TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

FOR TODAY's TALK: Soto Zen Teacher Kokyo Henkel explains the "basics" of Mirror Awareness very nicely … The true nature of mind is mirror-like awareness, always just reflecting what’s happening, whether we notice this or not. It never shuts off or stops functioning, even when we’re completely engrossed in conceptual thinking or strong emotions. A mirror just receives whatever object is placed befo...

Last time in this series on "Why Zen Folks FAIL!", we looked at NOT KNOWING HOW NOT TO CHASE! Folks don't know how to be totally still. This time, the reason "Zen Folks FAIL!" is because of complacently NOT KNOWING HOW TO CHASE! Folks don't know how to keep climbing and moving! Saying about this life and world that "there is nothing in need of change" --does not-- mean "there is nothing in need of...

Many forms of Buddhist meditation center on seeking ... seeking benefits ranging from mystical states and insights, to simple relaxation and good health effects. These are great Practices, yet also feed the tendency so common to folks in modern, consumer societies to not know how to be truly still, content and whole ... for people in the West keep running after more, bigger, better, brighter. We w...

TODAY's TALK: Jijuyu-zanmai (The Self-Fulfilliing Samadhi / The still abiding taste of the self in self-fulfillment) by Menzan Zuiho Osho Menzan Zuihō (面山瑞方, 1683-1769) was a Japanese Sōtō Zen scholar and abbot of the Zenjo-ji and Kuin-ji temples active during the Tokugawa era. Menzan's scholarship was part of the Tokugawa movement of returning to original historical sources to revitalize Zen...

People fail at Zen because they think there is a place to fail. But in fact, THERE IS NO PLACE TO FAIL! People fail at Zen because they think there is -no- place to fail. In fact, THERE ARE ENDLESS PLACES TO FAIL! The biggest place to fail is to believe that there either is or is not places to fail. Better said, the trap is the failure to know that ONE CAN FAIL YET NOT FAIL AT ONCE!

Zen folks fail because we're IGNORANT, DELUDED sentient beings, of course! But more specifically, because of several common mistakes and misguided assumptions among many Zen students new and old (and by so-called Zen Teachers too). This is the first of a NEW VIDEO/AUDIO PODCAST SERIES and, over the coming weeks, I will look at many of the reasons that Zen students, Teachers, Zen groups and Buddhis...

Buddhism [1] explains why sorrows exist in the world, and explains in reasonable, cogent, realistic ways (beyond some rather more doubtful and fanciful explanations it also offers), [2] provides a vision which offers peace and compassion amid, and transcendence of, all human suffering, and, simultaneously [3] offers a workable path toward the alleviation of such suffering and ugliness in this worl...

This "Buddha quote", however nice it sounds, is not something the Buddha likely said at all (turns out to be from the cheery 70's writer on love, Leo Buscaglia). Oh, the Buddha certainly taught us to be grateful for this precious life, but also to be Grateful (Big "G") in a way that puts down the balance sheet and any need even to hunt for the "silver lining".  What is the difference between grati...

Many times I hear folks say that they want to practice on their own, and not join in a Buddhist Community, because doing so gets in the way of their own practicing and sitting. They say that other people or having a teacher are a distraction, take up "my" precious time, are not a benefit to "me". Well, I say: Don't be a selfish sitter, a Pratyeka-buddha.  There is an obligation, a face of the Bodh...

WHOLENESS ...  　　　　　... WHOLENESS ... so whole that even saying "wholeness" is wholly unnecessary. Please visit the forum thread here!

in spring, the cherry blossoms in summer, the cuckoo 's song, in autumn, the moon shining, in winter, the frozen snow: how pure and clear are the seasons! Please visit the forum thread here!

I would like to criticize some Soto Zen Teachers for how we may be teaching Shikantaza (I know that all the Soto Teachers fully understand what I say. My point is merely whether we are conveying the message clearly enough). Yes, we teach the importance of sitting in a balanced way, be it in Lotus, Seiza, on a chair or the like. We may show students how to place the mind on the breath, the Hara, ho...

What is your true colors? How can you show your true color? As the needle goes through the field of mokuran birds songs traffic sounds even the distant train even your sweet face clouded with suffering all of them all are sewn into mokuran true color

Please visit the forum thread here!

Sitting with the beautiful AND the ugly in this world ... finding that which simultaneously transcends and holds, breathes in and breathes out, "beautiful vs. ugly" ... is our Practice. We are free of aversion and attraction even as we have our ordinary human aversions and attractions, pulling the weeds we can and watering the flowers ... even as we embrace each as just what they are. One finds Wh...

After Jundo s eloquent post and video, my humble take on the subject. Much like the beautiful dancing Dorothy on the yellow bricks road, OUR JOB IS TO UNMASK THE WIZARD, in other words to dispell the illusion of the ego and turn the three poisons, the three little companions of Dorothy into compassion, wisdom and action. Please visit the forum thread here!

Taigu, our other Teacher here at Treeleaf, posted this week that he was going through some HARD TIMES at home and work, feeling stress and the blues from his job. Taigu recounted a story about the great Tibetan Teacher Chogyam Trungpa who, according to detailed accounts by his wife, suffered from frequent bouts of depression so severe that Trungpa was sometimes pushed to the point of considering s...

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ZEN TALK YOU WILL EVER HEAR. It will save Zen Students endless tail chasing and dead-ends, disappointments and wasted days. It will allow every Sitting to be Magnificent ... both the Sittings which are magnificent and those which are not. One will never be let down by one's Zen's Practice again ... nor by one's life, family and friends, nor this whole world ... both when...

My Dharma Bro. BRAD WARNER has written ( HERE ) that we are not Zen "Clergy" ... or at least, he is not "Clergy". He writes ... Zen has to be just a little bit dangerous. If it’s not, it ceases to be Zen. The reason that Zen can go as deeply as it does into the question of what it means to be truly human comes in a large part because it’s not entirely safe. The safer, more rule-bound, more structu...

Please visit the forum thread here!

There is a saying in the news business that "IF IT BLEEDS IT LEADS". An air crash or other tragedy captures the headlines and is endlessly examined by 24 hour news coverage, while the thousands ... hundreds of thousands ... of safe landings and uneventful flights that same day never make the news (Can you even imagine the strange headline ... "BULLETIN: PLANES MAKE NORMAL LANDINGS, NOTHING HAPPENE...

Samsara, this world we live in, is thus. It is a world filled with great beauty and sometime great ugliness, human beings who live in peace and those who kill. Sometimes innocent children die. Today is a day for tears. The true evil doer is greed, anger and ignorance, mental illness. That is the disease, that is the real culprit. Yet, the Buddha also Teaches of a View of Views, free of birth and d...

Following up on a prior talk by me called Sex Scandal Finger Wagging (Link Here), I now wish to call out some other damn foolish behavior witnessed in the ongoing big hoo-hah about Sasaki Roshi at SweepingZen. Com ... I wag my finger at those so invested in their religious or other heroes and "gurus", their idealism and romanticism about "Enlightened Roshis", that they are blind to serious failing...

Moreover, remembering the natural sage of Jetavana park, we can [still] see the traces of his six years of upright sitting. We can still hear rumours of the transmitter of the mind-seal at Shaolin, spending nine years facing the wall. The ancient saints were like that already: how could people today fail to practice wholeheartedly? De plus, alors que nous pensons au sage inné de Jevatna, nous pouv...

Halloween is a good time to talk about ... ... the things that SCARE US! Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended Please visit the forum thread here!