Wisdom teachings are fascinating things. They may not appear to be special. They are never complicated. They can sound so ordinary that we don’t even hear them or grant them consideration. But like seeds, they burrow into us and one day surface in full bloom. Only then are we ready to appreciate them. Here are Maezumi’s Three Admonitions, which you’re not likely to find elsewhere…
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How to Meditate
Learn the basics of Zen meditation in less than five minutes. Clear, step-by-step meditation instruction, as practiced at the Hazy Moon.
Stay
I once heard Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron talk about the instructions she gave to people who came to retreats while dealing with trauma. She gave them the mantra, “Stay.” Whatever is going on, stay with it. Thoughts might be crazy — let them fly but stay with the moment. Want to get up and run — don’t, just stay. Stay within the body; stay within your field of hearing. Just stay. After a while, the individual would invariably settle.
Mind Answers
A review of The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality by Robert Lanza, MD, and Matej Pavsic with Bob Berman.
The Basic Teaching
In a powerful and wide-ranging talk, Nyogen Roshi touches on quantum physics and the delusion of understanding; how to listen to a talk; the importance of knowing how to die well; and how his last dokusan with Maezumi Roshi, his teacher, illuminates an exchange between Obaku and Rinzai…
This Very Point
Those of us who practice are lucky when we encounter difficult times. Before that, we coast along in a comfort zone, thinking that bad stuff will be taken care of and the good guys will win and everyone is going to live happily ever after…
The Manifest Koan
The manifest koan is you, what is apparent and appearing, depending solely on right now. Nothing else. If you’re still caught in the comparing mind, the judgmental mind, you won’t see it. If you’re trapped in seeing objects as separate from you, you are far from it. But I think everybody here is starting to sense it…
In Love With the World
A review of In Love With the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche with Helen Tworkov.
Nyogen Roshi strongly recommended this book to me because the author writes in detail about what he does with his mind when faced with fear…
The Language of Zen
At the Hazy Moon, we use many Zen terms carried forward from ancient monastic practice. Here is a glossary of words and phrases that you may encounter when you practice in a Zendo. Explanations of other Zen ceremonies and activities are found on our Practice & Traditions page. Buddha – Literally, “awake.” Also refers to […]
You’re in the Bardo Right Now
In a recent talk on the Bardo–the transition between life and death–Nyogen Roshi highlights an insight from a modern Tibetan master’s commentary on a classic text: Each of us exists in the Bardo right now…
The Top 10 Reasons I Appreciate the Zen Buddhist Training Program
NUMBER 10: It’s so time-consuming. For a lot of people this is an obstacle to establishing a practice. We have so many conflicting commitments: partner, family, career, interests. I too used to have lots of people and ideas and projects competing for my attention – I was quite frenetic and scattered. But one day a big […]
The Overstory
“I read a book that changed my life,” says Claudia Hosso Politi. The Overstory–a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about inter-connection between human beings and the natural world, especially trees–sparks wonder and a new passion for nature in Hosso…
