Have you noticed that emotional dynamic that seems so similar to thoughts that’s not exactly thinking? Then we want to tell somebody about it, flapping our tongues, gesturing and moving around, telling someone about how we are feeling. Producing, producing, producing. Why do we do that? Because we want to get rid of some of that energy. Sit down, hold still and find out what it is you’re getting rid of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZeV-yDsSpo

Have you noticed how sometimes you just can’t hardly stand the space of not knowing? Quite often we don’t really realize how often we shut out the very thing that we might be interested in understanding or seeing or witnessing because we’re so anxious to conclude, conclude, conclude! We binge on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67NqJF881WY

Observe the practice forms. Get familiar with them then align yourself with them or conform to them but do it out of awareness rather than out of obeying. Obeying is to cut down on the awareness and try to be right or make something wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5lNyRmqpf0

Sokuzan’s dharma talk is inspired but this verse from the poem “Hsin -hsin Ming” by Seng-ts’an, the Third Zen Patriarch:

“When the fundamental nature of things is not recognized, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail. The Way is perfect, as vast space is perfect, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wcrZ7bEjCw&t=2s

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZp39FUQe_Y

Sokuzan’s dharma talk is inspired by this verse from the poem “Hsin -hsin Ming” by Seng-ts’an, the Third Zen Patriarch:

“If you wish to know the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is a disease of the mind.”

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7qR0d51jd8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWit77hfPY0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k14WFypt4g

Sokuzan quotes this sentence from the introduction in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa to go deeper into the idea of liberated concepts: "The process of transforming the material of mind from expressions of ego's ambition into expressions of basic sanity and enlightenment through the practice of meditation---this might be said to be the true spiritual path."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQOCfiR7PE0