Sensei Noah Kodo Roen: Taking the Backward Step into the Infinite Field of Pure Potential – Fall Practice Period 2022 (5 of 11)

As we’ve explored the practice of silent illumination this Fall Practice Period we’ve come across the phrases “take the backward step” and “turn the light around.”. But what do these phrases, used by both Hongzhi and Dogen, actually mean? And how do we practice them?

In his first Dharma talk as Sensei, Noah Kodo Roen invites us to engage these questions through a guided practice, in which we investigate exactly who or what it is that perceives: that sees, hears, touches the phenomenal world. We are constantly taking in sight and sounds, but where are those phenomena coming from, where do they go, and what is experiencing them?

Here Kodo encourages us to have faith. Not faith in any abstract propositions about zen, but faith in the practice: keep coming back until you see, until you gain your own experience of what you really are. The purpose of our practice, Kodo suggests, is to discover this and to do so with each other.

To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here.

For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below:

Upaya Podcast Series: SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD 2022: Cultivating the Empty Field