Tag: zen

War, Peace, and Zen

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen sit tonight. A recording follows the text.

Earlier this week Nick asked that Fran or I speak about war, peace, and Zen. I volunteered.

My first instinct for most talks is to reach for a koan or another teaching that speaks to a theme and then to build on it.

Quickly I realized this topic is so woven into the causes and conditions of my life, my past and my present, that I had to take a different approach. This talk will be more autobiographical than some, but hopefully I’ll manage to speak to Nick’s topic to his satisfaction and yours.

I don’t exactly come from a multi-generational military family but I did grow up aware of my dad’s service in the Air Force. He was stationed in the Middle East between the Korean and Vietnam Wars before I was born.

I also was aware of an uncle’s service in the Marines. He was a top sergeant during WWII, a decorated soldier who saw a lot of combat. He was wounded in a battle in the Pacific as he ran into fire to save members of his troop who’d ben shot. He was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. He met my aunt, my dad’s sister, in a military hospital where she was a nurse. He was a lovely, gentle, humble man. He worked as an electrician after the war. He was into shortwave radio and model trains, hobbies that fascinated me and all my cousins. I couldn’t articulate it as a child, but somehow this juxtaposition of his bravery and competence as a soldier and his gentleness made a deep and lasting impression on me. 

He had a nervous breakdown later in life. The things he experienced in combat finally overwhelmed him. He never talked about it with his kids and many nephews and nieces, but one of his grandkids eventually got him to agree to an interview for a school project. He spoke openly about his experiences for the first time. This grandson went on to become a Top Gun pilot, and eventually a Top Gun commander. The real Tom Cruise. He was the, or one of the, senior officers leading air operations in the Gulf War. 

As a young kid, our classes and schoolyard play sometimes were interrupted by “civil defense drills.” Others here likely remember that. Whenever we heard the deafening sound of an air raid siren we took cover under our desks, as if they could protect us from a Russian atomic bomb blast and its radioactive fallout. 

Neighbors had an encyclopedia set. I used to sit in their living room for hours reading about military history. I was fascinated by the uniforms, flags, and insignia. By the sense of honor and virtue that seemed to permeate it all. By the notion that people would risk and give their lives for a cause. Something they believed in. Something that seemed to be operating at levels even deeper than belief.

I went to high school in a small, hardscrabble town deep and high in the Colorado Rockies. One year the Army chose our town and the surrounding mountains as the location for its war game. I somehow was recruited to be one side’s secret civilian collaborator. I recruited a small group of friends to the cause. We snuck out of our houses after midnight as the game began and went deep in the mountains to meet paratroopers dropping from the sky. We helped coordinate covert actions for our side for the next two weeks. The game ended when we captured the other side’s commander at Pizza Hut, one of the few chain restaurants in town. I was there. I played some minor role in that operation I can’t recall.

Going to college wasn’t a given. Most of the 100 or so students in my class didn’t. A good friend resolved to attend West Point and I resolved to attend Annapolis (the Naval Academy) to become a Seal commander. We were both accepted and sent to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for our matriculation physicals. I failed the color vision test, so my acceptance was withdrawn. There were prior hints I was colorblind, but we didn’t really know until that moment. I was crushed.

I didn’t know what to do. My Catholic parents (who didn’t go to college themselves) told me to “go to the Jesuits,” so I enrolled in the nearest Jesuit school, which is in Denver. There my perspective began to shift. Reagan reinstated the draft. Compelled service bothered me at the time. (It still does, but I now see how voluntary service gives socially and economically privileged young people a pass.) I wrote “conscientious objector” all over my draft registration card. I explored pacifism in some of my classes. I began to study the art and science of dialogue.

Years later I spent considerable time in Berlin before the Wall fell. I moved there for a couple of years after it fell.

I studied and began practicing law before moving to Berlin. In truth, those couple of years in Berlin were my way of coping, or not coping, with my inability to reconcile what I’ll call the hard and soft sides of myself. At the time, law (like the part of me that had wanted to be a Navy Seal) was the hard side. The soft side had begun to express itself through contemplative spirituality—the Christian mystical tradition and Zen. Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Being Peace made a big impression on me during this time. It was my first acquaintance with the connection between contemplative spirituality and notions of peace.  I began reading others who speak to this connection. Thomas Merton. Krishnamurti.

Tortured by my inability to reconcile hard and soft at that stage of life, I left law practice for Harvard Divinity School, where I planned to study the intersection between Christian mysticism and Zen.

