zengateway's podcast

'12a: Instructing his monks, the master said: Followers of the Way, it is most important that you come to see clearly. Then you can go your way and confront the world without letting yourselves be deceived by those delusive fox sprites. Nothing is more precious than to be a man who has nothing further to seek. Just do not give rise to any fancies and be your ordinary selves.

The trouble is, you look to the outside, and, pursuing it hotly, you doubt whether you have hands and feet. Do not be deceived. If you only think of seeking Buddha, Buddha becomes a mere name. And the very one who runs to seek Buddha, do you know him? All the Buddhas and patriarchs in the Three Worlds and the ten directions have appeared only for the purpose of seeking the Dharma. And today's diligent Followers of the Way are also seeking the Dharma. Only when one has got it, is there an end to it. As long as one has not got it, one transmigrates through the Five Paths.'

The Zen Teaching of Rinzai - tr. Irmgard Schloegl

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In this talk:

• Zhuangzi's axe thief - Confucius and the three men who witness the same event.
• Compared to Right View which is not a new set of assumptions but the dismantling of them. Master Rinzai cautions about leaving one home and going directly into another which refers to the tendency to identify with 'my views'.
• There are often subtle desires and expectations that arise in us - hence the axe thief story - the same when we think about Buddha and enlightenment. We create a picture about it. Hence Buddha's words on awakening in the Southern Tradition.
• Looking to the outside - is a displacement activity that distracts from seeing inwardly the Buddha nature. Now, the Northern tradition of the Buddha's awakening and the split off.
• Rinzai's 'In this lump or red flesh…'
• Fingers and moon; but when the words get in the way - If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha'.
• At the word level or intellect level we are still going up and down in the ocean of birth and death.

Master Obaku, who was often seen bowing with great devotion, was asked by a disciple: 'Are you seeking something of the Buddha, or seeking something concerned with the Truth?' The Master replied: 'I have nothing to ask of the Buddha or to seek about the Truth.' 'Then why do you worship?' The Master said; 'I simply worship.'

[The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl]

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In this podcast:

• A devotional practice is to practice the Six Paramitas
• Different types of devotion - prayer, chanting sutras, bowing and prostrating, visiting temples and holy sites, pilgrimage.
• Awareness of and invisible Principle beyond 'I'.
• Developing a sense of presence
• Devotion to a Bodhisattva or particular Buddha
• Communion and informing information of a spiritual principle

Q)What are the Three Refuges and what is the value in chanting them?

In this podcast:

• What is the meaning of refuge in Buddhism?
• What are the Three Refuges
• What is their meaning in practice?
• What do we 'I' take refuge in?
• The difference between my usual refuge and the Three Refuges
• Correspondences between Refuges and the Three Bodies of the Buddha in Yogacara thought.

Two stories of Master Nansen (c.749-835):

Master Nansen, asked by a monk, 'Where does he go who knows what is what?' replied: 'He becomes an ox of the monastery supporter down the hill, to requite him for his help.' When the monk thanked him for his teaching, the Master added: 'At midnight yesterday, the moon shone in at the window.'

Asked at another time, 'Where will the Master be gone in a hundred years time?' Master Nansen replied: 'I'll be a water-buffalo.' The monk asked: 'May I follow you or not?' Master Nansen said: 'If you do, bring a mouthful of grass with you!'

The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl

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In the podcast:

• Famous koan 'Nansen kills the cat'. Master of Joshu.
• Rebirth and reincarnation in Buddhism
• Repayment of debt and requited debt. Custodianship
• Two rebukes.

When Master Daibai was about to die, he said to his monks: 'What comes is not to be avoided, what goes is not to be followed.' A little afterwards he heard a flying-squirrel screech and said: 'This is just this, and nothing else. You all keep this faithfully. Now I must depart.'

The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl

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In this podcast:

• How picking and choosing creates fear of loss
• How feeling a 'lack' creates inner restlessness
• The difficulty of seeing straight - Right View on the Noble Eightfold Path

Master Kyogen said: 'My poverty last year was not real poverty, but this year my poverty is real. Though last year there was no place even for an awl to stick into, this year have no awl either'.

The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl

In this talk:

• We hear the story of Master Kyogen who came to awakening by hearing a pebble strike a bamboo trunk.

• The root of 'I' clings to status and to have that being threatened evokes an existential crisis. In Kyogen's story he lays violent hands on his master and was cast out to wander for ten years.

• But inside him something was slowly developing which took a further ten years to mature and fully ripen.

• This story and the above passage reminds us how the 'empty heart' or mushin, as it is called, is highly prized in Zen. Just this is the holy of holies on the path because it is the fount of wisdom and compassion and the 'mother' of all the buddhas.

32 - One (monk) asked: "What is the meaning of (Bodhidharma's) coming from the West?"

The master said: "Had he had a purpose, he could not even have liberated himself."

the monk asked: "If he had no purpose, how could the Second Patriarch attain the Dharma?" The master said: "To attain is not to attain." The monk asked: " if it is not to attain, then what is the meaning of not to attain?" The master said: "It is because you are running about seeking everywhere and cannot put your heart at rest that the patriarchs say 'My, the fellow with his head on his shoulders is looking for his head!' When on hearing this you turn your own light in upon yourself, and do not seek for anything special, you will know that in your body and heart you do not differ from the patriarchs and Buddhas.

All at once you will have nothing further to seek. That is what is called attaining the Dharma!"

The Zen Teachings of Rinzai tr. Irmgard Schloegl

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In this podcast:

• Why our constant planning, planning, planning becomes an obstacle to attaining 'oneness'.
• Listening and obeying the situation gives meaning not purpose to life, which always lies as a promise for the future.
• Our role in life is a discovery not an artifice.
• Mutual arising and interdependence is the root of reality.
• How Zen practice is a 're-linking' into that reality.

'From the High Seat, the master said: "One is on the way for aeons without leaving his house; one leaves his house without being on the way. Which one is worthy to receive the offerings of men and gods?" And he came down from the seat.'

The Zen Teachings of Rinzai - tr. Irmgard Schloegl

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In this podcast:

Reflecting on Rinzai's question from the High Seat, this talk explores what it means to be truly "on the Way," and how desire grows from a feeling that something is missing. Dukkha is understood as inner restlessness, and practice as learning to stay with that restlessness rather than discharging it into the world.

Q. Does taking the bodhisattva vow mean that they have to be reborn in one of the six realms again? Does whatever it is that is reborn have to be reborn in the six realms?

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In this podcast:

• The development of the bodhisattva - the path and the vow?
• The arhat in the remote forest and the bodhisattva in the market place
• The example of Vimalakirti - Huyakujo and the monastic rule 'A day without work is a day without food'.
• Nirvana and the escape from Samsara (6 realms), in early and later Buddhism
• Emptiness and the dangers of nihilism, empty emptiness - 'making my mind a blank'.

In this talk:

• Daiko - Osho san: 'A world that cannot be grasped. A world of change. A vast, open empty sky' 'ku' = emptiness/sky in Japanese - from the Heart sutra.
• Background to the Rohatsu sesshin - Buddha's great effort prior to Enlightenment. True emptiness - what is this emptiness?
• Reflections on why the Enlightenment is commemorated in December rather than Wesak in May?
• The Power of Letting-go - The past is gone, the future is not yet here, the present is a fantasy…
• The empty heart is resilient because it is empty. 3 temptations of Mara. The space in a cup is its utility and service to the world.
• Form = Emptiness - the two worlds. - The world of phenomena and the Eternal.
• Rinzai's 'man of no status'.