One Bright Pearl

Rohatsu Sesshin is upon us here at Sanshinji. We will begin by having dinner together at 6:00pm and then meet again at 7:30pm for Okumura Roshi’s orientation talk. When he finishes sharing his words of encouragement, we will turn and face the wall, as the Buddha did all those years ago.
We sit a classic Uchiyama [...]

Everywhere I turn, green greets me. Energy trills through my body as the trees, grass, and flowers of late spring stand out in their fullness of life. I am reminded of adventure, the adventure a young boy senses as a new day waits outside the door, during those precious first weeks of summer vacation.  I [...]

From a travellers perspective, new directions are all I see.
It has been awhile since I posted here. Everything keeps changin’. Slowing me down, speeding time up. Discombobulated, maybe. Yet, it is a good day today.
I woke up at home… yes, at home. Not living on the road, at least for now. Kris and I moved [...]

this zazen
doesn’t belong to me
leaving it to itself
I don’t know what to think

I have always loved the poems of Han Shan. One of my favorite is number 26 -

Since I came to Cold Mountain
how many thousand years have passed?
Accepting my fate I fled to the woods,
to dwell and gaze in freedom.
No one visits the cliffs
forever hidden by clouds.
Soft grass serves as a mattress,
my quilt is the dark [...]

Total dynamic function, or Zenki, is our life.
What does this mean? Who am I? What is this!? I ask myself these questions regularly. I remain curious, letting go of what I think.
With no inside or outside, no second person, it is radically different than what I think. And yet, this thinking is not outside of [...]

A large, spacious room, unfolded before me. It seemed to be part of a rustic lodge, with beautiful blonde ash woodwork, framing a grand window, that looked out upon a natural mountain vista.
Outside the window, a herd of ancient buffalo, or perhaps muskox, munched placidly in a high alpine meadow. I noticed that their coats [...]

no dust at all
not a single speck
wiping it away
with wonder
-

In response to a visitor’s comment, I felt compelled to expound a little of what has been shared with me.
It is all Buddha Nature… or is it? It is indeed. Buddha Nature pervades the entire universe, right here, right now. The pure lotus land unrolls moment by moment. But do we know that in our [...]