zengateway's podcast

Q)What are the Three Refuges and what is the value in chanting them? In this podcast: What is the meaning of refuge in Buddhism? What are the Three Refuges What is their meaning in practice? What do we 'I' take refuge in? The difference between my usual refuge and the Three Refuges Correspondences between Refuges and the Three Bodies of the Buddha in Yogacara thought.  

Two stories of Master Nansen (c.749-835): Master Nansen, asked by a monk, 'Where does he go who knows what is what?' replied: 'He becomes an ox of the monastery supporter down the hill, to requite him for his help.' When the monk thanked him for his teaching, the Master added: 'At midnight yesterday, the moon shone in at the window.' Asked at another time, 'Where will the Master be gone in a hundr...

When Master Daibai was about to die, he said to his monks: 'What comes is not to be avoided, what goes is not to be followed.' A little afterwards he heard a flying-squirrel screech and said: 'This is just this, and nothing else. You all keep this faithfully. Now I must depart.'   The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..   In this podcast:   How...

Master Kyogen said: 'My poverty last year was not real poverty, but this year my poverty is real. Though last year there was no place even for an awl to stick into, this year have no awl either'.  The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl   In this talk: •    We hear the story of Master Kyogen who came to awakening by hearing a pebble strike a bamboo trunk. •    The root of 'I' clings to s...

32 - One (monk) asked: "What is the meaning of (Bodhidharma's) coming from the West?" The master said: "Had he had a purpose, he could not even have liberated himself." the monk asked: "If he had no purpose, how could the Second Patriarch attain the Dharma?" The master said: "To attain is not to attain." The monk asked: " if it is not to attain, then what is the meaning of not to attain?" The mast...

'From the High Seat, the master said: "One is on the way for aeons without leaving his house; one   leaves his house without being on the way. Which one is worthy to receive the offerings of men and gods?" And he came down from the seat.'   The Zen Teachings of Rinzai - tr. Irmgard Schloegl …………………………………………………………………….. In this podcast: Reflecting on Rinzai ' s question from the High Seat, this tal...

Q. Does taking the bodhisattva vow mean that they have to be reborn in one of the six realms again? Does whatever it is that is reborn have to be reborn in the six realms? …………………………………………………………………….     In this podcast:   The development of the bodhisattva - the path and the vow? The arhat in the remote forest and the bodhisattva in the market place The example of Vimalakirti - Huyakujo and the m...

In this talk:   Daiko - Osho san: 'A world that cannot be grasped. A world of change. A vast, open empty sky' 'ku' = emptiness/sky in Japanese - from the Heart sutra. Background to the Rohatsu sesshin - Buddha's great effort prior to Enlightenment. True emptiness - what is this emptiness? Reflections on why the Enlightenment is commemorated in December rather than Wesak in May? The Power of Lettin...

Master Sokei-an, who lived half of his life in the United States, stated humorously: 'If you are in a powerful car in the middle of the Gobi Desert, you can step on the gas pedal and go any speed you like, any direction you fancy. But if you are in New York at a busy Broadway crossing, you better look out for the traffic lights.' (Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl) .......................

36. Venerable ones, committing the Five Heinous Crimes, deliverance can be attained. One monk asked: "What are the Five Heinous Crimes?" The master said: "To kill the father, to harm the mother, to spill Buddha's blood, to break the peace of the Sangha, and to burn scriptures and statues, these are the Five Heinous Crimes."   The monk asked: "What is the father?"   The master said: "Basic ignoranc...

'All the evil Karma created by me from of old, Out of beginningless greed, anger and delusion, Committed with body, speech and thought, Of all this I now make full and open repentance.'   ……………….     In this podcast:   Introduction to some of the chants that are chanted in Zen Temples and monasteries and what they are about. How to understand the Repentance Sutra we must understand something about...

This short audio is an extract from: Gentling the Bull: The Ten Bull Pictures - A Spiritual Journey with comments by Myokyo-ni. The title of the Chapter - Bull Forgotten Man Remains - concludes the full integration of the Bull energy into the human form. It signals the end of that part of the gentling process and begins the final ascent 'up the mountain' which is the religious path proper. It also...

