by Abby Mushin Terris | Aug 21, 2022
Do not praise self or blame others is the precept that we explored during the dharma discussion this week. Praising self, blaming others is a source of tension and stress in this life. It’s also based on the view of a divided self. Self vs. other limits our view to a...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Aug 14, 2022
When all the experiences, words and phrases, opinions and activities, enthusiasms and hurts, conclusions and assumptions, sensations and emotions, triumphs and failures, after all the good and bad, thrashings and soothings, songs and chants, fears and bravery, after...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Aug 7, 2022
Last Saturday we were finally able to host an Open House along with a book sale. It was an occasion that we have looked forward to for so long. Meeting old friends and new, welcoming neighbors and community folks who have watched our long process of emergence into...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jul 31, 2022
In one of Suzuki Roshi ‘s Dharma talks he said, “When our everyday life is based on wisdom, we call it precepts.” This summer we’re exploring the precepts. We’re using their penetrative inquiry to guide our study of the self and our everyday life. Wisdom? We might...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jul 24, 2022
One way to understand how all things work together is by watching the breeze lift and sway the long grasses this way and that in the field. They all function together. The breeze does not separate itself from the grasses. The community of grass dances in the lift of...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jul 17, 2022
Our weekly chanting of the Genjo Koan has highlighted for us the ways that we can approach our daily experience as koan. Living with the spirit of inquiry, of not knowing, we may notice more minutely the details of whatever’s going on. The second of the Ten Grave...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jul 10, 2022
I took advantage of outside meditation times at the Genjo Koan sesshin to practice skygazing. Lying down is one of the four meditation postures. Combining open awareness, earthbound relaxation and gazing at large and impersonal sky forces, lets us clearly see the...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jul 3, 2022
We are beginning a series on Tuesday nights on Buddhism’s Ten Grave Precepts. It’s important to approach them, not as absolutes that you do or do not uphold, but as guides for action in our complicated everyday lives. As guides, precepts point to the spirit of wisdom...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 26, 2022
Here’s a koan. Someone asked (great master) Shitou, “What am I supposed to do?” “Why are you asking me?” “Where else can I find what I’m looking for?” “Are you sure you lost it?” We, like Shitou’s earnest seeker, come to practice searching for solutions to our lives,...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Jun 19, 2022
I dreamed that I woke up and all excitation was gone. And in its place was a wonderful silence. What is found at the seam of silence and speech? Is there anything behind the curtain? We look into this in zazen. What happens to how you perceive when you truly open into...
