Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Greetings Friends,

I have a deep love and appreciation for the wonderment and creativity of this life. It’s un-pin-down-able, slippery, un-define-able—like a water color painting that continuously repaints itself.

One story from the Zen tradition that has always helped me stay awake to amazement and in courtship with the great mystery is the Zen Mirror of Tokeiji.

A partial-telling of which can be found in Case 34 of the Hidden Lamp.

The convent of Tokeiji had a great mirror. The founding abbess, Kakuzan Shido, would meditate before it in order to “see into her own nature.” Later generations of nuns would practice zazen in front of the mirror, concentrating on the question: “Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?” Each abbess of Tokeiji wrote a verse in response to the mirror practice. The following verse was composed by the fifth abbess Princess Yodo:

Heart unclouded, heart clouded;

standing or falling, it is still the same body.

When I was first introduced to this story it was during a silent meditation retreat, and we were invited to sit as this great mirror in the mirror hall. The invitation to be a mirror was a powerful pointing out instruction for me.

In the invitation to be a mirror, I glimpsed the mirror-like-nature of Mind.

The aspect of Being that is clear, open and all-inclusive.

The reflections of mind, body and heart danced inside this mirror together with the reflections of other bodies, the floorboards and the sound of the birds. The Heart-Mirror didn’t have preference for any of it, allowing pain to co-mingle with ecstasy, judgment to merge with the electrical hum and blowing wind. I was all of it— nothing left out.

In a strange unfolding of circumstances I inherited an old mirror from one of the deceased residents at the assisted-living facility I was working at while still in training at Great Vow. I started practicing mirror-gazing in my small dorm room, the old mirror propped up against my cubicle-board wall.

Since inheriting that old mirror the practice of mirror gazing has continued to evolve in my life, practice and teaching. In 2020 Jogen Sensei and I led a sesshin where we took up the Mirror practice of Tokeiji—encouraging participants to gaze at their own face in the round mirrors we taped to the backs of chairs.

The practice of mirror-gazing is much like the practice of zazen, in that it opens as we stay with it. Although often non-linear many people find in both seated meditation and in mirror-gazing that they move through various stages in the practice.

Below is a sampling of some of the phases of practice people often move through in both mirror-gazing and seated meditation. In both practices we endeavor to stay in present moment experience, in mirror-gazing we take the mirror as our support for meditation, in zazen the support may be breath, sound, the felt sense of the body or some other aspect of the present moment.

* Meeting mind’s reactivity—we start to see all the ways the mind doesn’t want to stay, it flits here and there, gets caught in circles of judgment, resistance, planning. In mirror gazing we may meet the harsh critics who want to pick apart our faces.

* Settling—if we stay with the practice, continuing to come back to just seeing. We may start to experience our bodies and faces more like the mirror does— without reactivity or judgment simply seeing the color, textures, shapes of what is in front of it. We may even experience compassion, love, tenderness or simply equanimity for this face that looks back at us. This also happens in zazen, where peace and acceptance opens up for whatever experience we are having.

* Inquiry—As the thinking mind settles and space opens up curiosity can be engaged with. The women of Tokeiji practiced with the breakthrough koan: Where is there a single feeling, a single thought in this mirror image which I gaze? Is this reflection thinking? Does this reflection have feelings? Where are the thoughts that you are aware of? The feelings? Are they too reflections in this great mirror of awareness?

* Mirror Awareness—whether mirror gazing or practicing zazen sometimes we wake-up to the mirror-like quality of awareness itself. In mirror-gazing it can happen when we notice the clarity and spaciousness of the mirror itself. Our Mind’s are like this clear and open mirror.

Every woman who came to train at Tokeiji practiced mirror gazing, and would write a poem expressing the insights that came through from engaging with this practice. The poems of the women who became abbess became part of an emerging koan curriculum unique to this temple.

Below are three poems from the Abbesses. The nuns living at Tokeiji would meditate on their poems and then would be asked to demonstrate their understanding without using words, but through their bodies.

The poem of the sixth teacher, Ninbo:

Even without any mirror to reflect the things,Every time one looks, there is a mirror reflecting them in theHeart.

The poem of the third teacher, Shotaku

As night falls, no more reflections in the mirror,Yet in this heart they are clearly seen.

Poem of the seventh teacher Ryodo

If one asks where the reflections in the pure mirror go whenthey vanish,Do you declare their hiding-place?

Listen to the Dharma Talk for a more in-depth exploration of this story. I share some reflections from the commentary in the Hidden Lamp, by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel and also some from Ruth Ozeki’s book The Face: A Time-Code.

If you take up the practice of mirror-gazing or sitting as a mirror, I would love to hear your reflections or feel free to share your own mirror-poem.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

This coming week we will be exploring case 25 & case 33 (Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn and Bodhidharma’s flesh)

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Hello Good Friends,

It’s late summer and I can feel the seasonal shift. Here in the northern states the Earth is darkening earlier and staying dark later, its cooler too. The humidity has dropped and the insects have grown quieter in my central ohio village. The tomatoes, peaches, corn, and zucchini are in abundance, the pawpaws are ripening and chicken-of-the-woods are blazing orange on fallen logs. We even found some huitlacoche!

