Suffering Habits

Are you willing to stop suffering? This seems like a silly question, but when we ask ourselves this in all sincerity we’ve taken the first step in committing to practice. The Buddha Way is a practice. We practice being aware continually, spotting our habits of mind...

Faith Mind

In Zen practice we talk a lot about “don’t know mind.” Even if it appears that things are as they seem, it ain’t necessarily so. So many of the conditions influencing the moment are invisible. We don’t know when or what the next second will bring. And when it doesn’t...

Ho-Hum Karma

Contemplating one’s karma is a commitment to turn towards an infinite view. What landed you here? Where do you come from? What makes this moment? What cloth of your particular threads has woven this spectacle of the world in time and space, as it registers and defines...

Sejiki Ceremony 2022

We are entering the season of wandering ghosts, tormented by insatiable hunger, celebrated as Sejiki in the Buddhist tradition. Our greatly westernized version of this is Halloween. In Buddhist lore these ghosts, called gaki, have escaped the gates of hell and are...

Life Conditions

Some of us live alone, some of us live with others, in various states of harmony and disharmony. Sangha practice encourages us to attend to our relational awareness as it conditions our life condition. How closely we pay attention to the quality of our heart energies...

Three Treasures

When we vow to not defame the Three Treasures, the tenth of the Grave Precepts, we are celebrating the facets of the Jewel that we inherit in this tradition. Respect the Buddha. Upholding this, we accept all the details of our life, no matter what they are, with an...