But I had a crisis soon after I arrived. The hard side of myself missed the realm of practice; of change-making activity in the world. Around then the New York Times published an article about the massacre in Srebrenica at the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia. A picture of a Muslim woman who hung herself to avoid being slaughtered moved me to tears. I resolved then and there to understand how religion, and our beliefs and values more generally, get tangled up in conflict and how to untangle them. 

I pivoted hard to studying negotiation and conflict resolution. I was fortunate to find mentors like Herb Kelman, a social psychologist who became the first and most longstanding backchannel mediator among Israelis and Palestinians, and Roger Fisher, an international law professor who is one of the founders of the negotiation field and who also became a mediator in armed conflicts. They helped pioneer the field of negotiation and conflict resolution because of their own painful experiences of war. Herb escaped the Holocaust as a child. Roger was a naval aviator in WWII who lost many friends in that war.

Today, as many of you know, I teach in this area and am involved in that sort of work myself. 

What does all this have to do with war and peace and Zen? There’s war and peace and Zen in my personal story, but how does that all hang together and respond to Nick’s request?

Honor. Virtue. Belonging. These are deep-rooted human sentiments. 

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

Buddha: Oneness can become an ideal

Dharma: Individuals

Sangha: Individuals in community bound by an ideal

We can relate to each of these things—an ideal of oneness, ourselves, and others—narrowly, rigidly, and jingoistically. Sometimes Buddhists have. Think of the many Zen Buddhists in Japan during WWII who were warmongers. Think of some Buddhists in Burma today.

Or we can relate to them broadly, loosely, and inclusive of strangers and outsiders.

That’s better, but let’s not kid ourselves. We can’t deny our twin nature. However tolerant, accepting, and pacific one may be, we are hard-and-soft. We are open-and-closed. We favor those for whom we feel an affinity. Likely we always will. Perhaps that’s natural and good, to a point. A point we too often cross.

Perhaps the best we can aim for, perhaps good enough, is captured in the lovely lines of the hymn Finlandia:

This is my song, O God of all the nations

A song of peace, for lands afar and mine

This is my home, the country where my heart is

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine

But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations

A song of peace for their land and for mine

Where is the Ease and Joy?

Jeff

I gave this talk at Full Moon Zen’s Zazenkai on January 31, 2026. A recording follows the text.

A phrase from our Oryoki meal chant popped into my head the other day: “This meal of ten benefits nourishes us in our practice. Its rewards are boundless, filling us with ease and joy.” I chuckled as I thought about my experience of Oryoki practice during my first many sesshins. That line always stung. I was feeling anything but ease and joy as I tried to observe all our minute meal forms while my knees, ankles, and back ached and my mind was racing.

Dōgen repeats this phrase at the end of his short essay “Rules for Zazen.” He tells us zazen “is the great dharma gate of ease and joy.” I can hear his novice monks groaning, “Yeah, right.”

Some of us have been dealing with some pretty tough stuff lately, myself included. Even those of us who haven’t lost a loved one, separated from a partner, had surgery, or dealt recently with some other major challenge may be feeling there isn’t much ease and joy going around generally these days. Many of us are feeling the weight of the world. There are immigration raids and shootings, an affordability crisis, wars and threats of new ones.

So what’s all this talk of the Zen path being about “ease and joy”? Where is the ease and joy? Where do we find it? How does a path that includes sitting uncomfortably for hours on end and eating in silence while performing tedious rituals help us find it?

I don’t intend to “Zen out” by pretending this path is all bliss all the time, or that it leads to blissful feelings all the time. Life is hard. In some ways, Zen confronts us with and amplifies this reality.

The notion of ease in Zen isn’t about reaching a place where life is without difficulty. It’s not really about external circumstances, or what we can’t control. It’s about our own perspective and disposition. A better perspective and disposition certainly can help improve our circumstances, but not entirely or mechanistically. There are causes and conditions beyond our immediate influence.

Ease is about how we meet things. About our capacity to be present to challenging circumstances with openness and curiosity. Without being reactive and making them worse. This tends to be harder to pull off in contexts that feel stressful. For some of us, that means speaking or other activities when we’re being observed by others. For some, it’s the realm of intimate relationship. For some, it’s moments that limit our agency, like having to keep a commitment we made earlier but don’t want to keep now.

