings, to put others before yourself begins with seeing how selfish you are. It’s about being aware of that, not about s...

Taking no position requires you to notice the way you move spontaneously from what shows up to a position about it. This is what you need to see. It’s not something you need to figure out, change or modify. Don’t accept anything. You can actually function just fine without a center, without a me. We get our identity from our descriptions of what we like and don’t like. It doesn’t mean that somebod...

Something triggers us and we have an intense emotional reaction. This is totally appropriate: It’s called dependent origination. The emotion is just a feeling and it doesn’t belong to anyone. We differentiate and divide things up in such a way that we take ownership and add on that it shouldn’t be there. We want things to be different than they are, which is the first noble truth. Whatever arises...

https://youtu.be/4DyK0c55hf0

Notice how when something shows up you go to belief, disbelief or distraction. It’s very difficult to use relative concepts to see over time what that’s pointing to beyond the words. It’s not logical or reasonable. The ego mind will use that to turn you around because it wants you in that carnival. It’s terrified of the open space, of not knowing. With each person this will have its own kind of ch...

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I recommend 90/10: Listen 90 precent of the time; talk, express, or produce 10 percent. This is very difficult to do, but if you take that attitude, you may be able to do 50/50. Register more than just the auditory. Look at the color of the clothing, their body posture, the space around them. Receive what’s going on in your own body, the gravity that’s holding you there. This can’t be separated fr...

When you’re in conversation with someone, you can change the structure a little bit by receiving 90% of the time. Listen, receive. The idea with “90/10” is to move from producing to receiving what’s arising. Don’t add anything. You’ll be surprised at how much difficulty this can clear up. It will take awhile, perhaps quite awhile, before you can actually receive what’s right in front of you. See i...

It might look very logical or reasonable when someone says something that we go into some kind of rotation in the mind where we try to figure things out. The phrases in our speech show us that we are not really looking at this. I’m not saying you can’t squeeze some relative happiness out of samsara. As a way of working with the tendency to be seduced into figuring it out, turn your awareness to ev...

Sometimes fixing is all you can do. This works in the area of relative truth, such as a flat tire. Your mind stream is not like that. The desire to fix overrides the ability to see what it actually is. We need to know what’s fundamentally going on. If you’re a meditator, you can work with your your anxiety or emotional state by way of observing that without going down into it, which could be a tra...

These three links on the chain of existence are a difficult area. The feeling arises and there’s a wish to have more of it, to get rid of it or to ignore it. Any feeling that arises is going to have a positive, negative or neutral aspect to it. If we don’t like it, we want to go to something else. Blame is one way we do this. Don’t abandon the feeling. When there are internal conflicting emotions,...

The Palm And The Fist - 07.06.22 by Sokuzan - sokukoji.org/donate by Sokuzan

“What is risky about speaking in front of sangha that I want to control with the three poisons? The flood gates of negative thoughts just open.” Sokuzan responds to this and other questions from sangha. “It might feel risky in that we know people are agreeing, disagreeing, or judging what we say. People are going to take a position and there’s no way around that. It’s possible to just receive that...

This is a dynamic we quite often use in looking at something we’ve done or need to do. Is it justified? There is no way you can tell. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t do it anyway. Do the action you need to do, but don’t abandon your fundamental open responsibility by justifying it. Some people live their whole lives this way. You can justify anything, but all evidence is partial — it’s relative tru...

Look Closely You Humans - 06-26-22 by Sokuzan - sokukoji.org/donate by Sokuzan

The important thing about actually helping someone to learn is to meet them “Where they’re at”, not to see that they come up to certain standards. Standards are based on controlling people. The way we get an education is not just memorizing a bunch of facts and formulas. The intelligence, understanding and perception of the student needs to be included. Here at the monastery no one is required to...

Quite often this is said to us by people who think they know more than we do: "Just let go." I say don’t do that. Anytime you sink your hooks into anything, just observe that: see the way you grasp. If we are talking about a situation in the emotional mindstream, don’t let go. It’s not about trying to get rid of anything. The underlying issue is mistaken identity. Just observe the way you cling to...

It's Gonna Get Worse - 06-15-22 by Sokuzan - sokukoji.org/donate by Sokuzan

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