Sokuzan responds to questions about meditation and spiritual practice on this Easter Sunday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axY8D2NWIiI&t=2s

This title is inspired by the King of Samadhi Sutra (Samadhi Raja Sutra). These words are attributed to the Buddha: “Existence and non-existence are both extremes. Pure and Impure are the same. Therefore, abandoning all extremes, the wise do not even abide in the middle.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgme4pDSTp0

This happens and it’s ignored but that happens and it resonates. Some kind of connection. Is this dependent origination? Is this pratityasamutpada? If not, then what is it when this happens, that occurs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oksPiIbXQY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4y2m7DO5E&t=1s

Sokuzan talks about grasping or “upadana” in Sanskrit. It is the ninth link on the chain of dependent origination or “pratityasamutpada”. It is a way of talking about what happens in consciousness that causes us to continue to confuse ourselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_L1MQ6C3c

Sokuzan uses this metaphor to talk about relating to conceptual mind, observing practice forms and discipline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhTS6tpUyFs&t=1s

Sokuzan talks about contact and feeling, two of the twelve links on the chain of dependent origination. This is an area of the consciousness where we have a little bit of say so about it. And that say so may come in the form of the way in which you’re aware of the texture, quality, intensity and heat of the feeling. You might not know this, you might not think this, you might not even agree with this: When we feel something, immediately we tend to do something with it. To just feel something and do nothing with it is called appreciation, which means to give something the space to be what it is. It is possible to feel something and take no position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTJ19MfDP5Q&t=1s

As we look at the coronavirus, you might find the contamination in your own mind that is actually trying to take over your own awareness by filling it with fear and filling it with hope. Just observe that. Who you actually are can’t lose. It’s not saying that the body-mind can’t be taken down by this virus. I invite you to go in and look at your mind with the practice of meditation and see the aspects of the mind that have a contamination to them. What is that contamination? Hope and fear, belief and disbelief, and ignorance. You don’t need that. You could have a completely happy life in the midst of who you actually are. You don’t have to get better or improve. You can be genuine, on the spot. It’s possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHR4hx1o680&t=1s

Friendliness. If you’re on this path, you’re probably working at that, trying to be more friendly to others. You might want to look in another direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHPTARwDEUk&t=29s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZ7HjPFVrs&t=1s