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With resolve and sincerity, one should aim to exceed the ancients in purity and surpass the former worthies in attentiveness. The way to put that aspiration into practice in one’s own person is, for example, to take the same three coins that one’s predecessors spent to make a soup of the crudest greens and use … Read more

When Xuefeng resided at Dongshan [monastery], he served as cook. One day when he was sifting rice [master] Dongshan asked him, “Are you sifting the sand and removing the rice, or sifting the rice and removing the sand?” Xuefeng said, “Sand and rice are simultaneously removed.” Dongshan asked, “What will the great assembly eat?” Xuefeng … Read more

Zen for Nothing is showing in theaters in Tokyo and Osaka. Read an article about the movie in the Japan Times: japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/01/10/films/zen-art-documentary-film

During the earliest hour of December 8th we celebrate the awakening of Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree 2500 years ago. It is the final day of the week long, extremely cold Rohatsu sesshin. This year it started to snow on the fifth day, and it will probably to vontinue like this until February. The car … Read more