More on how and why our sitting practice is woven with vows. Examples of other formulations of vows within the Mahayana tradition.

A look at four essential ingredients of our practice of the Buddhadharma, (besides zazen), and an introduction to Ko Ngā Oati e Whā (the four great vows in te reo).

The Emperor of China doesn't understand the National Teacher's request for him to build a 'seamless monument'. After he dies, his heir Tangen recites a poem to answer the Emperor's query, saying, "Beneath the shadowless tree a community ferryboat."

What is the meaning of Zen? What is the meaning of life?

How we cling to the self-identities we create, even when they are painful.

Main Source(s): Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by Christopher Cleary

Renunciation is not an outward but an inward action, a gradual transformation of our attitude toward the world around us.

Main Source(s): Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by Christopher Cleary

Who or what is in the way of our waking up? How do we get out of the way?

Main Source(s): Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by Christopher Cleary

How subjective emotional consciousness distorts our experience.

Main Source(s): Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by Christopher Cleary

Some historical background on Master Dahui and his championing of koan practice.

Source(s): Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui Translated by Christopher Cleary, and Circle of the Way by Barbara O'Brien

Chiyono experiences enlightenment when the bottom falls out of her water bucket. How do we break out of fixed ways of seeing ourselves and framing the world? Absorption in a koan is a tried and tested way.

Main text: The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon