In this talk, we examine the true nature of “bearing witness”. This is not some sort of detached, impervious position found “outside” our circumstances, but a willing capacity to “bear with” whatever comes. To explore this more deeply, we wake up the old Chinese formulation of "The eight winds", which are traditionally parsed as gain, loss, defamation, grief, praise, slander, pain and joy. The full gamut of human experience, you might say! So how do we face our winds? What do the ancestors have to say about meeting them completely? This talk was given as part of Zen Open Circle’s Taking Part in the Gathering Term 2 of practice. Note that the first few minutes of this talk were not recorded.

In this talk, we take up the “Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani”. DT Suzuki famously said that, “Properly speaking, the dharani has no legitimate place in Zen.” So why do we chant it? What is a magic spell for “averting calamities” doing in our sutra book? And if nobody knows what the words actually mean – only approximate translations can be summoned from the sounds – then what is its value?

Since the 5th Century in China, dharanis have been recognised for their profound “holding power” (dharani comes from the Sanskrit root dhr, which means “to hold or maintain”). So to chant the Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani, which we do three times after the Heart Sutra, aligns us with something prior to meaning and interpretation. Might a refamiliarization with what cannot be known or pinned down avert the greatest calamity of all, our propensity to have fixed ideas about the world and its bounty?

The world can be a noisy place. We battle for attention, but in the process can lose our capacity for listening. In this talk, we examine what it means to become a zhiyin - someone who “knows the tune”. Do we really know the tune of our partners, children, friends, neighbours and fellow workers, asks Nelson Foster? Because only then can we respond to them “appropriately and beneficially.” So how do we become a zhiyin? And what is this tune that we are tuning into? This talk was given in Castlemaine on 21/6/26.

When Yamada Roshi was asked what Zen practice is for, he said, “The perfection of character.” In this talk we track the evolution of the teacher Deshan, from young firebrand to mellow custodian of the Way, to explore the importance of character in a world that often seems to sneer at gentleness and compassion.

Laotzu taught that “knowing enough’s enough is enough to know". How do we practice this “knowing enough”? And what might we learn from our own meal ceremony and liturgy to help us live a simpler and more embodied life?

On the third night of sesshin we meet Daowu and his student Jianyuan, who are off to conduct a funeral in the nearby village. Things take an unexpected turn when the student Jianyuan raps on the coffin and demands, “Living or dead?” Daowu takes his student’s question and cares for it in the most thoroughgoing way, beyond even his own death.

On the second night of sesshin we encounter an old woman who says, “Go straight ahead!” What does she mean? How do we go straight ahead? And how does this practice fit hand in glove with the crooked path of genuine awakening?

On the first night of sesshin we take up three encounters from Shitou Xiqian (700-790) to see how they illuminate “Mu”, the great syllable of emptiness. We also spend a bit of time with dogs, who never fail to shake off the very human temptation to “have or have not”.

In a world being torn apart by war, it’s impossible not to think of the brokenness of our time, and how we might respond to this brokenness. Zen Master Yanguan offered his own unlikely response when he said, after discovering that his precious rhinoceros fan was broken, “Well, if the fan is broken, bring me the rhinoceros.” What did he mean? How might we learn from his left-of-field invitation? And what is it to respond from the dark of not-knowing instead of the more limited perspective of knowing?

In this talk, we meet Yanguan Qi’an, one of Mazu’s primary dharma heirs. Yanguan lived right up until the Huichang Persecution of 840-845, where 4,600 Buddhist temples were destroyed and 260,000 monks and nuns were displaced. Not only did his teaching endure, but his influence led to a restoration of temples and practice throughout China, and a flourishing of Zen that continues to this day. So what did he teach? How did he convey the simplicity of Mazu’s “ordinary mind”? And how might this be useful in our own time of uncertainty, with so much violence and displacement shaking the globe? This talk was given as part of Zen Open Circle’s Taking Part in the Gathering.