What seasonal shifts are happening where you are?

What are you harvesting?

Part of what I appreciate about the hellenistic and modern astrological systems is that they are tuned into these subtle seasonal shifts that happen monthly. As they track the apparent movement of the Sun as seen from Earth.

As earth-dwellers our lives are dependent on the Sun, and as the Sun appears to move through the sky—changing its range throughout the year (at least for those of us who live at a distance from the equator). We feel it, the plants and animals feel it. Even as our modern lives tick-on—we experience the seasons in quite significant ways.

The change from summer to late summer is one I have always felt the strongest. The long days, hot sun, increased opportunities for connection, travel and creative expression which in the heart of summer feel like they will never end (oh the magical thinking, generosity and wonders of fixed fire, leo). Finally give way to the grace of the setting sun, lingering shadows, ripening fruits and dryer days of late summer, with its back-to-school reminders (that I feel even though its been almost twenty years since I personally followed the academic rhythms).

I find my inner hermit tugging at the heart—inviting me to conserve, prioritize, remember what is essential. Though the light of the sun is falling lower on the horizon, the light of the heart is awake. This is the time of year assigned to virgo, mutable earth, the virgin, the hermit, the cultivator, the servant, the healer, the practical witch.

A body exposed to the golden wind! —Zen Teacher Yunmen.

Do you feel the seasons shift in your body too?

My local sangha, Mud Lotus, invited virgo season in with a vocal toning practice this past Friday on the new moon. Vocal toning is a practice of letting voice, body, breath and awareness join together with the soundscape of other voices, bodies and breath.

Folks who participated shared about the seeming magic of releasing their bodies and minds to sound and were surprised at the soundscapes that emerged with rich and layered emotional textures, as our bodies released, opened, shuttered and at times felt stuck. Others noted how their thoughts asked: how does my voice fit here? before releasing into the collective breath where each tone, each voice, each body, each block has a place.

The practice of toning has always been a part of my spiritual practice, and it feels good to be continuing that practice with local community here.

Our Monday night online sangha is continuing with the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp, as we move into this late summer time.

This week as the dark moon started to reveal her growing crescent light. We read Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn.

The nun Nyozen of Tokeiji used to meditate on the enlightenment poem of Chiyono as her theme for realization:

With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together,

And then the bottom fell out.

Where water does not collect

The moon does not dwell.

Later, Nyozen grasped the essence of Zen, and she presented this poem to her teacher:

The bottom fell out of the bucket

Of that woman of humble birth

The pale moon of dawn

Is caught in the rain puddles.

While the full moon in Zen is an image of our true nature. We asked, what about the dark moon? Which often represents—endings and new beginnings—the unknown, the mystery of death and birth.

How do we stay connected to the moon when we can not see them?

How do we stay connected to the path of awakening when it seems to be happening in the dark of our unconscious, when it seems like we aren’t making any progress, when we don’t know what is going on?

The poems are written by two women who have never met. Nyozen meditated on Chiyono’s poem as a koan. This is part of the mystery of transmission in the Zen tradition. We hear the words and stories of our ancestors, and at times we feel invited, called to spend time with a line, a story, a poem—and as we do—the line, story or poem begins working on us.

We internalize it. We start to embody it as a living question, a living teaching. Much of this work happens in the dark. We seem to forget about it. We lose some of the words. But slowly over time or sometimes all at once—something is revealed. We know something about who we are, what is reliable, what is present even as the seasons pass and we get older.

Crescent Moon Transmission

Crescent Moon hanging low

On the horizon

An ancient horn

Playing through our bodies

For a moment

Join your voice with

The moon’s song

And hear each being sing you awake!

Listen to the dharma talk recording for a more in-depth exploration of Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn. And join us on Monday Night for the next case in the Hidden Lamp, Case 34: The Zen Mirror of Tokeiji with commentary from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.

I invite you to spend some time with the moon or one of these poems. Feel free to share your own Moon Transmissions or reflections here.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Interested in an astrology reading for eclipse season? or for the rest of the year? I have openings for Sept and into the Fall.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

This coming week we will be exploring case 25 & case 33 (Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn and Bodhidharma’s flesh)

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Greetings Friends,

I am returning from 10 days of monastic practice at my former home, Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to celebrate my teacher Chozen Bays Roshi’s 80th birthday, to practice and lead the annual outdoor sesshin that we call Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin and to facilitate a precepts ceremony.

I love monastic practice. I love merging with the great activity of awakening. I love the depth of practice that opens up when we sustain the gaze on our true nature and allow the bodhisattva vow to flow through us. I love being in this process of liberation and love with others.

Many of us are asking:

* How to live in a world on fire?

* What is an appropriate response?

* What should I do with my life?

The heart of practice awakening seems to turn these questions on their head, and ask instead what do you call the world?

And, who are you?

And what is your life?