Zen can help us experience more ease in this sense. We become better a coping with the small challenges practice presents, and so we become better at coping with other challenges. We relax our grip on our sense of self—which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is the central character in all our dramas. We learn to be nakedly present to what is; what’s arising moment by moment. Less anxious, or less reactive as anxiety arises.

Joy in Zen isn’t an amped-up, exuberant state. Zen has nothing against exuberance, but a constant, elevated mood is not the goal. We might even say that happiness as we tend to talk about it in the West is not the goal of Zen practice. Again, Zen has nothing against feeling very happy. But, honestly, who among us is in an elevated mood all the time, never frustrated or upset? That’s not a realistic goal, nor would a constantly elevated mood be a mark of maturity, of an integrated self. Psychologists see that sort of presentation as a defense mechanism against less pleasant feelings, like anger or shame, one might have a harder time integrating. 

A better synonym for joy in the Zen sense might be contentment, which is really about an abiding sense of appreciation for our life as a whole and each thing in it. Even the difficult things. If we look closely and are honest, there often are past, present, and possible future blessings mixed into challenging experiences. We need to allow ourselves to feel the hard stuff: sadness, grief, and the like. Let it move through us. But let’s not miss the diamonds in the rough either. A baseline experience of joy is about noticing small things and diamonds in the rough.

Zen practice can help us experience more joy in this sense. Our friend Bob Waldinger had his first, big opening during Oryoki practice deep into a sesshin. He’d been experiencing all the discomfort and hardship most of us experience in the early days of Zen practice, and even beyond the early days. At one point during the meal he became totally aware of and present to a single grain of rice in his bowl. Bob, the grain of rice, and all things merged in that instant. Total presence. Total appreciation. Total joy.

So perhaps when we hear that our simple meal and fussy, difficult way of eating, or our long hours sitting still are dharma gates of ease and joy, we can recalibrate a bit. We can think of Zen as a path of presence to and contentment with what is; as an invitation and opportunity to meet what is differently than we otherwise might. 

We are confronted with what is here, now, whether we like it or not. We have no choice in the matter presently. Our only choice is about how we receive and respond to it.

Where There’s a Will, There’s the Way

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit today. A recording follows the talk.

This morning let’s return to a koan I’ve focused us on twice recently. Here are the first few lines of Case 19 in The Gateless Gate:

Chao-chou asked Nan-ch’üan, “What is the Tao?”

Nan-ch’üan said, “Ordinary Mind is the Tao.”

Chao-chou asked, “Should I try to direct myself toward it?”

Nan-ch’üan said, “If you try to direct yourself you betray your own practice.”

What is this ordinary mind we bring to practice? This mind that both seeks and is the Way?

Well, for Chao-chou at this pivotal moment in his journey, as for many of us, it’s a mind that wills itself to seek the Way, not believing it is the Way, despite Nan-ch’üan’s assurances.

It’s a mind that wills itself to seek itself through practice. To meditate. To sit with koans. To seek guidance from teachers.

Chao-chou asks if he should will his mind to move toward his mind, whatever the heck that could mean. The dog chases its tail.

We find Zen teachers through the ages doggedly insisting this is it. Just this. Ordinary mind is the Way. The Great Way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing, including not choosing against our picking-and-choosing mind. 

This all seems quite paradoxical from the perspective of the Way-seeking mind. We tend to come to Zen practice both enamored with and imprisoned by our will; both seeking to amplify it in some sense and yet wanting to be released from its grip and to transcend it. We make an effort to practice Zen but are told it’s ultimately about no effort. 

There really isn’t a word used in Japanese Zen that precisely equates to our Western concept of will. But there are three other words used in Zen that are very interesting for our purposes.

There’s Daifunshi, which gets translated as Great Determination in the Three Great Essentials, the Three Pillars of Zen: Great Doubt, Great Faith, and Great Determination. Daifunshi connotes fierceness, heat and energy, urgency, almost indignation. This is the spirit, the drive with which many of us take up practice. It’s seen as a virtue, particularly early on when Zen practice can be rough sledding, as we say in Colorado.

Then there’s kokorozashi. Kokoro means heart-mind; our whole being. Zashi means intention or aspiration. Kokorozashi is the personal intention to commit our whole being to practice. It doesn’t convey that sense of fierceness and urgency. It’s not merely intellectual or emotional either. It’s about orienting of our whole self toward practice.

