Traveling by Day

August 25 · Dharma Discourses, Teachings · delusion, Fall 2013, Within Darkness Light

by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi

This Discourse appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of Mountain Record, “Within Light, Darkness.”

True Dharma Eye, Case 113
Baofu’s Blocking of the Eyes, Ears, and Mind

How do we become lost to ourselves? What does this even mean, and what’s the consequence of being lost? To see things as they are—it sounds so simple. We open our eyes, and there is something before us. The sun is bright; the moon is half-full; the grass is green. It appears plain and clear—what more is there to see? Well, if our ordinary seeing and perceiving was in accord with the real nature of things—our world—then shouldn’t our lives be functioning in harmony?

The Ninth Grave Precept

August 06 · Dharma Discourses, Teachings · anger, compassion, Fall 2013, no-self, seperateness

by John Daido Loori, Roshi

This excerpt appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of Mountain Record, “Within Light, Darkness.”

From The heart of Being:
Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen Buddhism
by John Daido Loori, Roshi

Actualize harmony. Do not be angry.

Bodhidharma said, “Self-nature is inconceivably wondrous. In the dharma of no-self, not postulating a self is called the precept of refraining from anger.” Not creating an idea of a self frees us completely from anger. You cannot have anger unless there is a self. There is no boundless and omniscient self somewhere in the sky that created the whole universe, and there is no tangible and limited self that inhabits this bag of skin. All of reality is simply infinite dharmas that arise and disappear in accord with the laws of karma. There is not one thing standing against another.