Many great thinkers have posited that we can’t solve problems with the same mind that created them. What happens when we dare to step out of the problem-solving mind all together? What happens when we look directly into the assumptions we make about ourselves and the world? What happens when we gaze into the nature of life/death?

When we are willing to even begin to entertain these questions, and know ourselves beyond thought and label—another world opens up. Someone said recently “it’s like I’m inhabiting a different body.”

The body of this world, is our body. The body of mountain, space, silence is also our body.

The Zen Buddhist tradition is alive with teachings from practitioners, contemplatives, and mystics who were engaged in this kind of inquiry. Who sustained the gaze on the great matter, and invited us to realize this great body of awakening.

During sesshin we were chanting and practicing with Dogen Zenji’s Mountains and Waters Sutra. In this sutra, Dogen Zenji invokes Mountains as a metaphor for the nature of our mind. Mountain presence points us to the ever-abiding presence, spaciousness and silence of our own awake awareness.

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the Mountains and Waters Sutra.

Mountains and rivers right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha way. Both mountains and rivers abide in their true form and actualize true virtue. Mountains and rivers transcend time and are alive in the eternal present. They are the original self and they are emancipation-realization. Mountains are high and wide. The movement of clouds and the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains.

We can re-write this paragraph replacing Mountains with “we” or “our true nature”. Below is an example.

We–right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha Way. We abide in our true form and actualize true virtue. We transcend time and are alive in the eternal present. This is our original self—emancipation-realization. Our awareness is high and wide, the movement of thought and the inconceivable power of awakened activity comes freely from Mind’s nature.

Really this is an invitation to embody Mountain. To give over your body and life to the body and life of Mountain. Once when we were practicing with this sutra during a summer practice period my teacher said:

If you practice with Mountain everyday for the next 60 days, it will change you.

Let yourself be a Mountain, and in that realize how you already are still, silent, spacious, safely rooted—lacking nothing.

The video above is a guided meditation on Being a Mountain. In my experience Mountain practice opens up an essential aspect of zazen. I invite you to try it out. And don’t be shy, let your wild Mountain body-mind rest in its fundamental space.

You have always belonged to this great body of awakening.

You have never been separate.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

I currently have a few openings in my Spiritual Counseling practice for the Fall. I offer a four-session intro package for $250.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

This coming week we will be exploring case 25 & case 33 (Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn and Bodhidharma’s flesh)

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Being Flower

On Monday night during meditation we sat together as a community of flowers. Sun flower, daisy, rose, violet, marigold, milkweed, celosia, echinacea, blue vervain, poppy, queen anne’s lace, crocosmia, zinnia.

We were studying the koan Case 19 from the Hidden Lamp, Flowers in the Buddha Hall.

The nuns of Tokeiji were famous for their beautiful elaborate flower decorations on Buddha’s Birthday. Zen Teacher Yodo, the abbess wrote a verse for the occasion:

Decorate the heart of the beholder,

for the Buddha of the flower hall

in nowhere else.

Her attendants also wrote verse. Ika wrote:

Throw away into the street the years of the past.

What is born now on the flower dais—

let it raise its newborn cry.

Why sit as a flower? It might seem foolish or arrogant.

Maybe it is.

But its part of the invitation of the koans. To be inhabited by them. To practice seeing through the face of a sunflower—breathing in light—deeply connected to earth and sky. Opening petal by petal into this troubled and mysterious world.

Some call the wide-eyed flower jasmine.

Some call the wide-eyed flower thorn.

The wide-eyed flower doesn’t care what you call it.

I bow to such freedom. —Rumi

We’ve spent our lives practicing our human conditioning. Telling ourselves things that aren’t true about our worth, our lacks. Reinforcing a sense of separation, loneliness, fear.

What happens when you take-up the practice of being a flower?

How does a flower respond to you human thoughts and worries?

What does a flower think of your so called problems?

We find flowers throughout the buddhist teachings and koans. The Buddha gave a whole sermon—holding up a flower. There are recorded stories of practitioners having awakening experiences upon seeing a flower.

flowers are silent

silence is silent

the mind is a silent flower

the silent flower of the world open—Ikkyu

Remembering

In this koan the nuns of Tokeiji are re-enacting the story of the Buddha’s birth where flowers rained from the heavens. The story is ancient and the ceremony seems to have roots prior to buddhism. We build a flower bower in the shape of a white elephant that came to Maya in a dream. We decorate the bower in the fresh flowers of spring, and bathe the awakened child who stands on Great Mother Earth, pointing to the sky with one hand and the ground with the other.

There is something child-like and innocent about creating a flower dais and bathing the baby buddha in sweet tea. I don’t know the origins of the ritual, but it was something that we practiced when I lived at the monastery, and is part of the Japanese Zen tradition.

When we prepare for and participate in the ceremony, we are practicing a kind of remembering.

Remembering our own child-like innocence.

Remembering how malleable and playful the heart-mind of a child is.