And then there’s gan. This is a very interesting word. It’s the word that gets translated as “vow,” as in The Four Great Vows. “Beings are numberless, I vow to save them” and so on. But something definitely is lost in this translation. The spirit of gan is transpersonal. It’s about participation in something that transcends us individually and even transcends humanity. Gan is about recognizing and expressing our alignment with—our non-separation from—the universe, the Absolute, Oneness, Interbeing. 

The experiential arc of Zen practice is a progression from daifunshi to kokorozashi to gan. Progressively feeling each of these aspirations in our bones—being them.

We ultimately exercise our will to discover it as permeable to, permeating, and subdued by and in something larger than our personal will as we once experienced it. But that mind and the will and willfulness we bring to practice along the way are it, too, we also discover. Nothing is excluded.

“The ego wants to be present at its own funeral,” the Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa was fond of saying. That’s amusing, and poignant, and characteristically quotable, but I’m not sure it’s quite right. 

The ego doesn’t die exactly. As our sense of self is pacified, it discovers it can slip through the bars of its prison cell; that the door is unlocked.

To mix metaphors, and koans, and to bring us full circle, we also discover our buffalo tail still gets stuck in those bars. We come to accept that; progressively take things more lightly; even chuckle at how our will gets in the way, as the Way—a way that becomes progressively less fraught and easier to walk as we travel it.

Modes and Styles of Practice and Teaching

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen evening talk on December 18, 2025. A recording follows the text. 

Tonight, I want to talk about different modes and styles of Zen practice and teaching. I’ll give you the conclusion up front. The point I want to make is that there are different ways we can practice and different strengths students and teachers may have. And it’s all good. The many ways are the Way. 
 

I want to use two koans from the collection Entangling Vines to illustrate this point. I’ll read them and then I’ll say a bit more. 

This is Case 78, Mazu’s Moon Viewing: 

Once Baizhang Huaihai, Xitang Zhizang, and Nanquan Puyuan were attending Mazu as they viewed the autumn moon. Mazu asked them what they thought of the occasion. 

Xitang said, “It’s ideal for a ceremony.” 

Baizhang said, “It’s ideal for training.” 

Nanquan shook his sleeves and walked away. 

Mazu said, “Zhizang has gained the teachings, Huaihai has gained the practice, but Puyuan alone has gone beyond all things.” 

This is Case 123, Comparing Three Students of Linji: 

In the “Zen Master Huiran of Sansheng Temple” chapter of the Treasury of Bright Light, Juzhou Baotan says: 

The disciples Baoshou Zhao, Sansheng Huiran, and Xinghua Cunjiang under Linji were much like the disciples Baizhang Huaihai, Guizong Zhichang, and Nanquan Puyuan under Mazu. 

Baizhang resembled Mazu in his strength of character; Guizong resembled Mazu in his depth of talent; and Nanquan resembled Mazu in his greatness of mind. In the same way, Baoshou resembled Linji in his sincerity, Sansheng resembled Linji in his keenness, and Xinghua resembled Linji in his subtlety and depth. 

The sincerity of Baoshou is seen in how he applied the staff to the clear blue sky, and in how he struck Rivet-and-Shears Hu. The keenness of Sansheng is seen in his exchange with Yangshan Huiji, and also in the way he struck Xiangyan, pushed over Deshan, and extinguished Linji’s True Dharma Eye. The subtlety and depth of Xinghua is seen in his scattering of pearls in the purple-curtained room, and in the way he waved his hand two times in front of the monk’s face. Though they each gained but a single of the master’s qualities, still Linji’s Zen has lasted a hundred generations. If all his qualities were grasped, how could Linji’s Zen fail to flourish for a thousand or ten thousand generations? 

What always troubles me is that if the stick and shout are not applied to the present generation, Linji’s Dharma will decline. Why should there be anything that later generations cannot do if they but make the effort? The problem is that their teachers have not yet fully penetrated Linji’s Dharma. It is like drinking water and knowing for oneself whether it is cold or warm. Xinghua’s stick of incense—this was gained through hardship and effort. Therefore Linji’s Dharma flourishes. 

Ceremony and text, meditation and koan practice, and just living one’s life without fussing too much about such things. Going beyond as Puyuan did.  

We’re here practicing Zen altogether in part because another religious tradition has similar wisdom around the idea that there are many different modes of practice, and it’s all good. I’m speaking here about contemplative Christianity and the Trappist monastic order specifically. Many of you have met my teacher, Kevin Hunt, who is 91 or so. He’s been a monastic, a Trappist, since his late teens. And, lucky for us, he joined the Trappist order, which is the strictest and most austere monastic order in the world, certainly within a Catholicism, which has most of the monastic orders existing in the world under its roof.  

The reason we’re lucky is the Trappists have this interesting idea about prayer. Prayer can be anything, and as a Trappist, you have complete freedom to pray as you pray. So if the way you seek the divine, if prayer for you is basketball, then during prayer time you play basketball. That’s not what most people do. But, within reason, however you’re called to the One, to unity, to prayer, it’s respected. 

Kevin took up Zen practice early in his journey as his form of prayer. There’s a story there. He was called to silent contemplation, but he kept nodding off in the pew when he’d tried to sit silently to prayer. He’s fall asleep. He stumbled across a book on Zen, saw people sitting cross legged, and figured he’d give that a try. It worked! That was how his initial interest in Zen was sparked. The story goes on, of course. 

We might all be doing Zen practice if the Trappist order didn’t have such a permissive tradition or didn’t honor diversity in that way. But we might not be doing it all here together. I may never have become a Zen teacher.  In our first koan, Mazu seems to be saying that going beyond his words is better than ritual, better than studying the teachings, better than meditation, better than koan practice. But I don’t really think that’s his point. I think he’s pointing to discovery of the fullness of emptiness, which Puyuan represents, as the ultimate purpose of all of our practices: ritual, studying texts and teachings, introspection practice, and everyday life is practice. Some of us gravitate more towards one dimension of practice than others, but it’s all practice and it’s all good. We can and hopefully will come to know it all as expressions of the fullness of emptiness. 

The second koan illustrates, for me, how different people, different students and teachers, have different temperaments and different positive qualities. Different strengths. And that’s okay. 

Mazu embodied strength of character, depth of talent, and greatness of mind. Linji embodied some different qualities: keenness, sincerity, subtlety and depth. Each of three students of each of these teachers embodied one of their three qualities. There are rare personalities like Mazu and Linji who have many positive traits rolled up into one. But most of us don’t have multiple superpowers. Each of these students that only had one of superpower went on to become an important teacher in his own right, transmitting the Dharma. The point of the koan is that the Dharma continues and hopefully flourishes through the ages if each of us develops and shares our strengths with others, and if others make themselves receptive to what each of us has to share.  

Taken together, these two koans illustrate the reality that it takes a village to practice. 
They illustrate how we’re all part of and co-constructing that village. Each of us needs different things. We resonate on somewhat different frequencies. None of us can be all things to all people all the time. We need to look to different sources of wisdom and teaching. It takes different types of contributions to make a community. I really encourage all of us to deeply realize this about teachers, in particular. In the Zen tradition, individuals and communities and teachers themselves can get into a lot of trouble if they idolize teachers too much.  

Each of us has our strengths and weaknesses; things we’re good at and things we’re less good at; different temperaments. And it’s all good. Together our frequencies can mix in ways that make music or that make that annoying scratchy static sound. It all depends on knowing and accepting and coordinating and appreciating what each of us, and what each of the various forms and elements of practice that make up our tradition, have to offer.

Together we make sangha: community. That’s a really important idea across all the world’s ancient wisdom traditions. Islam has the notion of the Umma, which is kind of our idea of sangha. The Christian tradition talks about the church this way, or the Body of Christ as sangha. In our tradition, we see deeply, we go beyond, by realizing the unity of the three wheels: giver, receiver, and gift.

Nanquan Kills the Cat: Reflections on Zen’s Attitude Toward Ambivalence

Jeff

I gave this talk on November 25, 2025, at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

This is case 14 in The Gateless Gate, Nanquan Kills the Cat. Eric, cover your ears. For those of you who haven’t heard this koan, be forewarned. There’s one gruesome bit, particularly if you’re a cat lover like Eric.

Nan-ch’üan found monks of the eastern and western halls arguing about a cat. He held up the cat and said, “Everyone! If you can say something, I will spare this cat. If you can’t say anything, I will cut off its head.” No one could say a word, so Nan-ch’üan cut the cat into two.

That evening, Chao-chou returned from the outside and Nan-ch’üan told him what happened. Chao-chou removed a sandal from his foot, put it on his head and walked out.

Nan-ch’üan said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been spared.”

You’ll be glad to know most subsequent Zen teachers through time maintain that Nanquan just mimicked killing the cat. I guess we’ll never know.

