Zazen Notes

Huineng was an illiterate woodcutter in 7th century China (C.E.), who heard a lecturer in the town square say “Let the mind be present, without abode” (a line from the Diamond Sutra), and went on to become a patriarch of Zen. Here’s part of a speech attributed to Huineng:

The Vimalakirti Sutra says, ...  read more

The forms we use to train the body in Zen – how to sit, stand, and so on – can be described in general like this: the energetic currents of the body are gathered with the breath at the tanden and in the lower portion of the body, the sacrum drops, the spine extends upward, and the eyes are used broadly and with sharpness. There are ...  read more

In my last post, I wrote about action that arises in the breath and in the body, rather than through judgment and the exercise of will. I mentioned that such action can be peculiarly timely, although the timeliness may only emerge after the fact.

Such action happens when the foreground of bodily activity and the background of autonomic respiration ...  read more