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Buddhism in America
Buddhism in America The Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series The United States is the birthplace of religious pluralism, and the spiritual landscape of contemporary America is as varied and complex as that of any country in the world. The books in this new series, written by leading scholars for students and general readers alike, fall into two categories: some of these well-crafted, thought-provoking portraits of the country’s major religious groups describe and explain particular religious practices and rituals, beliefs, and major challenges facing a given community today. Others explore current themes and topics in American religion that cut across denominational lines. The texts are supplemented with care- fully selected photographs and artwork, annotated bibliographies, con- cise profiles of important individuals, and chronologies of major events. — Roman Catholicism in America Islam in America . B UDDHISM in America Richard Hughes Seager C C Publishers Since New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America / Richard Hughes Seager. p. cm. — (Columbia contemporary American religion series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ‒‒‒ — ISBN ‒‒‒ (pbk.) . Buddhism—United States. I. Title. II. Series. BQ.S .'—dc – Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. -
Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 274 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen •
201 The following kong-an is number nine from the Blue Cliff Records: When you have a clear mirror, the beautiful and the ugly reveal themselves. When you hold the legendary sword, you can kill or grant life, as the moment dictates. Chinese come, foreigners go: foreigners come, Chinese go. In death there is already life: in life there is already death. Now tell me, what can you do? Unless your eye can penetrate all barriers and your body is free to make any turn, you can’t do a thing. But what is this eye that can penetrate all barriers? What is this body that is free to make any turn? Read this kong-an and see: A monk asked Jo-ju, “What is Jo-ju?” Jo Ju answered, “ East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate.” Strange language. We usually think that when a man dies he is dead, and when he lives he is alive. But in this language, life is death, death is life. Where does life come from? Where does death go? Life and death are only thinking. You must go beyond life and death. That is infinite life. It is “like this.” “Like this” is Jo-Ju’s original face. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers: yellow is yellow, red is red. Jo-Ju’s teacher, Nam Chan, said that everyday mind is the Way. Everyday mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. It is the same as a mirror: when the beautiful comes, it is beautiful: When the ugly comes, it is ugly. -
Shodoka Formatted
Shodoka - CHENG-TAO-KO – By Yung-chia Hsuan-chueh [Zhengdaoge] (C.); (J. Shodoka (J.); Song of Enlightenment - .English transl. copyright (c) 1991 by R. Aitken & the Diamond Sangha, Hawaii. There is the leisurely one, Walking the Tao, beyond philosophy, Not avoiding fantasy, not seeking truth. The real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature itself; The empty delusory body is the very body of the Dharma. When the Dharma body awakens completely, There is nothing at all. The source of our self-nature Is the Buddha of innocent truth. Mental and physical reactions come and go Like clouds in the empty sky; Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear Like bubbles on the surface of the sea. When we realize actuality, There is no distinction between mind and thing And the path to hell instantly vanishes. If this is a lie to fool the world, My tongue may be cut out forever. Once we awaken to the Tathagata-Zen, The six noble deeds and the ten thousand good actions Are already complete within us. 1 In our dream we see the six levels of illusion clearly; After we awaken the whole universe is empty. No bad fortune, no good fortune, no loss, no gain; Never seek such things in eternal serenity. For years the dusty mirror has gone uncleaned, Now let us polish it completely, once and for all. Who has no-thought? Who is not-born? If we are truly not-born, We are not un-born either. Ask a robot if this is not so. How can we realize ourselves By virtuous deeds or by seeking the Buddha? Release your hold on earth, water, fire, wind; Drink and eat as you wish in eternal serenity. -
New American Zen: Examining American Women's Adaptation of Traditional Japanese Soto Zen Practice Courtney M
Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 2011 New American Zen: Examining American Women's Adaptation of Traditional Japanese Soto Zen Practice Courtney M. Just Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI11120903 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Just, Courtney M., "New American Zen: Examining American Women's Adaptation of Traditional Japanese Soto Zen Practice" (2011). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 527. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/527 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida NEW AMERICAN ZEN: EXAMINING AMERICAN WOMEN’S ADAPTATION OF TRADITIONAL JAPANESE SOTO ZEN PRACTICE A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in LIBERAL STUDIES by Courtney Just 2011 To: Dean Kenneth Furton College of Arts and Sciences This thesis, written by Courtney Just, and entitled New American Zen: Examining American Women’s Adaptation of Traditional Japanese Soto Zen Practice, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this thesis and recommend that it be approved. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Laurie Shrage ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Kiriake Xerohemona ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Lesley A. Northup, Major Professor Date of Defense: November 10, 2011 The thesis of Courtney Just is approved. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dean Kenneth Furton College of Arts and Science ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dean Lakshmi N. -
A Beginner's Guide to Meditation
ABOUT THE BOOK As countless meditators have learned firsthand, meditation practice can positively transform the way we see and experience our lives. This practical, accessible guide to the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation introduces you to the practice, explains how it is approached in the main schools of Buddhism, and offers advice and inspiration from Buddhism’s most renowned and effective meditation teachers, including Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, Ajahn Chah, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Sylvia Boorstein, Noah Levine, Judy Lief, and many others. Topics include how to build excitement and energy to start a meditation routine and keep it going, setting up a meditation space, working with and through boredom, what to look for when seeking others to meditate with, how to know when it’s time to try doing a formal meditation retreat, how to bring the practice “off the cushion” with walking meditation and other practices, and much more. ROD MEADE SPERRY is an editor and writer for the Shambhala Sun magazine. Sign up to receive news and special offers from Shambhala Publications. Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala. A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO Meditation Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers Edited by Rod Meade Sperry and the Editors of the Shambhala Sun SHAMBHALA Boston & London 2014 Shambhala Publications, Inc. Horticultural Hall 300 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 www.shambhala.com © 2014 by Shambhala Sun Cover art: André Slob Cover design: Liza Matthews All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. -
A Psychological Analysis of Physical and Mental Pain in Buddhism Ashin
A Psychological Analysis of Physical and Mental Pain in Buddhism Ashin Sumanacara1 Mahidol University, Thailand. Pain is a natural part of life and all of us. Ordinary people are inflicted with physical or mental pain. In this paper, firstly we will analyse the concept of physical and mental pain according to the Pali Nikāyas. Next we will discuss the causes of physical and mental pain, and investigate the unwholesome roots: greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha), and their negative roles in causing physical and mental pain. Then we will highlight the Buddhist path to overcoming physical and mental pain. Finally we will discuss mindfulness and the therapeutic relationship. Mindfulness, as it is understood and applied in Buddhism, is a richer theory than thus far understood and applied in Western psychotherapy. Within Buddhism the development of mindfulness must be understood to be interrelated with the maturity of morality (sīla), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). A Word about Buddhism Buddhism, a spiritual movement, arose from the prevalent intellectual, political and cultural milieu of Indian society in the 6th century BCE and has been an influential cultural force in Asia for more than 2550 years. In recent decades, it has gained acceptance in the West, largely due to its solution of mental pain of human beings through mindfulness meditation. The core teachings of the Buddha are contained in the Four Noble Truths, which are as follows: (1) Dukkha: life is characterized by pain; (2) Samudaya: the cause of pain which is craving (taṇhā); (3) Nirodha: pain can be ended by the cessation of craving; and (4) Magga: there is a way to achieve the cessation of pain, which is the Noble Eightfold Path (ariya-aṭṭhangika-magga). -
