by Abby Mushin Terris | Aug 9, 2021
Some of you have mentioned that you’ve let go of the habit of daily meditation this summer and realize how busy your mind has become as you attempt to re-up zazen again. This experience is familiar to anyone who’s been sitting for any length of time. And the antidote...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Aug 5, 2021
The heart of living according to Buddha’s teachings is guided by the Buddhist Precepts for a Healthy Life. They are both ordinary and profound, and are reliable guides for the myriad choices of how to speak and act each day. There is no end to these precepts as we...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 27, 2021
In his Receiving the Marrow by Bowing Dogen Zenji says, “…retreat from the world and make the way your abode.” Ordinarily we might understand this as saying that practice is separate from the ordinary daily round. But Dogen is prompting us here to realize that the...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 17, 2021
A dharma brother who is walking the Pacific Crest Trail sent along a haiku-ish verse that I think is a wonderful koan . . . Of all the virtues only one opens all doors — what is this? What are the virtues referred to here? Do you...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 11, 2021
The onset of warmer summer weather and the beginning emergence from our long COVID sequestration is a perfect time to join in a zazenkai. This is what we call a brief, one-day Zen retreat into silence and concentrated practice. We sit zazen, chant, engage in work...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 5, 2021
Our Buddhist tradition unfolds a dharma about the Two Truths — the truth of life in samsara, a realm of desire and aversion, and the truth of liberation from samsara. In samsara we are all thinking, feeling, reacting, human beings guided by whether we like or dislike...
