Events

It’s both a personal journey, where new understandings can appear, and a chance to feel a deep affection for what’s happening now.  And you are invited to participate in a refuge ceremony at the end of the afternoon for two PZI members who have come to take the 16 vows. It’s a happy occasion and a good thing to share with other people.

To be able to find our life in the midst of the rubbish and sludge is not to ‘make do’ with a bad situation, but to glide along like that snail.

Words such as “Buddha”, “Mind”, “Tao” can be polestars in our practice, and as objects of devotion.
But does that hinder our noticing and appreciating the cool wind blowing in from the screen door and the sound of crickets?

When the impulse to name is resisted, what the self is has infinite possibilities. The infinite selves have access to infinite possibilities to respond to the moment as it is arising, which is another way of describing freedom.

When are we separated from ourselves? How do we know? If so, what has to happen before we can rejoin ourselves?

The field that Hongzhi is talking about in the quote, is what he calls the empty field and the fact that it has no boundaries and is beyond direction speaks to the emptiness of it, though, it is not barren, it is full of everything, including cypress trees and cakes, and everything in it is precious.

I was interested to see that Hongzhi said that the habits get exhausted not that we get exhausted, it reminded me that the thought that we are a self is one of the habits that gets exhausted.

Sept. 28th – Individual Conversations on your Meditation Practice
with David Weinstein. Online booking for Sat. now available.

I am not a fan, to say the least, of leaping off high places.  I learned this when a young boy, after climbing up onto a ledge to jump into a lake, only to stand there frozen for what seemed like an eternity before finally throwing myself into the void …

When a newly arrived member of the community approached Zhaozhou after the morning meal and asked for instruction. Zhaozhou asked if he had eaten and he said yes. Responding without laboring Zhaozhou told him to wash his bowls.