Virtues Without Rules: Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement Gil Fronsdal
Virtues without Rules: Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement Gil Fronsdal INTRODUCTION Observers have commented that for Buddhism to take firm hold in the West it needs to develop a well- articulated ethic. This chapter is a study of how Buddhist ethics is taught within one rapidly growing movement of Western Buddhism: what I will be calling the Insight Meditation movement. While the movement has so far published no overview of its ethics, enough material is now available for us to discern some general points. Among Buddhist movements in the West, the Insight Meditation movement is unique in that it is not simply a transplant of an Asian Buddhist tradition. Rather, it can be seen as a new tradition taking shape in the West around particular meditative practices of vipassanā, often translated as “insight meditation” or colloquially as “mindfulness practice.” Vipassanā practice is clearly derived from the Theravāda Buddhism of South and Southeast Asia, where it has a central soteriological role. However, in bringing this meditation practice to the West, the founders of the Insight Meditation movement have consciously downplayed (or even jettisoned) many important elements of the Theravāda tradition, including monasticism, rituals, merit-making, and Buddhist cosmology. Without these and other elements, the Insight Meditation movement has been relatively unencumbered in developing itself into a form of Western Buddhism. In doing so, it has retained only a minimal identification with its Theravāda origins. Ethics, morality, and virtue have central roles in the Asian Theravāda tradition. All three of these English terms can be used to translate the Pāli word sīla that appears in the important three-fold division of the Therāvadin Buddhist spiritual path: sīla, samādhi, and paññā (ethics, meditative absorption, and wisdom). -
Life Is an Ever-Rolling Wheel and Every Day Is the Right One. He Who Recites Poems at His Death Adds Frost to Snow
April 16, 2007 UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico 505-986-8518 [email protected] www.upaya.org Life is an ever-rolling wheel And every day is the right one. He who recites poems at his death Adds frost to snow. --- Mumon Genshen, d. 1390 Scott Eberle's book, The Final Crossing, has an intriguing subtitle: "Learning to Die In Order to Live." Last week, he and Meredith Little shared their 4-step rite of passage (as taught at Meredith's School of Lost Borders and derived from native American traditions) for those on the cusp of death: 1. Decision Road, when you become conscious of the fact that your time to die is close at hand, and begins to muster the strength to accept and embrace that fact; 2. Death Lodge, where the focus is on "completing" your relationships with the living: to forgive and be forgiven, to express thanks and love, and to say goodbye; 3. Purpose Circle, a period of deep introspection, of "ruthless self-honesty without judgement" in which the goal is to make peace with yourself and your life, to realize a sense of integrity rather than despair; and 4. Stepping Into The Ballcourt, which is an in-between-worlds transitional phase where one is completely open to and ready for the "final crossing" to arise (or however we choose to imagine death). This parallels the spiritual process which many Buddhist meditators seek to undergo, as Scott laid out: 1. Setting the intention of your practice, especially through making vows; 2. Learning to let go of your attachments and unresolved conflicts; 3. -
Four Vowsvz-ZCLA
THE FOUR GREAT VOWS (SHI-KU SEI-GAN MON) SHU JO MU HEN SEI GAN DO Shujoo muhen seigan do SHU-JO MU-HEN SEI-GAN DO BON NO MU JIN SEI GAN DAN Bonnoo mujin seigan dan BON-NO MU-JIN SEI-GAN DAN HO MON MU RYO SEI GAN GAKU Hoomon muryoo seigan gaku HO-MON MU-RYO SEI-GAN GAKU BUTSU DO MU JO SEI GAN JO Butsudoo mujoo seigan joo BUTSU-DO MU-JO SEI-GAN JO SHI KU SEI GAN MON SHI KU SEI GAN MON 四 弘 誓 願 four broad prayer/pledge/vow text wide composition for all The Four Great Vows Four Great Vows for All The Four Great Bodhisattva Vows SHU JO MU HEN SEI GAN DO 衆 生 無 辺 誓 願 度 all birth [neg. prefix: boundary pledge/vow [verb] to take over to the many that which without, no, side the other shore has been born free from] (paramita) ZCLA: Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them DS: Though the many beings are numberless, I vow to save them. ZCNY: Creations are numberless, I vow to free them. RZC: All beings, One Body, we vow to liberate. 5/23/2010 VZ- ZCLA Four Vows Class Page 1 ZSS: However innumerable all beings are, I vow to enlighten them all. DTS: However innumerable all beings are, I vow to save them. SA: However innumerable beings may be, I vow to save them all. SFZC: Beings without end, I vow to save them. RBZ: Beings are numberless, I vow to enlighten them. -
