Jundo Cohen is a Soto Zen Priest, founder and teacher of the Treeleaf Zendo, a Soto Zen Sangha located in Tsukuba, Japan. He was ordained in 2002 and subsequently received Dharma transmission from Gudo Wafu Nishijima Roshi. He is a member of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association and the American Zen Teachers Association.
Taigu Turlur began Zen Practice at age 13(!) in his native France, was ordained in 1983 at age 18(!) by Rev. Mokudo Zeisler of the Deshimaru Lineage, and received Dharma Transmission from Chodo Cross in 2003. Devoted to the sewing of the Kesa (Buddhist Robes), he now resides in Osaka, Japan and teaches at Treeleaf Sangha.
Every life and family is touched by tragedy. No house is free of times of sadness.
Our family is no exception, reminded as we are of an adopted little girl who was to come to us years ago, but never has. She is just a name to us, a shadow, an empty child’s room that has gathered dust.
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Zen master Eihei Dogen said in the Genjo Koan:
Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find you way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others’. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now.
There is no need to hurry and nowhere to go. As soon as one practices fully, this place is the whole, full-blown moon. The self changes, everything changes, so movement occurs. But although movement occurs, we never leave this place. The time of practice is not even taking place now. So mindfulness is extra. The time and space that Dogen is talking about are different from the ideas we have about time and space. [Click through to sit along with today's video.] Continued
Taigu and I (Jundo) are very content to announce that, last Thursday, our Treeleaf Sangha ordained three new novice Soto Zen priests in the traditional manner.
What was not so traditional, however — and rather groundbreaking and somewhat controversial — is that it was, we believe, the first time that a Buddhist Ordination has been performed simultaneously on three continents (with the preceptors, Taigu and Jundo, in Japan, and our three ordainees in Canada, Germany and Sweden) all linked by audio-visual media via the internet.
Well, welcome to the future… which is just the present all along! [Click through to read more and view video of the ceremony.] Continued
One pleasant aspect of being part of a Sangha is the wide family connections it allows. Today, we are visited in Japan by my Dharma Brother, Jean-Marc “Tenryu” Bazy, founder and teacher of l’association zen Dogen Sangha de Lyon-Villeurbanne, France. He is joined by several members from Lyon, all visiting Japan for the first time. Taigu’s here, too (he’s also from France, of course)!
Please sit-a-long with our special 90-minute Zazenkai. It begins with a wonderful Heart Sutra recitation in Japanese by Taigu, followed by two periods of 30 minute Zazen, with 10 minutes of Kinhin walking in between. Le Zazen Formidable! Merci, Tenryu, Taigu et tout! [Click through to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
Zen master Eihei Dogen wrote:
A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once.
This is a small-big reminder: to sit is to fully enter the realm of awakening. Dropping the body-mind, this collection of habits, tensions, expectations, desires… you find the place where everything is complete, nothing is lacking. [Click through to read more and to sit along with today's video.] Continued
Robert Aitken Roshi, pictured at left at an anti-war demonstration, was one of the driving forces behind the “Engaged Buddhism” movement in the west. We mourn and cry for his leaving this visible world this week, although hand in hand we know there is no life or death, no place to go. Zen offers both ways of seeing.
Likewise, there is no where to go, nothing to attain, nothing in need of fixing, to add or remove. Yet, how we fix this world, nurturing the good and removing the bad, is largely up to us. We had best make this world better.
Roshi famously said that the phrase “socially engaged” and “Buddhism” is redundant. We practice to awaken… yet we practice to “save all sentient beings.” And those sentient beings, though never in need of saving from the start, cannot live on “merit” and “awakening.” [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
Another common fallacy concerning awakening is that it we must run after it to attain it.
