In this Dharma talk which he gave shortly after he returned from a hiking adventure to Everest Base Camp in Nepal, Kelly Doman Stevens Sensei recounts the rewards and challenges of his transforming experience. “It was vast, desolate and awe-inspiring,” he says of the landscape around Mount Everest. “But I wouldn’t call it pretty exactly.” […]
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Follow the Monk!
Affirmations Work
“When he began talking about affirmation practice, I told Nyogen, this is so long overdue for me personally. This habit of negative thinking of mine is poison, and I have been poisoning myself with it for years.”
Chanting Services
Services introduce the aspect of ritual into our practice. Specifically, a “service” consists of a chant, performed in front of the altar, to transmit the energy, intention and benefit of our practice into the world we inhabit. In one way, rituals are an external expression of our inner state. At the same time, we strengthen and reinforce our inner state by the external chant. The service brings together what we think of as “inside” and “outside” into a unified whole.
The Issue of Suffering
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.”
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.”
Pain Versus Suffering
In this excerpt, Hogen points to the power we have to reduce our own suffering. When we entertain fantasies of something “other” than what exists right now—no matter how painful or difficult the situation—our desire to escape from who and where we are actually creates more suffering for ourselves.
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…
