It is quite a treasure to find a new piece in translation and one full of terms that seem to predate the usual ones we find in Buddhism and Zen.  In bringing Buddhism to new lands, it only seems natural that the earlier understanding of the Way, Taoism in this case in China, would find a way to make sense of the new teachings as similar to their native teachings of the Way.

No matter who the teacher is we need to have a balance between what they say that is clearly delivered and what can tend to cloud things over a bit.  To ascribe anything to nirvana is saying too much as it falls into “as soon as you try to explain things, the true meaning is lost.”

Wherever we find ourselves along the Way we can always find a handhold in these writings, however meager it may seem.  No one can say what phrase, which practice, what sound in Nature may cause a sudden awakening which is in reality, just a beginning.

No matter how we approach meditation on the cushion or in life, there is this lingering sense of so much “self” still coloring so much of our realities.

As beginners, to find our centered posture in sitting meditation we move side to side slowly and then back and forth,  naturally coming to know our center.  With practice, those movements are dropped, and we are familiar with the centered posture.  It is a technique we use at first and then can discard.

This is a classic exchange between one sincere student trying to finally get a grasp on what this One Mind is all about and how the experience of truly Being changes one's experience of the world.

Here is a refreshing and direct expression of something many of us make into a very complicated and abstruse issue. Bankei brought Zen to ordinary, everyday people along with the monks and nuns that he taught.

Po Shan gives us a few guidelines to help steer this wandering path we are on. For those who have never been given a koan or hua tou to investigate, how do you proceed?

This theme is one we return to repeatedly, that being the difference between thinking we understand versus having the direct experience.

In each reading, there will be a phrase, or several, which stand out for you. Sometimes they carry over into your meditation practice; sometimes they are like koans you can’t seem to let go of.