Kobun’s Recommendations for Sitting Outside the Zendo

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We don't know where Zen is.  Sometimes Zen doesn't exist in the Zen temple or Zen monastry.  In a strange place you find Zen still alive.  It can be questioned whether we always need to be sitting indoors, facing a wall.  Under the Bo Tree was a protected spot, lots of oxygen, shade, no direct wind or rain.  These are things common to the way we build a house, instead of sealing yourself in a solid concrete building.  Staring at a cliff, tree trunk, or water could be like facing a wall.  A river bank, or other outdoor spot, could have objects which excite you, but soon they become a blank wall again.  The Buddha needed a stable rock and munja, a grass which can be bundled to make a soft cushion. The point is what sitting is.  

You do not necessarily carry zazen around.  When we travel in unknown places from one spot to another, we have to stay still for some time, to find out where we are, to find zazen.  If you have an address to find, there is already a goal, so it's not a completely unknown place, yet, in the confused, chaotic bundle of burning life, itself, there is no address, so to speak.  There is no one spot, no person, no particular matter from which you always measure your location...  read more

 

 

 
 

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Zazenkai

A one day intensive retreat with Doug Jacobson.

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GENZO-e Sesshin

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APRIL 29, 2-4pm
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