American Buddhists: Enlightenment and Encounter
CHAPTER FO U R American Buddhists: Enlightenment and Encounter ★ he Buddha’s Birthday is celebrated for weeks on end in Los Angeles. TMore than three hundred Buddhist temples sit in this great city fac- ing the Pacific, and every weekend for most of the month of May the Buddha’s Birthday is observed somewhere, by some group—the Viet- namese at a community college in Orange County, the Japanese at their temples in central Los Angeles, the pan-Buddhist Sangha Council at a Korean temple in downtown L.A. My introduction to the Buddha’s Birthday observance was at Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, just east of Los Angeles. It is said to be the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere, built by Chinese Buddhists hailing originally from Taiwan and advocating a progressive Humanistic Buddhism dedicated to the pos- itive transformation of the world. In an upscale Los Angeles suburb with its malls, doughnut shops, and gas stations, I was about to pull over and ask for directions when the road curved up a hill, and suddenly there it was— an opulent red and gold cluster of sloping tile rooftops like a radiant vision from another world, completely dominating the vista. The ornamental gateway read “International Buddhist Progress Society,” the name under which the temple is incorporated, and I gazed up in amazement. This was in 1991, and I had never seen anything like it in America. The entrance took me first into the Bodhisattva Hall of gilded images and rich lacquerwork, where five of the great bodhisattvas of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition receive the prayers of the faithful. -
Oshin Liam Jennings AGE 32 PROFESSION Zen Priest / Art Therapist / Artist LOCATION New York, NY
THIS BUDDHIST LIFE Oshin Liam Jennings AGE 32 PROFESSION Zen priest / art therapist / artist LOCATION New York, NY How has being deaf shaped your experience of receiving and trans- mitting the dharma? I have to say first that it was an obstacle. Zen is very intimate—the transmission of the dharma hinges on discipleship. We gain access to our teacher’s mind through one-on-one transmission and exposure. I have had to rely on other forms of communication, and that affects the psychological dynamics of the teacher-disciple relationship. And being the only deaf person in the zendo has often been a very “other- ing” feeling. About a year and a half ago, I started the No Barriers Zen Temple in Washington, D.C., with the inten- tion to work more intelligently with communities of differently abled people. It’s not a deaf-only space, but many members of the D.C. deaf com- munity join us, and we organize our services to accommodate them. What I’m aiming for with the center is a paradigm shift: when people from the general D.C. community come, I have to tell them that I need to get them a sign language interpreter. And they say, “Oh, no, no, I can hear.” And I say, “Right, but you can’t sign, so we’re going to need to get you a sign language interpreter.” They don’t get it! It takes a while for them to make the shift of “Oh, I need an interpreter because I’m functioning in a different space.” I’m not immune to those kinds of assumptions as a deaf person, by the Adler Bess by Photograph 24 TRICYCLE WINTER 2016 THIS BUDDHIST LIFE way. -
Roshi Pat Enkyo O'hara Week 1, Recognizing the Self to Study The
Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara Week 1, Recognizing the Self To Study the Self May 6, 2013 Tricycle.com/retreats All right. Hello, there. I’m Roshi Enkyo O’Hara taping this from the Village Zendo in Manhattan. And I’d like to offer this teaching, this four week retreat around the subject matter of recognizing ourselves and how we can grow into bodhisattvas, how we can open our hearts and still maintain the integrity of our own being. You know, we live in this world that’s so hyper mediated and so full of images of celebrities and micro celebrities and reality show people. And last week I was in a waiting room, at a doctor’s office. I picked up a magazine, People magazine. It was the most amazing thing. It had pictures and pictures and pictures of all of these special people, all of these beautiful people, rich people. And I wondered, “why is there no one there that’s a really good manual laborer? Why isn’t there a really great father who just lives an ordinary life?” There’s so much in our societies where there’s no value for the individual and I worry about that in terms of what is happening in this country, where people have become so introverted and frightened and unable to accept criticism that somehow the sense of taking care of the whole is falling away. So it’s a kind of ironic thing because taking care of the whole requires that are comfortable in ourselves, that we know who we are individually.