“Life is just one damned thing after another.”
~ Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
~ Zen proverb
Tag Archives: zen
Taking a Buddhist pilgrimage in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO: A block off Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown – beyond the well-worn path tourists take past souvenir shops, restaurants and a dive saloon called the Buddha Bar – begins a historical tour of a more spiritual nature.
Duck into a nondescript doorway at 125 Waverly Place, ascend five narrow flights and step into the first and oldest Buddhist temple in the United States. More…
About: Buddhism
Barbara O’Brien writes about Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism
The influence of the Chinese master Huineng (638-713), the Sixth Patriarch of Ch’an (Zen), resonates through Ch’an and Zen Buddhism to this day. Some consider Huineng, not Bodhidharma, to be the true father of Zen. His tenure, at the beginning of the T’ang Dynasty, marks the beginning of what is still called the “golden age” of Zen.
Huineng stands at the juncture where Zen shed its vestigial Indian trappings and found its unique spirit — direct and unflinching. Through Huineng flow the several diverse currents of early Zen. From him flow all schools of Zen that exist today. …
Moulting
I’ve been a teacher of Zen for years, yet when people ask me if I’m a Buddhist, I don’t know what to say. Any answer I might give somehow seems irrelevant to what’s actually taking place. I’ve lost any convincing identification and seem to be a prospect for a missing persons alert. It’s as if I’ve awakened to the company of a stranger, or as if I’ve reached out at last and taken hold of my own unfamiliar hand.
My So-Called Zen Practice
Barbara O’Brien, who writes the Buddhism section for About.Com, discusses her own experience with her years of practice. Highly recommended!
My So-Called Zen Practice: Personal Reflections
The Myth of the Experienced Meditator
From the time I stumbled into an introduction to Transcendental Meditation in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1970, through multiple eras (including my present fifteen-year-old Soto Zen practice), I sat and stared at many walls (and mandalas and candles, and the inside of my eyelids) reveled in sundry bells-and-whistles mental experiences, gotten bored, decided I was going crazy, become enlightened (no, really!), and now I’m ready to share everything I’ve learned. It won’t take long. In fact I can sum it up in one word: nothing.
