The Zennist

Going to the very heart of Zen.

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Too freaking dumb?

Mar 14, 2010 7:09am

Am I too freaking dumb to understand Buddhism? As we might expect, most teachers of Buddhism would, if you put this question to them about yourself, say no. However, there are a lot of assumptions that come with such a......

Dogen: beyond the facade of hagiography

Mar 11, 2010 5:48am

Hagiography literally means “sacred writing” but carries with it more of a technical meaning referring to a branch of literature dealing with biographies of religious persons usually inspired by veneration. In the life of Dogen, for example, the hagiographical material......

One joy leads to another

Mar 10, 2010 5:48am

I remember as a kid how I loved to take my allowance from mowing lawns and baby sitting to Harvard’s Bookstore to buy comic books, three for a dime. Mr. Rice, my father’s old pal, owned the store. He was......

Buddhism's bad boy

Mar 9, 2010 5:37am

Mara is the bad boy of Buddhism; its devil and tempter, if you like. Essentially, we live in the land of Mara—and certainly we inhabit the body of Mara since Mara is synonymous with the Five Aggregates (S. iii. 195).......

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

Mar 8, 2010 5:31am

So far I have enjoyed reading A. Charles Muller’s translation of The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment with a commentary by the Korean Son (Zen) Monk Kihwa (1376–1433). Kihwa’s commentary is espeically illuminating at times. According to Muller, “Kihwa is the......

A better analogy for meditation

Mar 7, 2010 6:53am

This Friday, at a birthday party for a friend, someone asked me what is meditation? A basic, sound question, I first explained to Karl (the person who asked me the question) that meditation taught these days is mainly for the......

Removing the delusion of non-enlightenment

Mar 4, 2010 5:38am

The last chapter of the huge Avatamsaka Sutra (sometimes referred to as the Flower Ornament Scripture) is the Gandavyuha. Essentially, it describes the spiritual journey of Suddhana a fledgling Bodhisasttva (newly awakened to Bodhicitta) who goes from spiritual master to......

About inner insecurity and fear

Mar 3, 2010 6:05am

Ruth Fuller Sasaki (1892–1967) who was one of the key figures in making Zen understandable and accessible to the West, said there are two kinds of people who are interested in Buddhism. "The first kind are largely muddle-headed men and......

The Zen before Zen

Mar 2, 2010 5:48am

Hui-ssu (515–577) was a Chinese Dhyâna (Zen) master and recognized as the teacher of Chih-I (Chih-k'ai) who was the founder of T'ien-t'ai. Hui-ssu’s biography can be found in the Hsü kao-seng-chuan (trans. Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks). Noteworthy, perhaps, in......

Rearranging samsara

Mar 1, 2010 5:36am

Most practices in Buddhism are really based on a rearrangement of samsara; that if we can get samsara properly structured and under our control, it will naturally change into nirvana! If this is not clear, what I mean by this,......