FUKANZAZENGI: Universal norms for Zazen

Written by Eihei Dogen in 1227
The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammelled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or…Read [+]

THE KESA BY MASTER KODO SAWAKI

One day, an ‘unsui’ asked me about the meaning of the Kesa. I answered him: The Kesa is something that is not clear. He looked at me surprised and astonished, his expression telling me he thought I Was just blabbering. Actually, the Kesa is undefinable, either by its “broken” color, a color of ruins or rags, and its dimension, which does not conform to any precise rule. It is not limited by any defined aspect that could contain it. That is the reason why it has been called “the rice field´s dress of…Read [+]

DISCOURSE OF BARBARA KOSEN IN THE GENDRONNIÈRE TEMPLE

ON THE SCORE OF 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MASTER DESHIMARU ARRIVAL IN EUROPE
Master Taisen Deshimaru is the master who taught me the practice of the Way. I became his disciple and I received the ordination of nun in the dojo of Paris in 1975. I practiced close to him. After his death I spent three years in the Dojo of Zürich, then 7 years in the Dojo of Geneva. During these ten years I have continued to practice in our Temple of La Gendronnière. En 1993 I received the Dharma transmission from the hands of master Kosen Thibaut right here in the Gendronnière. Master Kosen…Read [+]

MAKA HANNYA HARAMITA SHINGYO

Essence of the Sutra of Great Wisdom which permits us to go further
The bodhisattva of the true freedom, through the deep practice of the Great Wisdom, understands that the body and the five skandhas (feeling, perception, thought, activity, and consciousness) are nothing more than emptiness (ku) and through this understanding he helps all those who suffer. Oh, Sariputra, phenomena are no different to emptiness; emptiness is no different to phenomena.Phenomena return to emptiness; emptiness becomes phenomena. (Form is emptiness, emptiness is form). The five skandhas are also phenomena. Oh, Sariputra, all existence is ku (emptiness). There is no birth, no beginning, no purity, no blemish,…Read [+]