CHOSEI ZEN BLOG
We are All Zen Women
Like Zen women of thousands of years ago, we sat zazen after waking up in our own beds, before and after making our families’ meals and attending to our children and pets. Our training became our daily life and our daily life became a way of practice.
At Death; at 49 Days Later
There’s a meaningful phrase for the moment of death: when breath becomes air. I watched this moment for both of my parents – there is a breath and then there is no more. But there is also a lingering, something like the glowing embers in a dying beach fire.
The Vibration Story
Kushner Roshi tells a story that illustrates how the way we vibrate affects the people around us.
The First Sesshin in Spring Green
Greene Roshi describes the first sesshin at the Spring Green Dojo in May/June 2007.
Blast Off!
This online sesshin brought depth to my felt experience of the universe being freshly created moment by moment. With a meditation cushion, internet-enabled laptop, and the roof over my head, I created a dojo and a sangha, and they created me.
A Dojo of One
In Zen, you train alone. And that has been true long before we had the self-isolation needed during a pandemic.
The Inji Story
This Zen story asks us to explore what it means to be a leader or a follower.
Loss and Revelation
More often than not, the experience of loss feels like an offense. It attacks our sense of self, leaves us feeling empty, and can even paralyze us.
Giving Fearlessness
Zen and Budo, written in 1968 by Omori Sogen Rotaishi, is one of the core texts for priests and lay practitioners at our dojo. The short text of 23 pages challenges us to resolve the duality of life and death and to achieve the exacting standard of “giving fearlessness.”
Poets Teaching Zazen
It is hard to teach zazen. What makes it difficult is not the articulation of the complex neuromuscular work that goes on during zazen. What makes it difficult is the use of too many words.
"This is what I have been trained for."
It’s a strange feeling, these past twenty-four hours. Many people have described time-distortion as the normal rhythms of daily activities are twisted in strange ways by the shared experience of COVID-19.
The Arrow is Already in the Target
The arrow releases from the string and “Thwack!” A true hit! I take the next arrow and again the draw feels impossibly perfect. It’s as if the bow no longer exists and the arrow is already in the target. “Thwack!” Another true hit. How did that happen?
Talk Story
I miss Hawaii. Not for the obvious reason as I look out my window onto a wooded hillside covered in six inches of snow. But because I miss sitting with friends as we talk story.
A New Zen Temple in the Neighborhood
If you have recently walked, biked or driven past the corner of East Mifflin and North St, you have probably seen that changes are afoot in the old church that stands there.
How Far Can We Reach?
Often my patients will say, “You’re the first person who has ever really listened.”
The Training of a Temple Cook
I find myself early this morning preparing my first meal by myself for the sesshin work crew at the new Madison dojo, Daikozen-ji. Mornings have always been special to me, the stillness, coolness, the sounds of the birds rising to greet the day.
5 Alternative FAQS – Resonating on Mifflin St.
Launching off the question I get asked most often, here’s inviting you into a bit of the magic I saw this past week.
From Koan't to Koan
On a crisp November weekend in 2015, I found myself navigating curving country roads to participate in a three-day program, Therapeutic Stance, at Spring Green Dojo.
Raising the Dojo Roof
We started with a rocket launch, a couple days of intensive training before our summer sesshin pivoted to the deconstruction and reconstruction to the Mifflin St Dojo, Daikozen-ji.