Zen poetry comes in many forms. There are the essential ancient wisdom poems by masters, like the Shodoka, the Shinjinmei, and the Hokyo Zanmai. There are koan poems and poems that comment on koans. There are poetry contests, like the one described in the Platform Sutra. There are satori poems and death poems. There are philosophical waka and lightbulb haiku. What they all have in common is that they give “a glimpse of it.” Early on in my Zen practice I published a series of 52 poems, one for each week of that first year of practice, that became the series Bodhidharma’s Eyelids, published in t ..read more

A talk given at Stone Nest Dojo by Richard Collins, 28 May 2023 An integer is a positive natural number or a negative number, with no fractional part, and includes zero. One thing that we see in the Zen masters whom we read about from long ago is that they had integrity. This doesn’t mean that they were perfect, or morally upright, certainly not confined by some rigid ethical code. On the contrary. It means that they were wholly themselves, authentic, vivid, unique, unpredictable, possibly eccentric.  The root of the word integrity is integer, from the Latin, which means “intact,” who ..read more

A talk given at the sesshin, 13 May 2023, New Orleans Zen Temple, by Richard Reishin Collins, Abbot Sometimes we have to be a sangha of one. We hear all the time about the Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. These can be very abstract terms, however, so I always encourage you to nail those down to concrete, recognizable examples in your life, anchoring these abstractions in your experience. For example: Buddha is the posture; Dharma is breathing; Sangha, attitude of mind. We can find buddhas everywhere, all around us, if we just pay attention. It doesn’t have to be something on an alta ..read more

Most people’s direction is determined by their goals. In Zen our goals are determined by our direction. Twenty years ago, almost to the day, I attended my first sesshin. It was also the sesshin when I was ordained, 30 September 2001. I was just forty-nine, but I remember it was very painful for my aging bones -- my knees blew up like overripe melons. Still, it was exactly what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. No, not “wanted” exactly, but rather where I knew I belonged. It was not long after 9/11 and my wife was pregnant with our daughter Isabel. I was pregnant too. Sometime ..read more

It’s Father’s Day. Maybe a good time to consider the lineage and some of the implications of patriarchy, fatherhood, responsibility. There is the koan that asks: what is your original face before your parents were born? Some people will take this as an invitation to think about an essential spirit or soul, like Wordsworth in his poem about “intimations of immortality'', where he says that the child before birth comes “not in entire forgetfulness” but somewhat ready-made and “trailing clouds of glory” before he or she is incarnated. But this is not what we mean at all. This would assume that we ..read more

In zazen we are all nude models for ourselves. Concentrate! Stretch the backbone. Head presses the sky. When we say “concentrate,” this has nothing to do with thinking. It is not like studying for an exam. It is more like making a fist, except that it is effortless. It is more like a yawn or a sneeze or laughter: whole-hearted, spontaneous, yet silent and invisible. Mind is concentrated in the body like tea in hot water, infused. Last night I was reading Notes of a Nude Model. The author talks about the amateurs, those models who don’t last, the ones who are self-conscious, who have an infla ..read more

For the past couple of months I have been practicing with the Sewanee Sangha, a student-led sitting group at the University of the South. Sam Kearley leads the group with great commitment, and the university has been very supportive, dedicating space in the Meditation Chapel of the beautiful All Saints’ Chapel. We sit for only a half-hour, but I have to say that it is a bright beginning to my day, starting with the drive to campus through the burning reds and oranges of the falling leaves, with sightings of deer and the occasional red fox on the way. Then the short walk through the crisp autum ..read more

The attrition rate of some professional schools — law schools or nursing, for example — is high. But not as high as the attrition rate in Zen training. Of course, the payoffs for those professional schools are tangible, bankable. There are no such promising returns on investment for the Zen student.  Still, it always surprises me how the flame of that initial curiosity is so easily quenched.  Perhaps you know the story about the boy who loved dragons. He was obsessed with dragons. He loved everything about dragons, their flame-throwing eyes, their forked tongues, their whipping tai ..read more

As I enter my eighth decade, I understand why Robert Livingston became impatient with teaching in his later years. One tends to forget how many people come through those doors looking only for their own so-called enlightenment. Which is about 99% — or more like 100% of us — although some (one or two percent?) drop off that self-centeredness — some sooner, some later — and realize that we practice for all existences here and now. Some never realize this, and they leave when things get tough or inconvenient — some sooner, some later, but almost everyone eventually leaves. Better to have that on ..read more

Taikaku Reibin Zenji (28 January 1933 - 2 January 2021) Today we celebrate the anniversary of the death of the founder of our Temple, the first Abbot of Muhozan Kosenji, Peakless Mountain Shoreless River Temple, Robert Livingston, Taikaku Reibin Zenji.  It has been one year and seven days since the morning of January 2nd, 2021, when he entered nirvana. What is nirvana? Many people mistakenly think of nirvana as bliss. But it really means “extinguishment.” The flame is not only out, it is out cold. All that was the Robert we knew has entered the Void, or I should say “re-entered” the Void ..read more