Remembering a time in our life where our imagination was ripe. And we really were flowers. Or could become one at anytime. A time when hours could go by and we were perfectly content to sit and watch the daisies bob in the wind. Where we made crowns and wands and palaces out of flowers. A time when we could consult flowers for advice, and laugh with them in yellows, oranges, rubies and pinks.

This remembering stretches back before childhood, before we were born.

We are remembering who we are—before thought, before we got overly identified with this body. We are remembering our unborn buddha mind—our awakened nature.

Yodo’s poem is a reminder that the baby buddha in the ceremony—is us. Our buddha nature, our awakened nature is only right here.

Sometimes appearing as a flower, a face, anxiety, fear, aloneness, beauty, love.

All appearances are inseparable from the spacious embrace of our buddha nature.

Yet, we forget. So we practice remembering.

The baby buddha ceremony is a practice of remembering. Seeing flowers can be a practice of remembering. Zazen, chanting, bowing, the precepts, IFS, yoga, dancing all can be practices of remembering.

I recently was invited to give a teaching to the Pause Meditation Community on the theme of remembrance. As I was contemplating the theme, I rediscovered Joy Harjo’s poem Remember. And remembered the importance of poetry in our practice of remembering.

What is important to remember?

What do you want to remind yourself?

How do you remember?

Here’s a poem I wrote to help me Remember to Remember

Remember breath

How it breathes you, even as you sleep

And your mind drifts here and there

Even when you feel most alone

Its gentle rhythm soothes you

And gives you your life

Let yourself feel this ocean inside you

Rising and falling

Let yourself find your way back to yourself

Through the sensations of breath

Remember and you are aware

Your senses open to a world of wonder

Hear, see, feel, taste, smell

This is your wild and precious life

All is connected

You are part of this one life

Remember that all is changing

Mysteriously experience unfolds

These thoughts are just passing through

Nothing is fixed

Nothing is final

How you feel now will change

Is already changing

Feel the river of your life

Drink from it

Remember silence

Let yourself hear below

The murmur or yelling of thought

Before the music or the noise

Silence

Though it seems we are always

Trying to cover it over

Or fill it up

Silence remains

Feel your own inner silence

Befriend it

Listen to its wisdom

Let it show you something about who

You really are

Remember the goodness that you are

Feel the sincerity in your heart

Can you let yourself feel

The kindnesses that shape you

Open to joy

For no reason

Its here, even in the heartbreak

Even in the pain

Even when it feels farthest away

Remember this is your life

Its a good life

Its worth living

Feel its preciousness

Remember

For a deeper dive into this koan listen to the dharma talk where we explore more deeply some of the symbolism in the Buddha’s birth story, as well as Amala Roshi’s commentary to the koan found in the Hidden Lamp. Join Patrick Kennyo Dunn this coming Monday for Case 20: Shonin’s Shadeless Tree.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

This life is mysterious.

I often marvel at how there is so much more that we don’t know then that we do.

Walk into a forest or a city.

Even if I knew every being in the forest by name.

Will I ever be able to comprehend the relationships between them?

The relationships between the cells in my own body?

Even the mystery of what a tree is, this tree—the sycamore standing

right here, at the entrance to the park.

I can stand in her regal presence.

I can feel together for a moment

the majesty of being rooted—

And then my mind tumbles back into the mystery of being.

Two bodies, appearing in the vastness of space.

What is this wonder?

I have been contemplating faith. More accurately I have been noticing faith. There is a certain unnamed faith we enact as we go on living on a planet spinning and hurling through space. In a sea of inter-relations that we can barely comprehend—cosmic, spiritual, geo-politcal, interspecies, elemental. What is happening here is much more mysterious then what our language allows us to express. What we are can not be named with conventional speech.

What is faith?

What do you have faith in?

I find dharma practice to be an awakening of faith. Radical faith that allows us to peer into our assumptions about who and what we are. That allows us to open to the mystery of being. That allows us to rest in our true nature, the openness that we are.

Who are we if we are not our thoughts about the world?

If we aren’t our memories or feelings about the future?

If we aren’t our theories or deeply held beliefs?

What is experiencing this?

Who are you really?

This weeks dharma talk is an exploration of Case 15 from the Hidden Lamp: The Woman Let’s it Be. During the talk we explore faith, breakthrough koans and the simple and profound practice of “let it be.” On Monday you can join us live for meditation and a dharma talk. We will be exploring Hidden Lamp Case 19: Flowers of the Buddha Hall.

Hope to see you there. Or sometime soon!

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Greetings Friends,

Here we are in the heart of summer. I am writing this a week after the passing of beloved eco-dharma elder Joanna Macy. We are also in the middle of our summer read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. The koan story that we explored this week was Case 13: Chen’s Mountain Flowers and the commentary happens to be written by Joanna Macy. So I want to take the time in this post as well as the dharma talk audio to appreciate Joanna Macy’s life, work and practice through the lens of the koan.

Chen’s Mountain Flowers: China 7th-9th Century

Chen was a laywoman who traveled far and wide, visiting famous masters. After she realized enlightenment, she composed the following verse.