No portraits or sculptures existed of the Buddha. After he died, a great longing arose to know what he had looked like. Anybody who was ancient enough to have met him was sure of an attentive audience.   Just such a person was a nun, now over 100 years old. To procure some solitude, she had moved out of the town into a little Hermitage, but anyone wishing to enquire would soon come to hear of her....

Randolph Whitfield has been a lifelong Zen Buddhist practitioner, studying under Master Daiyu Myokyo in London and Soko Morinaga Roshi in Kyoto.   He originally studied classical guitar and piano at London's Trinity College of Music and then later studied classical Chinese at Leiden University.     In recent years he undertook a Herculean task to translate the source texts for many of the later Ze...

TEXT: Rinzai's Attention to the Smallest Detail   'Followers of the Way, as the Zen school sees it life and death are under a certain order. In interviews the student should consider the smallest details. When host and guest appear, there is an exchange of discourse. Sometimes form is shown as corresponds to things. Sometimes the whole body (essence ) is borught into function. Sometimes the full p...

How do the bodhisattvas reconcile the saying that 'samsara is nirvana' when there is also suffering in the world. If nirvana is peace then how can that peace include suffering? ……………….     Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara. The problem of evil Doctrinally, the view from emptiness - ocean and wave - Tozan's 30 blows Projection of values - liking & disliking Definition of Dukkha Confucius - thr...

Martin gives a commentary on the following passage from The Zen Teachings of Rinzai tr. Irmgard Schloegl.   'Venerable Ones, do not delay and spend your days idly. In former days wen I could not yet see clearly, all the world seemed dark to me. I could not get beyond light and shade. I ran around with fever in my belly and with my heart in a flurry, asking about the Way. Later I gained strength an...

This is an extract from The Zen Way by Irmgard Schloegl who spent 12 years training in Zen Buddhism at Daitokuji. In this extract Martin Goodson reads an extract from the book detailing the daily routine of the monks plus the ordeal of entrance begging undergone by all monks to gain entry to the monastery. 

In this talk Master Rinzai explains that he sorts the students who come to him into three sorts. This introduces us to the notion that is there in early Buddhism that the path is made up of stages. The Arhat path has five stages that go from the earliest stirrings of interest to Arhatship and the attainment of Nirvana. The Mahayana Path has the 'One Way' as explained in the Lotus Sutra that sees t...

In this talk we hear the story of a young man who, becomes disillusioned with life and turns to a Zen Master for help.  The master then challenges him to a game in which if the young man loses he will also lose his head. In the process he discovers the inner strength of his own Buddha-Heart. This story in many ways is similar to the story of the Buddha who as a young prince also became deeply disi...

In this talk, which coincides with Halloween, a young man on his wedding day finds himself standing in front of Yama, Lord and Judge of the Dead.   The man bitterly complains having been taken away before his time and Yama in an unusual gesture of compassion agrees to send him back and also offers to send the young man three messengers so that he will be reminded that is time will come. What happe...

Jamie Shavdia ( www.jamieshavdia.co.uk ) and Martin Goodson discuss the hugely popular book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  In this podcast, they discuss where this book sits in the development of contemporary spirituality and psychotherapeutic treatments which introduce the present moment as a psychological medicine for many of our modern complaints. Eckhart Tolle had what he described as an...

'Followers of the Way, if you want to become Buddha, do not follow the ten thousand things. When the heart arises the ten thousand things arise too. When the heart is stilled, the manifold things cease. And when the heart does not rise, the ten thousand things are without blame. In the world and beyond the world, neither Buddha nor Dharma manifest themselves nor do they disappear. Though things ex...

In this podcast:   What are the characteristics of delusion and delusive seeing? What is the connection between suffering and delusion? How truth can become toxic. Karma and habitual thinking and seeing.   ---------       A man who has left home should know how to see clearly and calmly, should know Buddha from Mara, the true from the false, the worldly from the sacred. If he has got this knowledg...