But in this attaining — by which the core attainment is the profound experience of no need to run, nobody to do the running, no separate place to run to, nothing which can be lost or attained in the effort — the best way of attainment may be to radically give up all running, and all need to attain. As with a dog chasing its own tail, what is here all along may be found by being very still and seeing just what is. [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
A common fallacy concerning Zen awakening is that what we call Kensho – “seeing our true, original nature” — is somehow uniquely vital, special, indispensable to the path, sacred.
Kensho is, in fact, nothing special.
But another fallacy is that Kensho is not especially vital, indispensable to the path, sacred; that Kensho is merely something ordinary and nothing special.
For Kensho is, in fact, special as special ever has been or could be… a sacred jewel, key to the path, life’s vitality realized… nothing other than special! [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
In the coming days, I will be discussing some common fallacies about enlightenment, awakening, satori, and such. Others might disagree with my interpretations, and that is fine; “Enlightenment” is interpreted in different ways in different traditions.
But I like to say that the interpretations I shall offer seem of such value, that I will cherish and keep them even if wrong (which, of course, I do not truly feel they are!) [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
Well, it is summer vacation season, and this week my wife and I have eight relatives from the U.S. visiting us in Japan for the first time. It is quite a diverse group, including my older sister and her husband, a teenage boy and two six year olds. So, I have been taking them all around Tokyo and Kamakura, to places that might interest each of them — from the Sumo matches, to spots from the manga and anime worlds, to playgrounds, to temples and shrines.
I don’t think that there is much difference in traveling with family as a “Zen guy” from anyone’s family vacations. Maybe it makes one more accepting of the little stresses of travel, like the missed trains and rainy days and inevitable little mishaps. Oh, and I guess it means that some of the relatives will be talked into sitting a little Zazen with their “Zen guy” uncle, like today (I think they really did well for the first time). [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
In connection with Shambhala Sun’s new “How to Meditate” issue, I’m often asked to describe Shikantaza Zazen in a nutshell. Well, perhaps the simplest and most basic instructions for Zazen are neatly summarized in the verse “Faith in Mind,” traditionally attributed to the Third Patriarch in China, Sengcan:
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Sit without likes and dislikes, aversions and attractions… even amid likes and dislikes. [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
Master Dogen writes the following lines in the Genjokoan:
When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.
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We have a special rule in our Treeleaf Sangha: Although any topic is always free for civil discussion, and we pull no punches in what we need to say, we are to speak kindly and respectfully to each other. [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
At Treeleaf Zendo, we don’t deny the reality of kensho (experiences of enlightenment) in our Soto Zen tradition. At the same time, we let go of past experiences to allow the light of shikantaza (“just sitting”) into our life. True awakening is found in the activity of truly meeting the world and manifesting wisdom without any self awareness. Enlightened activity is the daily practice in which the Dharma Wheel is turned. Sodo Yokoyama (seen at left), one of Kodo Sawaki’s students and Dharma heirs, wrote:
“In Zazen there is no delusion, no satori, no deluded people, and no Buddhas. And it is for that reason, because from the beginning there is no delusion, no satori, no saint, and no sinner in Zazen that we have shikantaza — just sitting. Since there are no delusions in the past and no satori now, there is no need to seek Buddha and no hell to fall into (…)”
Once you are home, once Buddha is Buddha and you are yourself, how can there be any traces left? The eyes cannot see themselves, they are open on the open itself which is all form and space. The dynamic activity of being is the real thing, the awareness unaware of itself, flowing naturally, spontaneously. [Click through to hear today's talk, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
Almost any group we belong to — the workplace, family, even a Buddhist sangha — will have some folks we consider “difficult people,” individuals who rub us the wrong way or seem to make things hard. But, it is important for us to remember that difficult people are Buddha, that they are all teaching us. What’s more, each one of us is probably a “difficult person” to somebody too (just ask Mrs. Jundo how she feels about Jundo some days!).
There are a lot of books and advice out there on living or working with someone who we might find a bit of a pain in the kiester. But does Zen practice, and monastery life, offer any lesson on “difficult people”? [Click through for more, and to "sit-a-long" with today's video.] Continued