Up on the high slopes, I see only old woodcutters.

Everyone has the spirit of the knife and the axe.

How can they see the mountain flowers

reflected in the water—glorious red?

Joanna wrote about and lived her life with a wild love for the world. This was demonstrated in her activism, her translations of Rilke’s Book of the Hours, her work at building containers to help those engaged in the on-the-ground activism to connect with the emotional and spiritual side of their work and her own dharma practice. The koan Chen’s Flowers also speaks to a wild love for the world. One we are invited into through Chen’s simple poem.

I want to share an excerpt from an interview with Joanna Macy where she is speaking about her love for this earth/world, being less afraid of her fears and belonging—we are already home, she says:

It is so great a privilege to be here on Earth at this time. I have had the good fortune to drink from three great streams of thought—the buddhadharma, systems thinking, and deep ecology. Each gives me another way to know Gaia and to know myself. Each helps me be less afraid of my fears. I have had the joy of helping others experience this too, of seeing them take the Work That Reconnects further, building our collective capacities and our trust in reciprocity.

Being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is—this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of Earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. We will find more ways to remember, celebrate, and affirm this deep knowing: we belong to each other, we belong to Earth. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever separate us from her. We are already home.

Our belonging is rooted in the living body of Earth, woven of the flows of time and relationship that form our bodies, our communities, our climate. When we turn and open our heart–mind to Earth, she is always there. This is the great reciprocity at the heart of the universe. My gratitude to all. May we experience “sheer abundance of being,” as Rilke says, and know that we truly belong here.

Here are some resources if you would like to connect more to Joanna Macy’s Life Work.

On-being—An interview with Krista Tippett and Joanna Macy where several Rilke poems are shared

Work that reconnects—Joanna Macy’s website with lots of free resources

Lion’s roar interview—An interview with Joanna Macy about Buddhist practice and Eco-dharma

As I turn over this koan and Joanna Macy’s teachings and legacy I find many invitations for practice. Below are three that I am working with this week.

An Invitation to Study Wanting

Chen talks about how the woodcutters know only knife and saw. Taking from the earth is their way. What are the knives and saws in our own life? How do we cultivate the courage and generosity to make space for our own wanting, our own desires? What is it like to pause and feel the sensations of wanting without pushing them away, and also without indulging? What else accompanies wanting? And can we make space for those emotions, sensations, beliefs or memories?

I find when I make space for wanting, I often open to the gift of this life being experienced through my senses, it feels tender and quivering like a reflection in the water. But good, real. Gratitude follows quite naturally.

The Color Red as a Mindfulness Bell

Chen’s poem is short and simple, and yet the glorious red rings loudly. I found myself noticing red after reading this poem. So I took it up as a mindfulness practice. Allowing myself to really notice the shades of red in my life. To take time and linger with them, to feel the glory and boldness of ruby, cherry, vermillion, scarlet, crimson.

Red also became a mindfulness bell, calling me to open my other senses—to really see, hear, smell, taste, feel. To let my awareness open and my thinking mind silence. Red awakened aliveness. I started to see how my neighbor’s overalls, the cardinal on the river trail, the summer rose, the stop sign and brake lights were all in cahoots—helping me to awaken to our shared buddha nature.

Wild Love for the World Practice

What if your love for the world and your grief for the world could co-exist? What if you took them both for a walk? Where would you go? What would you see? What is your own poem to express this wild love?

i meet my sorrow in the lazy river, who doesn’t mind my shy sadness

but instead lets it float along with the gaggle of geese

who seem to be deep in meditation

i don’t try to pretend that i know anything when i walk along the river

its more like meeting god

who seems to shine out of each of us unhindered

a light so honest

i almost don’t lose myself in its playful loving

Listen to the dharma talk for a more extensive dive into this koan and Joanna Macy’s legacy. May we each discover that we too are already at home, and live with a wild love for this life.

Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts or your wild love for the world poem in the comments section. Next week we will be exploring Case 15 in the Hidden Lamp, The Woman Lets it Be. Summer Reading Schedule can be found here.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

Zen Practice opportunities through ZCO

Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Greetings Friends,

As we move through our Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women this week we focused on Case 10: Asan’s Rooster. The koan is one of devotion, deep listening and awakening to our true undivided nature.

Here’s the case.

Asan was a lay woman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morning sitting she heard the crow of the rooster and her mind suddenly opened. She spoke a verse in response:

The fields, the mountains, the flowers, and my body too are the voice of the bird—what is left that can be said to hear?

Master Tetsumon recognized her enlightenment.

This koan describes an experience of reality, ordinary mind before identification with conditioned habits of separation.

What Asan realized— is our natural state. There aren’t boundaries that separate the senses. Our seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking happen in the open field of awareness. There aren’t boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world. Everything we experience is part of the flow of our life. We are one body. There isn’t some distant “us” apart from the flow of experience.

Why don’t we experience this wonder, freedom and intimacy? Well, we are. We do.

We are never separate from reality.

