“No Body” Breaks a Toe — A talk by Leland Shields (September 14, 2025)
Listen to the talk A monk was walking along a path, chanting the Heart Sutra. He accidentally kicked a stone, broke his toe and shouted out in pain. As he did so, the line in the Heart Sutra spontaneously came to mind, “no body.” With this, body and mind dropped away. The related passage from the Heart Sutra is this one: Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, no color, sound, scent, taste, touch, thought; no seeing and so on to no thinking; no ignorance and also no ending of ignorance, and so...
Read MorePut it All Down: A Talk by Madelon Bolling (August 2025)
Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn always told us: Put it all down. And: Only go straight, don’t know. Dahui Zong-gau has been quoted as saying: If you truly wish to practice, just let go of everything. Know nothing, understand nothing. (Attributed to Dahui, loc inconnu). And then in Andy Ferguson’s Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings, we find: Zen master Shishuang entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, Each of you has what is fundamental. There’s no point in searching for it. It’s not to be found in right or wrong, nor in anything you can talk about....
Read MoreDrain the tank — a talk by Leland Shields (July 12, 2025)
Dogen; Zazen Universally Recommended …Therefore, stop your intellectual exercise of investigating words and chasing after talk; study the reverse way, turn the light and shine it back. Body and mind will drop away of themselves, and your original face will appear. If you want such an experience, exert yourselves urgently… (Version by Robert Aitken, based on the translation by Carl Bielefeldt, Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation, 1988.) With breath, mu, hearing, we give ourselves over. Exhale, while sitting upright, back straight and chest open. Inhale. Giving ourselves over to this...
Read MorePractice and Teaching – TTS and the Diamond Sangha — a talk by Leland Shields, June 8, 2025
Practice and Teaching – TTS and the Diamond Sangha Diamond Sangha Teachers Meeting, Ring of Bone, 2025 Leland Shields, June 8, 2025 I saw myself a ring of bone in the clear stream of all of it and vowed, always to be open to it that all of it might flow through and then heard “ring of bone” where ring is what a bell does – Lew Welch (1926-1971) Today I’d like to talk about the meeting of American Diamond Sangha teachers that I attended at the Ring of Bone Zendo in the rural foothills of the Sierra Nevada, northeast of Sacramento. The poem I read a moment ago is a...
Read MoreFully Engaging Body and Mind — A Talk by Madelon Bolling (May 11, 2025)
There is a reality even prior to heaven and earth; Indeed, it has no form, much less a name; Eyes fail to see it; it has no voice for ears to detect. To call it Mind or Buddha violates its nature, For it then becomes like a visionary flower in the air. It is not Mind, nor Buddha; Absolutely quiet and yet illuminating in a mysterious way, It allows itself to be perceived only by the clear-eyed. It is Dharma, truly beyond form and sound; It is Tao, having nothing to do with words. (Dai-O Kokushi: On Zen) PSC We do not exist as separate beings. All our efforts to rid ourselves of ego are...
Read MoreTalks from Twining Branches Sesshin, March 2025
Crack! Stone on Bamboo Pai-chang’s Fox He Just Acted as He Was
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