Even if it’s difficult, the pleasure will be all the greater
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 Way with the ancient flavours
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…
At the source there is silence
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…
The unifying absorption
One can begin to practice for all sorts of personal reasons: to have a more successful life, a better health, higher intellectual capacities… In fact, at the beginning, people often mistake the Way of the Buddha for a means of personal development.
But…
Absolute, free from doubt, such is the Dharma
It is always good to remember that zazen is no ordinary meditation. Zazen is to experience reality as it is, one's inner reality as well as the outer reality.
Hōkyō Zanmai is a fundamental text in our school, of which the title could be…
Zazen is a request from the depths of our mind
Last weekend, fifteen persons or so came to discover Zen practice. On the first day, after sitting in zazen, a person decided to leave: “I haven’t come to sit.” But Zen is nothing but zazen. No one can be forced to practice zazen. Kodo…
The leaves keep falling
In a sutra, Buddha says: To practice the Way is to put right all that has been upset.
To put right all that has been upset, that can be difficult. When he awakened, Shakyamuni Buddha said to himself: “My fellow human beings are not going…
It’s by practicing that we understand
Someone asked Master Dôgen:
- Why do say that zazen is the great gate that cannot be by-passed?
For a person considered as one of the greatest philosophers of mankind, Master Dôgen gives an unexpected answer:
- I say that zazen is…
The finger pointing at the Moon
To study the Way, to practice the Way, is to study oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to become one with all beings.
To practice the Way is to forget oneself.
To study the Way is not to study in the academic…
The greatest danger is to be afraid
The greatest danger is to be afraid. Our answer to fear is to try to anticipate. We want to know beforehand, we want tomorrow to be certain. And so we keep thinking, we keep thinking…
We think about polishing weapons. We think about building…