Its just that our attention gets hooked onto objects.

Our habits of distraction, separation, disinterest and wanting things to be different— seem to obscure the open, inclusivity of our awakened nature. And so, we don’t see what is right here, closer then close.

This mis-perception is why we practice, we practice to reacquaint ourselves with the oneness, belonging, connection, freedom and love that is our nature, our ordinary mind, our natural state.

We practice and have moments of realization, moments of awakening where our fascination with our habits of mind drop away, and we wake-up to the reality of our one life. We wake up to the one body of mountains, buildings, flowers and our body too as the voice of the bird, or the sound of the subway or the ring of the alarm.

We are one body. This life is one life. Open your senses and wake-up to our shared life. Feel the spacious presence of mind’s nature, clear, open, wake—all inclusive.

In this dharma talk we explore the practice of listening as a dharma gate. This is a rich and deep practice that we can practice in meditation, in our relationships, with ourselves and as we move through the world. Listening invites intimacy, awakens spaciousness and presences. I invite you to practice listening with us this week. Here are some pith instructions for listening as a practice.

What are you hearing? Open your senses.

Let love guide your listening—

as your sense of self opens beyond the limits of the physical body.

The body of sound is vast and spacious. It includes the entire world.

Listen closely, the sound is better.

Be open to the pleasure and joy of listening.

Drink it in.

Try to listen without judgment, label or preference.

Hear sounds as if you were listening to a strange, experimental piece of music.

Feel the boundless quality to your listening—no inside, no outside, no in-between.

Hear the cries of the world.

Hear the joys.

Let your listening include the waves of feeling moving through your own body.

Compassion arises from this kind of listening.

Can you hear the seemingly silent objects that surround you?

Hear with your eyes, with your whole body, let all of your senses participate in your listening.

Listen to the silence, the apparent source of sound.

Is there anyone that can be said to hear?

Who is that one?

Rumi says:

Listen, and feel the beauty of yourseparation, the unsayable absence.

There's a moon inside every human being.Learn to be companions with it.

Give more of your life to this listening.

Give more of your life to this listening.

As you reflect on this koan and the practice of listening, what resonates for you?

* Have you ever had a taste or glimpse of awakening? What impact did it have on your life?

* What is your experience with listening as a practice?

* How is listening connected to compassion in your life?

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

Zen Practice opportunities through ZCO

Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Greetings Friends,

I am just getting back from our Interdependence Sesshin— five-days of residential silent retreat practice in the hills of West Virginia with the Mud Lotus Sangha. It was moving for me to practice sesshin in a new environment with many people who it was their first longer retreat.

Sesshin is healing, no matter what the theme, it transforms us to sit and live in silence together, to practice opening the senses and seeing into our nature. It’s a non-linear practice that awakens faith, vow, deep love and interconnection. As well as a confidence in the imperturbability of Mind itself.

Returning from sesshin is its own practice. One that I am getting more familiar with outside of the monastery walls. Our lives are interdependent, so naturally sesshin flows into the structures and routines of our living. The heart-mind awake in the play of work, relationship, driving, eating—as the many hands and eyes of compassion express and manifest so seamlessly.

What is this wonder? Alertly seeing through confusion is the way of silent illumination and the way of subtle radiance. —Hongzhi

On Monday nights I lead an online drop-in meditation group through ZCO. We are currently doing a summer read of the Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. You are welcome to join, click the link for the schedule below.

This past Monday we read Case 6: Bhadda Kundalakesa Cannot Answer.

Here is a short version of the story.

Bhadda is a wandering Jain ascetic very skilled in debate. Wherever she goes she throws down a rose apple branch signifying that she is challenging any who dare engage with her to debate.

When she is seventy years old, Shariputra (the Buddha’s disciple) challenges Bhadda. Bhadda asks him several philosophical questions and he answers them all. Finally he says to her. I have one question for you. And proceeds to ask:

“ One—what is that?”

Bhadda can not answer.

Shariputra then begins to teach her the dharma. Bhadda asks to take refuge and meets the Buddha who says to her.

“One phrase that brings peace is better than a thousand words that have no use.”

At these words Bhadda awakens.

This koan feels particularly relevant in the charged political climate we find ourselves in. The nature of debate so often is a practice of proving ourselves, trying to convince the other how our perspective is the right one. We can feel self-righteous in our views, or morally superior or better then.

When you debate or argue with someone, are you actually open to hearing what they have to say? How do we stay curious in the face of differences? What is it like to stay connected to your heart’s aspiration when engaging in speech?

In the story, Shariputra asks a mind-stopping question to Bhadda.

One—what is that?

The question itself doesn’t really even make sense. As I repeat the phrase my mind has no where to go with it. It stops, opens, all that is left is space—quiet, wakefulness.

I imagine this is what happened for Bhadda.

Has anyone ever asked you a question that you could not answer? What did you do?

This moment of not being able to answer left Bhadda open to the dharma—to the truth before words.

