Silver Dragon Practice

At the recent Board retreat the topic of Silver Dragon practice came up. This refers to an option that is particularly suitable for aged people, who could use an easier schedule at retreats in order to be able to attend at all. It’s important to be aware that part of...

Practicing Together

     What is the difference between practicing meditation only, on your own at home, and practicing in sangha at the Zen Center? It IS essential that you practice at home. It IS your own practice, after all, no matter where you are. And developing a habit of stopping...

The Treasure of the Dharma

This Zen path is a continual process of un-conditioning, allowing each moment its entirety, its “as is” face. The mind is made fresh in zazen….opening steadily, experiencing freshly the conditions that the burdened human mind of confusion mistakes for real. Here’s...

Renewing Our Vows

Sunday is a full moon. This day is set aside traditionally for the Fusatsu ceremony, where we contemplate our basic life intention. We look at what ways we continue to be led by our habits of mind and activities that are contributing to our own suffering and to that...

Practice in Every Experience

Our Zen practice of steady, determined, daily cultivation does tend to lighten our load in some mysterious way, and brings joy. But how does it alter the difficulties in the world directly? We still know sorrow, we still know grief. Though the Buddha tells us that...

Expressing Our Practice

 Last Saturday’s dedication of our sangha to the practice of Zen Buddhism was a significant and joyful event and added encouragement to our practice of Zen Buddhism settling into the forms of our culture. Opening of the eyes of the Buddha by our founding teachers,...