We can all agree that nothing happens in a dream. Most dreams are classified as anxiety dreams – we dream about what we worry about. More than once we have all awakened and realized with a sense of relief that we have been dreaming and all those worrisome thoughts were about something that wasn’t real. Any hack can… Continue reading Zen And Dreams Within Dreams
Category: Koan study
Zen Practice: Arousing the Mind
Rinzai Zen teachers assign koans to students in order to arouse the mind of the student. So we apply logic in order to answer the koan, as if it were a riddle, and the teacher tells us we are getting colder, not warmer. So we switch to non-logic and start giving Zen-like answers to the… Continue reading Zen Practice: Arousing the Mind
Zen Practice And Sakkaya Ditthi
Sakkaya ditthi, the wrong view of self, is the first of the ten fetters that bind unenlightened beings. Its counterpart or antidote is Right View or Right Understanding, the first fold of the Eightfold Path. Until we arrive at samma ditthi, the correct view of self, it’s hard to loosen the other nine fetters. Who practices… Continue reading Zen Practice And Sakkaya Ditthi
Zen Emptiness Is Fullness
“All sentient beings” includes ourselves but “no sufferer is found, no doer of the deeds is there.” No person enters Nirvana and the path has no traveler. So who suffers, who does deeds, who enters Nirvana and who travels the path? Who finds the answer to these questions? When the Buddha announced the doctrine of… Continue reading Zen Emptiness Is Fullness