Our words, our thoughts, our fears are often the source of division. We get so caught up in them, in being right or needing to defend ourselves or prove our position—that we forget that we are all made of the same stuff. That we all share the same nature, that quite literally and experientially our lives contain each other.

If interdependence is our nature. How do we realize it?

What is this One?

This is the theme we explore in this dharma talk, feel free to listen and leave a comment. I’d love to hear your reflections on this koan as well.

* Who are you when you aren’t identified with your thoughts? When your mind is silent, open, awake?

* Have you ever had the experience of not being able to answer? What happened next?

* What is your experience of the Buddha’s teaching to Bhadda—one phrase that brings peace is better than a thousand words that have no use?

Next week we will continue the theme of oneness and interconnection through the practice of listening. To follow along and join the conversation read Case 10: Asan’s Rooster in the Hidden Lamp.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

Zen Practice opportunities through ZCO

Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.

Greetings Friends,

We began the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women with the first koan—The Old Woman of Wutai, a story about the spiritual path, pilgrimage and life direction that features crone wisdom. If you are interested in joining the summer read, more information and reading schedule can be found here.

In this email I would like to share the koan and some reflections about life as pilgrimage. I would also love to create space for your own reflections and engagement.

First the koan.

Hidden Lamp Case 1: The Old Woman of Wutai

AN OLD WOMAN lived on the road to Mount Wutai. A monk on pilgrimage asked her, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?” The old woman said, “Right straight ahead.”

The monk took a few steps, and she said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.” Monks came one after another; they’d ask the same question and receive the same answer.

Later, a monk told Master Zhaozhou Congshen what had happened and Zhaozhou said, “I’ll go and investigate that old woman myself.”

Next day Zhaozhou went to the old woman and asked, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?”

“Right straight ahead,” she replied.

Zhaozhou took a few steps.

The old woman said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.”

Zhaozhou returned to the monastery and told the monks, “I have checked out the old woman of Mount Wutai for you.”

This story begins with a person on pilgrimage. Chozen Roshi defines pilgrimage in her book on Jizo Bodhisattva as, a long journey to a sacred place as an act of devotion.

* Have you ever been on pilgrimage?

* Where did you go? Who/what did you encounter?

* What did you learn?

The Practice of Pilgrimage

I find pilgrimage to be a very good metaphor for our life as spiritual practice, especially for those of us who don’t live at a monastery or temple. In our daily lives we move around, we walk, we journey to different places whether mentally or physically. We encounter strange, wise, ordinary and mysterious beings.

Our seemingly mundane travels to the grocery store, to the gym, to the park, to work could be seen as journeys to sacred places. What makes something sacred? I think this is an important question to ponder. What in your daily life is sacred? What defines an encounter with the sacred?

In the Buddhist tradition people make pilgrimage to see the places in the buddha’s life, where he taught, the bodhi tree where he was enlightened, where he was born and died. These travels of devotion can be inspiring and connect us to an ancient path of practice.

So too, we are living buddhas. Where we walk, drive or bike is sacred land. When we are present, attentive, mindful, aware—we are actualizing a practice of devotion.

In her book, Jizo Bodhisattva: Modern Healing & Traditional Buddhist Practice Chozen Roshi explores the relationship between pilgrimage and wandering, she says:

There is a difference between a pilgrim and a wanderer. Buddhist teachings use “wanderer” to refer to someone who is lost in the rounds of suffering existence, transmigrating through the six worlds. As we move day by day, hour by hour, among states of ignorance and stupidity, irritation and anger, greediness, coveting and jealousy, pain and mental discomfort, we are like people wandering in a dense primal forest, unable to find a way out or even to climb above the trees to see if there is an edge to this tangling wilderness. We will do this until we realize, hear or are shown that there is a way out.

What is the difference between a pilgrim and a wanderer? First, we must know that there is a path. If we get lost and can’t find our way out, the only choice is despair and/or a grim determination just to survive. What transforms despair and resignation to hope and joy is knowing there is a path.

She then goes on to talk about the practice of pilgrimage and what we need for the journey.

A pilgrim carries only the essentials. Jizo has a robe and bowl, a staff, and the Dharma jewel. Nothing extra. What do we need to step out on the path of practice? Just the equipment we were born with. A body and a mind. Actually, a body that is breathing.

Body, breath and mind. That’s all that’s needed. The beauty of this is that it means you can practice anywhere, anytime. In line for the bank, in a traffic jam, rocking your child to sleep. Just align body, breath and mind and there you are…

Students ask, “How do you find time for practice?” There are two answers. First, my life makes me practice. I could not do what I do without practice. Second, I turn my awareness around. Instead of looking for time to practice and trying to expand it, I look for time I am not practicing and try to shrink it.

Meeting the Old Woman

On this journey in the koan, we encounter an old woman.

This old woman embodies crone wisdom and is also a Jizo-like figure, living at a crossroads—offering direction.

In the commentary to this koan Nancy Brown imagines that perhaps this woman lived on a crossroads point to Wu Tai her entire life. And perhaps when she was a younger woman she would give the pilgrims physical directions, “yes, turn right here and then follow the path until you get to the larger oak tree…” but as she entered elder-hood her directions became more of a spiritual nature that she expressed as—go straight ahead!

