When the disciple asks the master: – How could you describe Zen practice in a few words? The master replies: – Careful! – Please, explain a little better! – Careful! – Couldn’t you say a little more? – Careful! Here and now, be careful with your posture, be careful with your breathing, be careful with […]
Nature is continuously teaching but we don’t always hear its teaching. The song of the cuckoo reminds us to return urgently to our true nature, to our true home. We are the children of ultimate reality, the children of the universe. Of course, we often wander off in dreams, in mental fabrications. More and […]
Life feeds on life, life offers itself to life. Each form of life receives its life from all the other forms. That is reality. As long as we don’t conform to this reality, our practice is meaningless. As long as we don’t understand the meaning of our lives, as long as we take the wrong […]
Rather than letting your thoughts wander, rather than giving free rein to your madness, please bring your mind back to the body. Come back to the normal condition where thoughts glide without clinging to the mirror. Some people tell me: “Is that all? Is there nothing else to do?” Yes, that’s all. There is nothing […]
You may think what you want. You may believe what you want. You have the impression that things are like this, or like that… You may believe that truth can be caught with words, that truth can be locked up in words; but truth takes its course, no matter what you may think. We all […]
In the Shōdōka, we find this poem: I enter the deep mountains where I live in a hermitage. Under a tall pine tree on top of a steep slope above a profound valley, I sit in my humble abode, at peace and carefree. Silent retreat, serene simplicity. It is a mistake to think that the […]
We have roots in two worlds, it can’t be avoided. The world of appearances and the world of things as they are deep down, of how things work deep down: ultimate reality. There is a very famous saying that goes: don’t be fooled by appearances, go further. The Buddha had accepted and ordained a convict […]
Master Dôgen wrote: The Buddhas and Patriarchs sweated blood. How could we get out of making efforts? We who have strayed so far away from the normal condition, how could be come back to the normal condition without making any efforts? The patriarchs were people like us, but they tore themselves away from the claws […]
The one who walks in the world with a peaceful mind, helps the world. The one who walks in the world with a peaceful mind and who cares for others, helps the world. The one who chooses at every moment to go in the direction where his or her actions, words, thoughts are beneficial for […]
Don’t go back into the past stirring up cold ashes to find the truth. Don’t mistake dreams of the future for reality either – for the living, warm reality, reality that is always here, that pulses. This is a choice to make: to be here together as the day is rising, as nature is wakening. […]
Sotoshu :
Ecole zen Sôtô
UBF :
Union Bouddhiste de France