It can be extremely helpful if someone acknowledges what we’ve been experiencing in our own internal process or we happen to read or hear someone talk about something which we’ve been experiencing, but no one else seems to understand. It can be a lifesaver. Or at least reading or hearing them talk about some of…
Category: meditation
Getting Into the House: Kufu and Zazen
In our training, the Roshi asks us to go into the house. He says, “Go Straight!” In our zazen, we must find a way in. We all go up to the door and try to push it open. It won’t budge. But the Roshi told us to “Go Straight!” So we push and push on…
The Most Intense Person in the Room
For all of you folks out there who are always the most intense person in the room, or are waiting for everyone to notice the subtext, or can feel other people as yourself, or are a walking pressure cooker, or can’t get yourself going in one direction, or you feel like an exposed nerve, or…
The Importance of Feeling Qi in Qigong
I’d like to occasionally share little snippets of what comes to mind while practicing in hopes that it might inspire others. When doing energetic practices such as Qigong, I want to emphasize how important it is to feel the Qi. We must find our own way to engage with this energy. It is not…
How Sanzen Shaped My Way of Doing Bodywork
“If we open ourselves completely, consciously or unconsciously, we are ready to listen to the voiceless voice of the universe.” – Dainin Katagiri Recently someone asked me what my practice looks like now that I am not doing koan work intensively in the monastery. This post is a bit of a response to that…
Unspoken Contracts: The Liberation of Letting Them Go (A Former Zen Monk Reflects on Telling Bad Jokes)
Many of us are constantly, perhaps unconsciously, demanding that others around us agree to contracts we want to be true about our place in the world. We define ourselves by these ideas we have of ourselves. One great lesson I remember of Zen training is having to let go of the demands we put on…
Zen Students Burning Process: Words of Encouragement
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Zhan Zhuang, and as I do it, memories of energetic insights, of struggles and specific leaps in practice have been coming back to me from my first couple of years in Zen training. I think describing some of that feeling will be of value to some training people…
Removing the Barrier Between Self and Other
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains,…
Receiving
“Receive.” “Receive”. “We become like a great mountain” Over and over the Roshi would tell us this. Many people want to know how to have ease in their bodies. Many of my friends, clients, zen friends. Someone tells them to put their pelvis in this position and that does not feel good. And so they…
Body as Bones in a Leather Bag of Water: Exploring Noguchi Taiso
There are countless techniques to control the body, to master the body, to shape it to our will in order to find health. This post is about a type of exercise and opening to a way of being which looks at the body in a different way. It emphasizes letting go of control, effortlessness, feeling…
