Awakening - Vine of Obstacles Zen

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Awakening

A collection of 14 posts

Can Householders Really Do The Work of Zen?

Householder Zen Featured

Can Householders Really Do The Work of Zen?

You will need to let go of living your life based on fleeting and fickle human feelings. Beyond that, it is really simple. Find teachers with a training program that challenges you to throw yourself into the house of Buddha with wild abandon.

A Fire Child Comes Seeking Fire: Understanding or Awakening?

A Fire Child Comes Seeking Fire: Understanding or Awakening?

Do People Today Still Need Satori Or Not?

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Record of Going Easy

Do People Today Still Need Satori Or Not?

True Kensho: An Ordinary Person Wakes Up

Hakuin Featured

True Kensho: An Ordinary Person Wakes Up

"Remember that he was an ordinary person. Nevertheless, through only three days and nights of intensive zazen, he was able to clarify the meaning of his being. Where is your brave determination?"

Dizang Planting the Fields: “What Do You Call the Three Worlds?”

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Record of Going Easy

Dizang Planting the Fields: “What Do You Call the Three Worlds?”

Happy Awakening Buddha Day

Happy Awakening Buddha Day

Originally So Close

Originally So Close

“This Way is originally so close.”

Do Special Experiences Mean Anything?

Special Experiences

Do Special Experiences Mean Anything?

We're in a strange moment in Zen in the West where, in at least nine of ten zendos, all "experiences" are lumped together and dismissed.

Gnawing Through Qiánfēng’s Three Illnesses and Two Lights

Awakening Featured

Gnawing Through Qiánfēng’s Three Illnesses and Two Lights

"... You will see the infinite compassion contained in Qiánfēng’s instructions...."

Absorption, Awakening and Spiritual Fascination: Juifeng Does Not Agree

Record of Going Easy

Absorption, Awakening and Spiritual Fascination: Juifeng Does Not Agree

We're back from sesshin and a little vacation. Both were wonderful, as is being home again in the hermitage and walking along the great lake. Today, as promised, I'm sharing my translation of The Record of Going Easy (Japanese, Shoyoroku, aka, Book of Serenity), Case 96:

Cultivating Verification in One School Zen: A New Shushōgi for Now

Cultivating Verification in One School Zen: A New Shushōgi for Now

I recently wrote a piece titled, The "Soto Zen" of the PMSO: A New Religion Whose Time Has Passed, wherein I call out a text titled "Shushōgi" ("The Meaning of Practice Enlightenment"), a late-19th century summary of the teaching of Dōgen Zenji that has

Great Way No Gate

Awakening Featured

Practicing Awakening in These Very Times

This talk is from 2021. It was supposed to be about Cyber Zen, given my experience with such and the pandemic it seemed a fitting topic. However, I spent most of the time talking about the importance of awakening in our Soto tradition, telling a bunch of awakening stories of

We Are All This Luminous Mind: The Possibility and Importance of Awakening

An article by me (with the help of many friends) that appeared in Tricycle, 1/29/22. Their heading: "A Zen view of what awakening is and isn’t, with personal stories from contemporary practitioners."