in the Cloud

Episode Description:Henry uses this startling koan about Nansen and a cat to explore questions about life, death and ultimate reality. Does Nansen really kill the cat? If so, what has he actually killed? What is this life we believe we are leading? Listen to how this koan beckons us to wake from the dream of subject and object, life and death. Henry quotes theologians, zen stories, and the Cloud of Unknowing to elucidate how this powerful koan can shock us out of ourselves.

Image Credit: Sleeping Buddha, Dreaming the World, by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: Zen Stone Garden, by t_s_l, CCO Public Domain

Episode Description:Henry explicates the first six lines of the Verses on the Faith-Mind by focusing on the question, What is the great way? Henry quotes from the 14th-century Zen master Bassui, who insists we already are the great way, fully and completely. This talk grapples with the essence of Zen training; the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion; the first critical step of accepting our perceived separation from the great way; and finally, the distinction between self- and nonself-based practice, both of which are unavoidable and necessary in the process of training.  Calling on the elders in the lineage, this potent talk incorporates the wisdom of Bassui, Dahui and Yamada Roshi to show how our current practice is, right now, the great way itself.

The other 2 parts of this series: Episode #20 Part 1 and Episode #25 Part 3 (final one).

Image Credit: Hallway, Self-Realization Fellowship, Encinitas, California, USA, by Wonderlane, CC BY 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: Courtesy Cherie Manifest.

Episode Description: In part 1 of this 2-part series about the Shin-jin-mei (Hsing-Hsign Ming, Verses on the Faith-Mind), Henry provides background details about the second patriarch Sosan (Ch. Seng-T’san). We learn about his serious illness, his desire for release from karmic debt, and his awakening encounter with his teacher, the second Chinese Ancestor Eka (Ch. Huike). Henry begins to explicate the opening verse of this 6th century Zen document by questioning our daily lifelong habit of "picking and choosing." How do our ordinary preferences interfere with our availability to experience the "great way?" Listen to parts 1 and 2 of this exploration of Zen’s "supreme way."

The other 2 parts of this series: Episode #21 Part 2 and Episode #25 Part 3 (final one).

Image Credit: Amitabha, by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: Courtesy Cherie Manifest.

Episode Description: In this teisho given on New Years Day, Henry peels back layers of the central question: "What really matters?" exploring other enquiries along the way -- What is the grave matter of life and death? What realization can occur when patterned ways of perceiving fall away? Who am I? Henry relates a parable from the Lotus Sutra about an orphaned child from a wealthy home who learns who he really is, and shows how it functions as a metaphor for Zen training’s ability to help us discover deeper levels of our identity.

Image Credit: Dzogchen, by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: Sunshine Lotus, by maf o4, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Episode Description: In this personal discussion of Blue Cliff Record case 12, Henry talks about death, the eternality of time and the limits of rationality. We learn that failure and loss are necessary and that only through the process of non-rational experience can true opening occur. Henry shares two loving and poignant poems that he wrote for his father’s funeral.

Image Credit: Life + Death, by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: It's About Time, by Steve Corey, CC BY-ND 2.0.