Explore every episode of the podcast The Daily Zen Teisho

For those of us who entered the doorway of Zen through “just sitting,” koan practice has always seemed a bit mysterious. Not that there isn’t a technique involved in sitting meditation but concentrating on a certain phrase or word is not part of that approach.

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Many of us have longed at one time or another to retreat to a hermitage in the mountain wilds, to follow the way of the sages, thus shedding our distractions and focusing on a life of practice.

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Once again, the classic student and teacher dialogue we have all heard at one time or another. True teachers can be and should be, difficult to pin down an “answer” to questions that in reality wind up limiting us. What else, and how else could Huang Po answer?

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The essence of Taoism and Zen emanates from the same source, and many qualities of Taoist sages sound like what you could hear from a Zen master in China. At times the dividing lines seem quite blurry.

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One of the core teachings in Buddhism is that of “co-dependent origination,” that nothing exists independently; rather, everything exists on the condition that its existence relies on all other entities.

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Here is a refreshing and direct expression of something many of us make into a very complicated and abstruse issue. Bankei brought Zen to ordinary, everyday people along with the monks and nuns that he taught. 

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Ah, the patience of a good teacher resounds throughout this piece. The characters and their parts are timeless...we have all known challenging students who seem to push inappropriately, but like a highly skilled kendo master, Muso deftly answers questions that seem at times to cross the barrier of common courtesy. 

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Zen teaching is filled with enlightenment stories and koans that sound like mental gymnastics to the beginner. At times one wonders the purpose of them, other than to illustrate how futile all our striving really is.

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There are many principles of Buddhism easily understood. For instance, any one of the Six Perfections sounds like reasonable aspirations. However, as in all spiritual traditions, there is the understanding of the householder versus the spiritual aspirant who hears another meaning.

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Over the years we have shared many teaching dialogues, most often in the format of an unknown student questioning a very well know Zen Master. This is one of the most unique dialogues we have, taken from Dogen’s own journal covering his years of study in China with Master Rujing.

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Now if that isn't confidence-inspiring, what is? Straightforward and to the point, with no added frills or special techniques, sit on your cushion or your bench and let each thought go.

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In ancient times not much was revealed about what the enlightenment experience consisted of. And since Zen is a teaching outside of words and letters, many were left to just sit.

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Chinul was the founder of Korean Zen, and the piece above is a perfect introduction to his approach of sudden realization/gradual cultivation. Spiritual practice is full of paradoxes; to be able to hold such disparate ideas “together” is one challenge of training.

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Such openness! Such a “no one special” approach to sharing the most important moments of one’s life, makes this a most charming chapter from the volume of this master’s journey to freedom. Being closer to our own time, the language is easy to fall into step with and grasp.

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As long as there's no stopping place, even in practice, where is the need for labeling what level of enlightenment is achieved? Who is doing all this achieving anyway? The hardest practice is real life without any teacher, group, or nourishing temple to remind you of what you're doing here.

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While the mirror is a familiar image used in Zen, the Platform Sutra by Hui-neng is the most famous illustration of how widely differently this idea can be taken.

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With any spiritual discussion, there is always a point where you just can't understand because the very faculty trying to grasp it all is standing in the way. So what do you do at that point? Relax, sit back, and know that it is there for you somehow.

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Most of us are well aware that the truth cannot be experienced by just reading sacred writings, however, lest we swing into extremes, as we are sometimes known to do, they still have their purpose. From the very first line though, the encouragement to “stainless learning” means … what exactly?

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While the sutras are numerous and many have never been translated, what we do have access to can be challenging to understand. The lore surrounding the Lankavatara Sutra is that when Bodhidharma chose his successor Hui-k’o, he gave him a copy of the Lanka sutra and told him all he needed to know was in it.

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Some of the Zen masters may sound harsh at times; their actions can seem confounding, but for some it takes a big message to break through the attachment to self.  This truly is one of the biggest hurdles we encounter in practice, so subtle as to actually fool us into thinking “ah, now I really understand at last!”

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What little we know of him sitting in front of the wall and not responding to Huike until he took extreme measures to show his sincerity indicates someone of profound depth and experience. When compared with other translations one wonders if the entirety of this is from him or later accruals.

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As seemingly difficult as some passages above are to comprehend, the method elucidated is clear and the “goal” of training is set forth at the very beginning. Hung-jen was the fifth patriarch of Zen and the teacher Hui-neng studied with.

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The vast number of sutras, many of which have not been translated, are overwhelming in considering where to begin. In Cave 17 of the Dunhuang caves more than 10,000 manuscripts have been discovered well preserved during 900 years in the dark, dry cave. Given the sheer enormity of the writings in Buddhism, it makes perfect sense to have someone attempt to essentialize the essence of the teachings for their students and future generations.

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Each of Mahamati's questions requires time to absorb and appreciate the Buddha's response. In essence, they are the universal questions of life here and now, but the answers are addressed to a bodhisattva rather than a beginner practitioner. One can assume he is asking for the benefit of the practitioners present listening to the exchange.

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Sometimes describing what something is relies more on describing what it is not. In Vedanta and Jnana yoga neti neti, not this, not that, is part of their meditative practice which helps to discard attachment to any number of places where a practitioner can get stuck thinking they've finally arrived, when indeed there is more ground to cover.

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