“Where have you been?’ is a common opening phrase from the teacher in many koans. In this talk about case 15, Book of Serenity, ‘Yangshan thrusts his hoe in the ground’, Jane discusses aspects of this koan in relation to the story of the Buddha’s awakening and to our own realisation. We can appreciate the dance of words between Guishan
Beginnings and endings herald in the New Year. It’s already the 4th of January, as I write this, and summer rolls on into heatwaves, punctuated with relief from evening storms. How do we meet beginnings and endings – birth and death, renewal and decline, cycles that are never ending? Transience is stamped and woven into the very cellular fabric of
Multitudinous messages coming in from marketers and politicians intensify the sense that thefuture’s uncertain and potentially disastrous, that thoughweare all right, it’s the “other” or “others”who are the problem. Our anxiety grows. Our minds already overflow with habits, preconceptionsand prejudices, with ideas about self and other, ideas that have me here, and you over there, eachof us separate and fearful
Waking at daybreak, my sisters and I, dancing with delight, would run to the Christmas tree and tear open our presents. It was the pinnacle of our year – the tinsel and the fake holly – the nativity play at school, the Christmas carols we sang to our neighbours with all those words about joy, goodwill, peace and generosity. The
On my office wall hangs a scroll which inspires me each day, and which was given to me by my teacher Paul. The calligraphy says, ‘Every day is a good day’, a famous phrase of Yun-men. There is an enso below the calligraphy. This could be the fullness of the sun of every day; it could be the completeness of
In Dogen’s ‘Instructions to the Tenzo’, he describes Three Minds, a division which provides a framework for all daily tasks. As well as Joyful Mind, Kind Mind, and Great Mind, we study Dogen’s question ‘What is practice?’. This teisho was given by Jane Andino roshi on Day 4 of Winter sesshin 2024 at the Annandale zendo
In ‘seeing the reflection’ and ‘seeing the portrait’, we find that which we can’t put into words. This teisho looks at Case 98, The Book of Serenity, and also explores the Soto ancestor side of our Zen lineage, Dongshan. This teisho was given by Jane Andino, roshi on day 3 of Winter sesshin 2024 at Annandale
‘The Great Way has no gate” is the beginning of Wu-Men’s verse from his preface to The Gateless Barrier. This talk explores the Preface and the Postscript of Wu-men’s great work. It also raises the deep questions of ‘Why am I at sesshin? What is the Barrier for me?’ This talk by Jane Andino, roshi, was the first teisho of
Suchness is also referred to as Tathagata another name for the Buddha – the one who is thus gone, thus comes, the one who sees reality as-it-really-is.The teachings of suchness are encapsulated in the much-loved succinct Bahiya Sutta.The Sutta instructs us how to practice just seeing, just hearing, just sensing, just cognising, and thus how to realise the end of
This teisho explores how being present in the here and now better enables us to cope and to respond in a world with increasing conflict and increasing ecological collapse, where we can feel like we have less and less control and where there feels like great uncertainty. The teisho discusses how to live well in today’sworld by responding from our
