On the winter solstice, Saturday, December 21, 2024, Shannon O'Brien received jūkai at a ceremony at Boundless Way Zen Temple, which was held in person and on Zoom.  Many sangha members and friends and family of Shannon attended this joyous occasion.   Jūkai is the recognition of a student's sincere commitment to the Way of Zen.  In the ceremony, the student takes on the practice of living the traditional sixteen Bodhisattva precepts.  Shannon had composed personal responses to each precept which she read during the ceremony, and had sewn her own rakusu, the a ..read more

This past weekend we honored Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening, conventionally celebrated on December 8,  ("rohatsu" in Japanese.)   Many of the participants are pictured at the left, in a photo taken by Dharma Holder Michael Herzog.  The tanto (head seat), Lara Nordenson, gave the sesshin the name "Morning Stars Everywhere." This name was based on the teaching that the Buddha awakened when he saw the morning star after a long night of fighting off the forces of confusion and suffering in his own mind, through the powerful practice of being still and unmoving in the face of ..read more

photo by Pierce Butler  This past weekend, in the midst of our recovery from the US presidential election, we had a deep and community-building on-line sesshin.  Our tanto, Jenny Smith, assisted by Pierce Butler, Sabrina Mills and David Linshaw, named the sesshin "No Other World."  This was in honor of the text the teachers (Dharma Holder Michael Herzog, David Rynick, Rōshi and me) used as the theme of the retreat, and also a poem by Gary Snyder that I read and commented on called "Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier than Students of Zen" which ends with the line "There ..read more

  A few months ago I received Ethan Nichtern's amazing book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life's Eight Worldly Winds.  I've been interested in these teachings for many years.  My first Zen teacher used to mention the eight worldly winds at the beginning of every sesshin.  His teachings focused on how the winds could be transformed through deep meditation.   The winds are:  pleasure and pain, praise and criticism, fame and insignificance, and success and failure.  These pairs of opposites assail us regularly as human beings.  Nichtern is an ..read more

photo by Pierce Butler and Corwyn Miyagishima  Another month and another sesshin -- and this one was an anniversary.  Fifteen years ago, Boundless Way had its first sesshin at the Temple.  To commemorate this, the teachers chose the kōan from the Gateless Gate, "The Buddha holds up a flower" which celebrates the transmission of the Dharma from Shakyamuni Buddha to Mahakashyapa, a fundamental story in our Zen tradition.  Dharma Holder Alan Richardson, Dharma Holder Michael Herzog and I taught the sesshin, and Dharma Holder Rev. Paul Galvin was the tanto (head seat ..read more

  photo by Pierce Butler Almost a month ago we had our Distant Temple Bell sesshin on Zoom.  Pictured to the left are many of the attendees.  To celebrate David Rõshi's new book "Wandering Close to Home" we took as our theme a kõan about wandering, Case 20 from the Book of Serenity:  Dizang's Nearness.  In this kõan, Fayang tells Dizang that he is wandering aimlessly, but he doesn't know where he's going.  Dizang praises him, saying, "Not knowing is most intimate." In these times, with war, politics and wild weather surrounding us, not knowing what will h ..read more

photo by Michael Herzog   Pictured here are most of the group who attended the third week of our summer residency program, which culminated in a seven-day sesshin which our tanto, Dharma Holder Rev. Paul Galvin, named "The Transmission of the Light."   This is a particularly resonant name for Paul and for me, because on the last night, in a private (secret) ceremony witnessed by David Rynick, Rōshi, Dharma Holder Alan Richardson and Dharma Holder Michael Herzog, I gave Denkai transmission to Rev. Paul.  He is thus a transmitted teacher, and may take on shoken stude ..read more

  I recently finished reading (after many years of perusing) the wonderful book by Taigen Dan Leighton pictured here.  Leighton published this in 2015, so I'm only 9 years late to the party.  I was happy to meet the author at a Dharma Teachers conference a number of years ago, and I found him to be warm and friendly, and with a deep Zen practice.  The book, which is about our Zen ancestor Dongshan, is a great way to understand the life and  teachings of this important lineage ancestor. Leighton explains that Dongshan was always pointing to the suchness of things -- "j ..read more

On July 20 I'll be offering a 3 hour koan café for Sangha Live's Day of Practice series (Sangha Live registration link) and it's gotten me thinking about koans in general, and in particular how to introduce these teaching stories to people who are not familiar with them.  So -- a few words about them. Personally, I absolutely love koans, and always have.  I first encountered them in the book edited by Paul Reps called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.  Reps published his book in 1957 and it consists of four texts on non-dual teachings, three of which are collections of Zen teaching st ..read more

photo by Rev. Corwyn Miyagishima  Pictured here are the happy attendees at our recent Boundless Way Zen Temple June Zoom sesshin.  Twenty-eight of us gathered for what we thought was a short sesshin, starting on Friday night and ending midday on Sunday.  But time disappeared and long and short seemed beside the point.  Based on our final sharing, everyone went deep and wide into their practice.  As we have discovered, since our first Zoom sesshin in 2020, the power of the Way manifests in this form as well as when in residence at Boundless Way Zen Temple. Sang ..read more