Thank you for reading my blog! Below are the all time most popular posts. Breathing from the Belly: Tanden, a Great Rolling Ball Describing Traditional Rinzai Koan Training A great love affair Just standing around Zhan Zhuang, Standing Like a Tree Breaking Through: Sublime and Natural These are not necessarily my favorite. I will do…
Category: energy
Guidance of the Great Vow
Sentient beings are numberless I vow to liberate them The Head monk walked into the zendo on day six of Osesshin and announced that two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center. This was on Whidbey Island. On the the right of me was one of my best friends, Chris, who I had…
Walking Emotional Energy Fields
We are walking emotional energy fields. When I came back from Japan, and Teresa was pregnant with Rose, we were living on a little herb farm in a cottage. Some friends from the monastery were visiting one evening, and we were talking about what was next in our lives. For me, it was a moment…
Podcast Interview with My Brother on Hess’s Heroes
Here is a podcast interview with my brother. Topics include reasons for going to a Zen Monastery, How Bob Dylan relates to Zen, finding our own practice, how Zen makes us into artists. It was a great time hangin with my big bro. Listen Here! Thanks! Please share it if you like it!
The Classical Ideas Podcast Interview
https://classicalideaspodcast.libsyn.com/ep-80-a-rinzai-zen-life-in-japan-w-corey-ichigen-hess I recently had a great time chatting with Greg Soden about pre-monastery life, years of Zen training, and what comes after an American leaves a Japanese monastery. Please enjoy and share it if it is helpful or interesting. Minutes 43-47 are sketchy (Greg’s internet cable was eaten through by a squirrel, which the technician…
Zhan Zhuang, Standing Like a Tree
One practice that really helped me in the beginning to go deeper into my zazen, and continues to keep me healthy in my life every day, is a type of Chi Kung first introduced to me in the monastery by a fellow training person. It is Zhan Zhuang, “Standing Like a Tree” and it involves…
Second Breath, Breath of Life: Craniosacral Therapy Meets Zen
“I can say that as the Breath of Life emerges from a depth of Stillness, one experiences heart-opening radiance and compassion, a sense of great spaciousness and peace, a depth of love and interconnection, and a perception of a Presence that seems to enfold, uphold and maintain life.” Franklyn Sills In this post, I’d like…
Simple Tips: Finding Joy in Daily Practice
My hope is to inspire people to find a way to daily enjoy engaging with their unique inner process. I’m talking about sitting down and feeling our bodies and being present. Or maybe, for some, it could be standing still. Or even with very simple movement. But to find a way to make it their…
Standing the in the Dark, Giggling
“Always now – just now – come into being. Always now – just now – give yourself to death. Practicing this is Zen practice.” Soko Morinaga Everyone wants to figure everything out. Everyone wants to have the real true thought to explain our lives with meaning. Most of us want some extreme, an absolute, to…
Tips for wild energy
I have been in lots of workshops lately involving energy work, and in every workshop there are a couple of people going through some intense energetic issues. There are many forms that these issues take. From shaking, to headaches, ears ringing, incredible anxiousness, or spontaneous uncontrollable movements. I usually try to assure them that things…
