Jesus was born in a lowly place. Buddha, on the other hand, came from nobility, as a prince. But he had to leave that place and go into the wild. It was only there after he’d humbled himself and lost everything that he could be born anew.

Whenever you’re not thinking, just experiencing, that is your Buddha mind. However, once you think “I’m experiencing Buddha mind” you’re no longer experiencing it! “Mirror mind” is another way of expressing this concept, and illustrated by the story of the fifth and sixth patriarchs of Zen. Weston T. Borden speaks […]

Ryokan, whose name means “great fool, good and broad”, was empathetic to a fault, unafraid to show emotion or use emotion as a teaching. Koshin Cain speaks at the Zen Center on December 11, 2016.

According to Mahayana lore, the monks weren’t ready for the idea of emptiness in the Heart Sutra. So the Buddha gave the sutras to the Nagas, the sea serpents under the ocean, until people were ready to hear them. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at our fall sesshin.

When I first went to Mount Baldy, my zazen got worse. Looking back on it, I feel like I was trying to contract my way into quiet. I want to encourage you to be strong and open in your posture; to sit large rather than small. Koshin Cain speaks at […]

The heart of the Heart Sutra: form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness has a history of being an unsettling concept, especially in the West. Koshin Cain speaks at the fall sesshin,

It’s actually kind of good to get sideswiped by something that throws you off completely and you have to start from scratch. These are the real gifts we get from practice. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at the fall sesshin,

We see form more concretely than emptiness, but the Heart Sutra is telling us to delve deeper into form as well as emptiness. Form and emptiness are equivalent and completely intertwined. Genko Kathy Blackman speaks at the fall sesshin.

The striking of the han is a call to recommit to this practice; to notice change. Likewise, sesshin is a call to feel yourself change; to feel what it’s like to move with time. Koshin Cain speaks at the fall sesshin.

What are we to make of the lines in the Heart Sutra saying “no eyes, no ears, no tongue..”? There’s a truth underneath us having things like tongues, ears and eyes. The Heart Sutra points to our human tendency for rigid categorization. Koshin Cain speaks at the fall sesshin,