There are three extremely hard things: diamond, steel and knowing yourself". -Benjamin Franklin "Self awareness" is a catchy word these days. Everyone sees the benefit of knowing oneself better. It helps with everything; career, relationships, self improvement, productivity and overall happiness. A personal coach recently suggested an exercise on how to become more aware of ourselves. He suggested to ask 20 questions about our life and belief system: What am I good at? What am I bad at? What’s the most important thing in my life? What stresses me out?How much sleep do I need? What’s my defini ..read more

Buddha said very clearly that humans have five main desires: food, sleep, sex, money, fame. As we grow these five desires all become stronger. So the real Mind Revolution comes from looking back at ourselves. Looking into “I.” Don’t worry about finding anything. Just by looking into “I,” things change. You don’t have to believe in Buddhism. It is not Buddhism; it is just a human being having a big question. That’s all. The five desires are important to satisfy, but if that is all your life is, you will never be happy. Look back at yourself. What am I? Don’t know. That is the true treasure—so ..read more

We come into this world empty-handed. What do we do in this world? Why did we come into this world? This body is an empty thing. What is the one thing that carries this body around? Where did it come from? You must understand that, you must find that. So, if you want to find that, you have to ask yourself, "What am I?" Always keep this big question. Thinking has to disappear. We have to take away all our thinking, cut off our thinking. Then our true self appears, then our true mind appears.   In this world, how many people really want practice? Many people don't practice at all, fight da ..read more

The Buddha and all teachers who followed after him are our inspiration and our great teachers. Let us thank them by embracing the practice. Let us have the courage and wisdom to find ways to find the time and support needed to do extended retreats. We are all sentient beings and all sentient beings are us. Liberation is in the doing; the doing is in just this moment. Never underestimate the tremendous gift that is this moment. Respect our need to rein in our everyday habits and arrive at the place of diligent training ..read more

We have the four great vows, and I want to talk about the second great vow. “Delusions are endless; we vow to cut through them all.” Originally, this universe was empty. Then something appeared. What appeared is delusion. If we cut our attachment to this delusion, then life can be bliss. And so, Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is inside.” The Buddha said, “The Tathagata lives in the land of bliss, even while he’s still in his body.” For myself, what I do practicing here at the Zen center is I go into the dharma room and I sit down, and I practice. Like all of us. Just back to this moment ..read more

Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don’t worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes. You must not be attached to the coming or the going. From Dropping Ashes on the Buddha ..read more

Many times we want to get something from practice, but enlightenment means to lose everything – not to get anything. You don’t get anything, you lose everything. You have to be prepared for that. You have to be ready to really lose everything, to lose all illusions about yourself. That’s not easy. We don’t like it. We want to keep at least a little illusion, to have at least something, some little thing to hold onto so we can feel secure. But, if you have a clear direction then your practice will be non-stop, 24 hours a day. But for many people the question is, what do I want? Why do I pract ..read more

Zen Master Bon Soeng explores the art of listening and its essential role in our practice and lives ..read more

In Zen we talk a lot about life and death and sometimes we may take this literally. But life and death happen in this moment, right in front of our eyes. “Life and death” point to the never-ending appearance and disappearance of phenomena. If you pay attention when you are sitting in meditation, and even sometimes in your daily life, you will notice that thoughts appear and thoughts disappear, that feelings appear and feelings disappear, that impulses appear and impulses disappear, that sounds appear and sounds disappear.   In the Wake-Up sermon Bodhidharma said, “Sages don’t consider th ..read more

In this video, Zen Master Bon Hae answers a question about the middle way ..read more