The bodhisattva ideal, where one forgets the self and helps others, isemphasized in Mahayana Buddhism. But bodhisattvas are not just powerful symbolic figures,they are ordinary people who dedicate themselves to the wellbeing of others, to the environment, peace, to social justice. People like you and me. In this talk, Gilly
Bodhidharma faced the wall. The Second Ancestor stood in the snow, cut off his armand said, ‘Your disciple’s mind has no peace as yet. I beg you, Master, please put it to rest.’ Mumonkan Case 41: Bodhidharma Pacifies the Mind The words, life and control, cancel each other out –
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
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
There are koan stories that obliquely look at blame, shame, getting it wrong, embarrassment and a host of other possible difficulties that every human being, perfectly imperfect, experiences every single day, that reveal how a Zen person is with this stuff. Does a Zen person blush with shame? Quake with anxiety? Flutter with
Huang-po, instructing the community, said:‘All of you people are gobblers of dregs; if you go on travelling around this way, where will you meet Today? Don’t you know there is no Zen teacher?’ This is the last teisho of sesshin. Later tomorrow when we go forth in the world, the
In his ‘Song of Realising the Way’, Yungchia says: It speaks in silence In speech you hear its silence The Great Way has opened and there are no obstacles. It’s difficult to practise listening unless our minds become quiet and our thoughts aren’t clamouring for attention, or for expression in
Chapter One:Once upon a time, between two hundred and forty-five and sixty-six million years ago, gentle vegan dinosaurs from the Evazoum family were roaming around the vast land mass called Gondwana, foraging on ferns. Their footprints sank into the water-sodden layers of ancient plant debris, their tracks later in-filled by
The first teisho of Diamond Sangha sesshin traditionally focuses on the koan ‘mu’, a primary koan – a koan that opens the way –even though it is a gateless barrier.Mumon’s commentary on this case is a rare case of hearing how to work with a koan – which translates as
We recently honoured Sally Hopkins, who gave herself unstintingly to our sangha, and, in a couple of weeks, will honour Tony Coote, who gave so much to create Kodoji, our wilderness retreat centre. So, Gilly explores the concept of Dana, the Sanskrit word for giving or relinquishment. Dana is the
