Maggie Gluek, roshi, while wandering with Henry David Thoreau, wonders how we can open the Dharma gates of ease and joy? Caught in ideas of the importance of self, isolated from the world, and following a stream of self centred conditioned thoughts, we fail to be aware of the world
Maggie Gluek, roshi talks about setting aside time and building spaces in your life where you can let everything else go and touch the place of practice in whatever form it might take. She uses Case 12 of the Wu-Men Kuan to explore how simple reminders can help to cultivate
All the harmful karma ever created by me since of old On account of my beginningless greed, hatred and ignorance Born of my body, speech and thought I now acknowledge openly and fully In the Purification gatha which opens our sutra service the “I” is salient and crucial. Let’s
Maggie Gluek, roshi, describes how old Chao Chou offers us a key to the gateless barrier, a word that is no word that opens the door to everything. And in which Wu Men with his long comment shines a light on the practice of Zen. Don’t go thinking you’ve heard
Fear of death is the fundamental human fear, fear of the loss of self its corollary. What does it mean to face this fear, as opposed to running away from it? Where does one find true refuge from fear? How does the Dharma invite the practice of no-fear? These are
Maggie Gluek, roshi discusses the challenges that teachers face in having to open their mouths in order to teach in the face of a subject that seems to elude description or comprehension through logical means. She takes up Case 19 – Xiangyan’s ‘Up a Tree’ – from the Entangling Vines
On the occasion of Robert Aitken Roshi’s centenary, Maggie Gluek, Roshi asks how each of us can uphold his legacy – the timeless teaching of the Buddha Dharma – in the context of Case 18 of the Blue Cliff Record (National Teacher Chung’s Seamless Tomb). And makes an excursion into the relevance of poetry
The task of offering “encouraging words” got me thinking about discouragement. “Courage” is at the root of both terms, deriving in the first instance from Middle English corage which means “heart as the seat of feeling.” The Zen path, like any path, presents obstacles and the possibility then of losing
How can I find my way in the Dharma? How shall I proceed? This is the gist of the sincere questions Chao chou put to his teacher, Nan Ch’uan. Their dialogue—found in case 19 of the Wu Men Kuan– is most instructive and illuminating, not to say evergreen. Ordinary mind is the
‘Encouraging Words from the Teacher’ was published in the June/July 2017 Newsletter: An oft told story in these parts—and recently told at the autumn sesshin– is that concerning Hsueh-feng, snowed in with his dharma brother and mentor Yen-tou at a place called Turtle Mountain. While Yen-t’ou snoozed, Hsueh-feng spent most of the