There is another koan in our lineage that invites: go straight on a mountain road with 99 curves.

Crone wisdom like koan wisdom is about stepping out of logical, rational, either/or dualistic ways of being—and awakening to a more-than-rational awareness.

The people we meet on our journeys can be teachers. Sometimes a line from a chant catches us when we are practicing chanting. Similarly in the pilgrimage of our lives, sometimes an encounter with a stranger at the grocery store, a scene from a show, words on our instagram feed can be teachings—touching our hearts before words.

I was recently reading the fairly tale the Maiden King, in it the young hero has an encounter with Baba Yaga, the crone figure who lives in the depths of the forest. In the tale she asks the hero,

Did you come here of your own free will, or by compulsion?

This pilgrimage, this healing journey, this spiritual quest, this life path you are on—how did you get here?

Are you wandering or are you a pilgrim?

In the fairy tale the hero answers, I came mostly of my own free will, and twice as much by compulsion.

Mostly I was following my aspiration, and twice as much my wanderings.

This is the way of things, we meet our lives as best we can through our vows, our intention. So much of what happens is beyond our control. Sometimes we wander and find ourselves in strange, challenging, habitual or unfamiliar terrain.

The Way of Not-Knowing, The Way of Intimacy

One of my teachers invited us to practice aimless wandering. We would consciously disrupt direction oriented walking with a touch of chaos, moving not from the head but from some other source of direction.

The practice was an invitation to embrace uncertainty as a practice—as something that we can embrace or be in relationship with. It also turns the duality of wandering and pilgrim around. Perhaps wandering too is the way—is part of this mysterious path.

There is another koan about pilgrimage, here a pilgrim is asked where they are going on pilgrimage, and they answer honestly—”I don’t know.” The teacher responds: “Not-knowing is most intimate.”

I find when working with koans, that the phrases or images offered can become practice reminders. Which phrases or images feel alive for you? Carry them around and see how they open.

I am practicing with the old woman’s phrase—right, straight ahead. To voice this phrase internally as I notice mind-wandering into garden plans or song lyrics or stories about the people in my life—I say, “Kisei, right straight ahead.” And usually it wakes me up to the mystery of this place—the sounds of my hands typing, tree limbs dancing in the summer breeze, openness-unconditioned, belly-breath, an abiding tenderness towards…

Happy Summer Solstice!

I feel deep gratitude to be on this path of friendship, communion and inquiry with you. The path of dharma is a path of truth, of getting closer to the actuality of our lives—to the heart of what is right here.

In this journey of the heart there are so many encounters, so many opportunities for reflection, so many relationships, learnings, emotions, sensations.

Fear is a natural part of the human experience. It is often connected to a sense of not feeling safe or a-getting-closer-to-what-is unfamiliar, unknown, uncertain.

And fear can be quite ephemeral—leaving in its wake anger, anxious thoughts, panic, doom—as we attempt to distract ourselves, numb out or push it away.

In the Buddhist tradition we have a lot of different practices for meeting fear and meeting our reactions to feeling fear. All of these practices are grounded in the four immeasureables: loving kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity.

In the audio dharma talk I share some of the practices I have learned for practicing with fear, including metta, insight, working with Jizo Bodhisattva and tonglen. At the end of the recording I lead a guided tonglen practice for meeting fear/anxiety in ourselves and the world, opening to spaciousness and offering love.

May we meet our fears with understanding and compassion, as we cultivate the courage to welcome everything that comes our way!

…

Summer Read—The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women (First Session Monday 6/23)

This Summer I will be offering teachings and open discussion on 15 selected koans and stories from The Hidden Lamp. I am inviting you to join in this Summer read.

The Hidden Lamp offers stories from the Women Ancestors in the Buddhist tradition. These stories are raw, humble, playful and speak of this very human path of awakening. Each story is accompanied with commentary from a contemporary Buddhist teacher.

The koans are stories that tell of the awakened life. They invite us with their metaphors and images to recognize our own awakened life.

I will host a meditation, dharma talk and discussion weekly on each koan and provide brief commentary and inquiry questions here. You are invited to attend the meditation/discussion, share your comments here, read along or engage in whatever way feels good for you.

the light of the dharma is shining through every experience of our lives. sometimes it appears hidden. this offering is an invitation to recognize the light of awakening in the midst of our living this summer.

We will start this coming Monday June 23rd with the first Koan story: The Old Woman of Mount Wu Tai.

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.

Weekly Online Meditation Event

Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring supportive practice forms for engaging the dharma in life outside of retreat.

Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK

Zen Practice opportunities through ZCO

Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)

In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha

Interdependence Sesshin: A Five Day Residential Retreat Wednesday July 2 - Sunday July 6 in Montrose, WV at Saranam Retreat Center (Mud Lotus is hosting its first Sesshin!) Currently full, contact me to be added to the waitlist.

Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday