When, in silence, every word is forgotten, we are in reality. It appears clearly before us. All too often we prefer our dreams to reality. I want. I want to be loved. I don’t want to die. I want. I don’t want… We do nothing but follow our preferences, our aversions — and because of […]
Some people mistake what the practice taught by Buddha actually is: they are looking for peace, certainly; but peace at any price is not peace. Some seek peace by cutting themselves off from others, believing that others are the cause of their suffering. This kind of peace, achieved by fleeing the world, is not the […]
In the 1960s, there was a craze amongst young people for things from the Far East. They set out for India, for Kathmandu. They opened up to the world of resonance. The idea started to spread that the flutter of butterfly’s wings above the Amazon rainforest could trigger a tornado in Texas. The Universe unfolds […]
A sutra says that taking care of living beings requires us to see our mistakes and to give them up. We make all sorts of small mistakes without seeing it, without knowing it. We have all sorts of bad habits that we don’t question. The sutra continues: our biggest blindness is to think that we […]
Fully sitting, to the exclusion of all else, we practice patience in the face of reality as it is. Whether what we see is pleasant or unpleasant, we remain unmoved by what is. Through this repeated, profound practice, the eye of wisdom opens. This is how, 2,600 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha realized that all things […]
When you die, you will take nothing with you to the grave. Nothing can be kept; nothing can be possessed. When they realise this truth, some people are writhe in pain. Yet it is this reality that must be accepted, lived with, and embraced. Everything passes, and forever. Nothing can be made to happen again. […]
The right religion is one that enables human beings to live in peace with one another. This was the first calligraphy that Minamisawa Zenji presented to Kanshôji. How can we learn to live in peace with one another? After his awakening, after he had freed himself from the three poisons[1], the original master, Shakyamuni Buddha, […]
There was a monk who lived in a small temple in the mountains. He lived alone, in utter poverty. One winter day when it was cold and the rain was falling incessantly, a traveler knocked on the door. He was soaked and shivering with cold. He couldn’t warm himself up. Finally, the monk took the […]
Zazen 11 a.m. The Buddha’s teaching asks us not to remain at the level of appearances, not to remain on the surface of things, in the foam of phenomena—that is, not to be carried away by rumours, by hearsay, by what we hear or read. Shakyamuni Buddha said: This truth that I have acquired is […]
Zen masters say: ‘What we must cherish above all else is the present moment.’ The past no longer exists. The future does not yet exist. The past ends in the present. The future begins in the present. This present moment is that of existence, which is on the frontier – in the mathematical sense – […]