The Dragon King’s Daughter Pays Homage to the Buddha – a Talk by Carlos Abusaid Elias (October 12, 2025)
The master instructed the assembly saying, “The Dragon King’s daughter paid her personal homage to the Buddha from her heart. It was a completely natural act.” A monk asked, “If it was natural, why was there any ‘paying homage’?” The master said, “If there was no paying homage, how could it be natural?” Listen to the talk
read moreTalks from the September, 2025 Sesshin
Talk 1 – “No Body” Breaks a Toe – by Leland Shields Read the transcript Listen to the talk Talk 2 – Buddha-nature – by Madelon Bolling Read the transcript Talk 3 – Nothing in The World – by Leland Shields Read the transcript Listen to the talk Talk 4 – How is Buddhism Being Maintained Here? – by Leland Shields Read the transcript Listen to the Talk Talk 5 – Roaming the Mountains, Blue Cliff Record 36 – by Leland Shields Read the...
read moreThe Way Has to Flow Without Obstruction— a talk by Leland Shields (September 19, 2025)
Listen to the talk …The Way has to flow without obstruction. Why would you block it? The Way flows freely when the mind doesn’t dwell on anything. Once it dwells on something, it is imprisoned… Pine, Red. Three Zen Sutras: The Heart, The Diamond, and The Platform Sutras (Counterpoints Book 7) (pp. 81-82). Catapult. Kindle Edition. This passage was taken from a paragraph in Huineng’s Platform Sutra. It’s the first sentences that draw me in and stop me in my tracks. …The Way has to flow without obstruction. Why would you block it? The Way flows...
read moreRoaming the Mountains — a talk by Leland Shields (September 18, 2025)
Listen to the talk Blue Cliff Record Case 36; Roaming the Mountains Chosha went roaming the mountains one day. On returning, when he came to the gate the congregation leader said, “Where have you been, Master?” Chosha said, “Roaming the mountains.” The congregation leader said, “Where did you go?” Chosha said, “First I followed the fragrant grasses on the way out, then I came back pursuing the falling flowers.” The congregation leader said, “How very much like the sense of spring.” Chosha said, “It even surpasses the autumn dew dripping on...
read moreHow is Buddhism Being Maintained Here? — a talk by Leland Shields (September 17, 2025)
Listen to the talk Blue Cliff Record Case 35: [Manjusri] “Three Three” [Manjusri] asked [Wu Cho], “Have you come from near or far?” “From the South,” replied [Wu Cho] (the south of China). “How is southern Buddhism being maintained?” asked [Manjusri]. [Wu Cho] replied, “In this corrupt age of the dharma, priests are venerating the precepts a little.” [Manjusri]asked, “How many are there?” “Three hundred here, five hundred there,” replied [Wu Cho]. How is Buddhism being maintained here?” [Manjusri]said, “Ordinary people and saints live...
read moreNothing in The World — a talk by Leland Shields (September 16, 2025)
Listen to the talk Blue Cliff Record 37 Panshan’s Three Worlds – No Dharma Panshan gave words of instruction saying, “In the three worlds there is no Dharma. Where shall we search for the mind?” (translation: Aitken- Foster) We are settling into the sesshin schedule, the ritual, and zazen. What better place to be on this day, than here with Panshan. In his translation of the koan, Nelson Foster added a note, saying that in Buddhism, there are several meanings to the phrase, “The three worlds”: the worlds of delusion – greed,...
read moreBuddha-nature: A Talk by Madelon Bolling (September 15, 2025)
“If all sentient beings possess the buddha-nature . . . then why must people develop the aspiration for awakening and vigorously engage in austerities in order to realize this truth?” Dogen “[A]wakening is the paradigm of total, unreserved, and artless self-surrender.” C. W. Huntington Jr. “A Pathless Land” Tricycle magazine Aug. 31, 2025 Buddhist traditions claim that the nature of Mind is free, open, and pure awareness. Well, that’s capital “M” Mind, whereas what I’m using now is mostly small “m” mind. I always wondered how we get from...
read more“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...
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...
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...
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