Poems of Dogen In part to resurrect a thread of Pipedreams. Dogen was a 13th century zen master. His greatest work - of essays and sermons - is his Shobogenzo or "The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye." Also there is the Eihei Kōroku which contains his poetry,...See More »
Pema Chodron on Loving-kindnessA short "sermon" on maitri (loving-kindness) by Pema Chodron.. When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, they often think that somehow they're going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who...See More »
Warnings abound!From the "Waters and Mountains Sutra" of Dogen:- An old buddha has said, “If you wish to avoid the karma of Avīci hell, do not slander the true Dharma wheel of the Thus Come One.” These words should be engraved on skin, flesh, bones, and marrow,...See More »
The sound of the marketplacePoems are not ephemeral things. At best they travel heart to heart. Maybe they can also bring forth true communion, the deepest form of communication. The finger that points at the moon becomes the moon itself. Reading the various details of Dogen's...See More »
Bombu's (foolish being)From "A Glossary of Pure Land Terms" as found in the Collected Works of Shinran:- Bombu:- A person possessed of blind passions and ignorance. One of the Sanskrit equivalents of foolish being is bala, which has various connotations: immature, silly,...See More »
The Blue Cliff RecordThe Blue Cliff Record is a collection of 100 zen koans. Pretty esoteric stuff for the unwary, like myself....😀 As well as the actual book, I also have a commentary on it, written by a couple of zen masters of yesteryear, this called "Secrets of the...See More »
The end of suffering Often the Buddha is recorded as saying that he taught "this and this alone, suffering and the end of suffering." He was silent on virtually all the metaphysical questions - the so called "silence of the Buddha". We all want answers, but you don't...See More »
The DharmaThe Buddha did not teach Buddhism. He taught the Dharma, the law. He did not teach a set of beliefs or dogmas, or systems that have arbitrarily to be accepted. Through his own experience of enlightenment, he pointed the way for each of us to...See More »
"Uji" - Being/TimeThe Christmas festivities over I find myself back in MacDonald's with a large white coffee. A little taste of paradise believe it or not. I spoke of turning to Dogen and his writings elsewhere and that remains the plan, but as said we can set the...See More »
Little Gidding etc etc One thing I will be doing is continuing on with my latest Blook (a cross between a Blog and a book) Details of my various Blooks can be found on previous posts under some of my previous names here. The Blook is "The Christian Mystics", many of them...See More »
Tariki and JirikiMuch Pure Land Buddhist writings involve the relationship of Other Power and Self Power. In Japanese these are respectively Tariki and jiriki (In the Christian Faith we could see this as having to do with the relationship between "faith" and...See More »
Shinran and Pure Land BuddhismOne of the "founding fathers" of Shin Buddhism, Shinran, in effect turned history upside down. He understood all reality as the expression of the "Vow mind", as the manifestation of "suchness", as everlasting activities of salvation, Upaya. From this...See More »
A Poem.of DogenTo what shall I Liken the world? Moonlight, reflected In dewdrops, Shaken from a crane's bill. Many commentators, led astray by "the languid east" nonsense, and thoughts of maya (understood as "illusion") see such words, understand the poem, as...See More »
Dogen's questionDogen, the 13th century zen master, had as his life koan, his own existential question, this:- As I study both the exoteric and the esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Dharma-nature by birth. If this is the...See More »
Far from the madding crowdDecided to retreat here to the Buddhist section. Very little activity here and "views" at a minimum. I can waffle to my hearts content as I sit in McDonald's with my coffee. Just done a good deed as I approached McDonald's, seeing this guy hunched...See More »
The parting of the waysOne quite well known Buddhist scripture is the Dhammapada, a Theravada text. "Dhamma" = Pali = Truth. ("Dharma" in Sanskrit, in Mahayana scriptures) "Pada" = Pali = Path. So Dhammapada, the Path of Truth. It opens with a chapter called "The...See More »
Pure Land BuddhismThis thread will be a series of excerpts from the many books now published on Pure Land Buddhism. This from "The Shin Buddhist Classical Tradition". The words refer to the recitation of the Nembutsu ( i.e. Namu-Amida-Butsu). In my own life, over...See More »