The image of a migrant father and his young daughter lying dead on a bank of the Rio Grande prompts Nyogen Roshi to reflect on Buddhist teachings around suffering. Drawing on his own experiences with suffering as well as lessons handed down in the Zen tradition, Roshi concludes that the story of the Buddha contains the only possible remedy. “Who else other than yourself is sitting there?” Roshi says. “You can only look into your own mind. If you can understand where the pathway is, simply trust the words of the Buddha. His own life was the prescription and the path.”
The Manifest Koan
The manifest koan is you, what is apparent and appearing, depending solely on right now. Nothing else. If you’re still caught in the comparing mind, the judgmental mind, you won’t see it. If you’re trapped in seeing objects as separate from you, you are far from it. But I think everybody here is starting to sense it…
Just Enter the Stillness
Doing non-doing is the essence of Zen. Far from laziness or indifference, the stillness of zazen is the site of transformation. But reaching the still point does take effort. “Sustained effort will lead you into the joy,” Roshi tells us, “into the wonder of what your life is truly all about. The doorway opens there–all pathways lead from that point.”
Koans
Far from being anachronistic curiosities or puzzles to tease the intellect, koans are literally steps on the path of liberation. In his introduction to a translation of The Blue Cliff Record, one the the classic koan collections in the Zen tradition, Maezumi Roshi wrote, “You yourself become the case–this Blue Cliff is your very life.” […]
The Death of Me
Reading from the book “Awareness” by Anthony de Mello–a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist who grew up in Mumbai, India–Nyogen Roshi marvels at how much the Jesuit’s teaching sounds like instructions from masters in the Zen and Tibetan traditions. “Death is not a tragedy at all. Only dead people fear death…”
Ordinary Mind
In one of the most famous Zen stories, Joshu asks his teacher Nansen, “What is the Way?” Nansen replies, ” Ordinary mind is the Way.” What is ordinary mind? Nyogen Roshi walks us into it. “Get quiet,” he says. “Purify the mind–which means stop talking to yourself. Just sit here in the present moment. What else is there to be known? You know everything there is, perfectly.”
Writing on Water
A talk on emptiness begins with Nyogen Roshi’s recounting the experience of “writing on water” with a stick when he was a boy growing up in Colorado. Far from indifference to the world around us, Roshi says, realizing the emptiness of all things through Zen practice entails profound spiritual awakening…
You’re in the Bardo Right Now
In a recent talk on the Bardo–the transition between life and death–Nyogen Roshi highlights an insight from a modern Tibetan master’s commentary on a classic text: Each of us exists in the Bardo right now…
The Authentic Gate
Inspired by Yamada Roshi’s account of his kensho in the book, “Zen: The Authentic Gate.” Nyogen Roshi encourages us to remember that just as suffering and death are real, enlightenment is also real. “Without enlightenment, there is no Zen Buddhism,” Roshi says. “Yamada wasn’t some mythical character. I met him! He was a remarkable man […]
What Is This Practice?
Recalling a talk that he gave when he was Maezumi Roshi’s student, Nyogen Roshi tells us he said he wanted to practice “blue-collar Zen”–it had to work in the grim places where he often found himself as a social worker specializing in child protective services…
Awakening in the Marketplace
Wherever Dharma is being manifested it is always this state of awareness here with each one of us. There are no barriers except for what we erect in our thinking minds. You can’t overcome thoughts by trying to suppress thoughts, but that’s what we often do when we begin…
How Do You Practice?
“Do you want emancipation?” Nyogen Roshi asked in a recent talk on the enlightenment experience of Seigen Gyoshi, the Seventh Zen Ancestor. “Do you want freedom from birth and death? Only when you begin to open the eye clearly will you see how a shadow of an attitude shapes your experience of this…”