What were the monks of the eastern and western halls arguing about? Something speculative was dividing them, no doubt. Does the cat have Buddha nature or not?

But I want to talk about our internal divisions. About ambivalence. Sometimes we have quarreling eastern and western halls within ourselves. Two impulses or perspectives, each of which seems to have worth, which tug at us, and we experience them as incompatible. Our heart and mind is divided. 

From a Zen perspective, it’s the reification, the concretization of this dividedness—our captivation by it, our captivity to it—that kills the cat, not Nanquan’s blade. Nonquan’s cut is an expression of oneness in response to divideness. His blade mends rather than separates.

We find a range of perspectives on ambivalence across cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions. Ambivalence about ambivalence, it seems.

Our English word ambivalence is a mashup of Latin words meaning “both” and “value.” It was invented by a psychologist who treated schizophrenia to describe one characteristic of that condition. But psychology has since cataloged pros and cons of what we might call garden variety ambivalence. In our youth, it can help us maintain emotional distance from a caregiver who isn’t trustworthy or discover our agency and develop independence if and as we become ambivalent about (no longer fused with) a trustworthy caregiver. But it also can cause decision paralysis and inhibit action, keeping us stuck.

Christianity’s perspective on ambivalence isn’t so spacious and balanced. It generally takes a dim view of ambivalence. The Gospel of Matthew (6:24) tells us, “No one can serve two masters.” Elsewhere (James 1:8) we read that “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” There’s certainly truth in that. Each of us probably knows someone captive to ambivalence who is unstable in all their ways. Maybe you’ve been there yourself. 

In philosophy and literature we get a range of perspectives, but mainly a lot of sympathy for this common human experience and recognition that it often produces tragedy or pathos. Think of Hamlet’s question: “To be or not to be.” His character is ambivalent about so much, including existence itself.

The Zen perspective is something different altogether. From a Zen perspective, there’s no fundamental division, ever.  People, cats, objects, perspectives, feelings—each of the 10,000 dharmas—is distinct, but there’s no sense in which anything is separate. There is a fundamental oneness to everything, always, including any of us when our heart and mind feels divided. There’s no place to go when we try to hide, metaphorically anyway.  We can’t hide from ourselves; from any part of us. The problem is our mental habit of separating, which generates the constructs that divide and paralyze us. We disintegrate, decompose, not realizing the wholeness we are right now, however we are.

Many of our dilemmas and debates won’t be resolved by more thinking and arguing. Zen prizes activity. Doing. Living into and through obscurity toward daylight. We are form. Emptiness manifest. Doing is form. Doing transforms.

If loving someone or something half-heartedly is all you can manage now, love half-heartedly with all your heart. Will you resist the impulse to say or do something kind, and can you truly be one with kindness, in that moment, as you say or do it, not objectifying that kindness as it comes forth, but opening to it, letting it work on you even as you are the vehicle, the embodied expression of kindness? Something good might be returned to you, and your heart might begin to mend if you are willing to receive it. Or, if you know in your heart of hearts that your heart must break, let it break.

When you are stuck, be fully stuck. Don’t force quick fixes to your stuckness. You probably won’t think your way out of it. Each of us is in a call and response relationship with the other 9,999 Things in this vast robe of liberation—the Universe. We’re the Universe calling to itself. Watch and listen for how the Universe is bidding you to respond. As Carl Jung said, using the language of theism, “Bidden or not bidden, God is present.” Trust your instincts. Respond. Be responsive. Be a part (not be apart). Take part. Participate.

Putting one’s sandal on one’s head was a sign of mourning in ancient China. Chao-chou wasn’t morning the cat. He was mourning his fellow monks’ loss of life. Zen practice came so they could have life, and have it more fully. They didn’t get it. 

If you can say a word, I’ll spare the cat.

I’ve said my word. I look forward to yours.

Being a Buddha: Living by Vow

Jeff

I gave this talk on November 13, 2025, at our Full Moon Zen sesshin at Providence Zen Center. We had a Jukai ceremony the previous night, during which eight of our sangha members received Zen’s sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts. A recording follows the text.

It is wonderful to be here with you. I’m so happy. This feels like something of a reunion. I think we’ve all, if I’m not mistaken, come from out of state. Even Cheryl, who used to live a stone’s throw away. Some of us just traversed one state to get here, but others traversed several, and some even got on the plane. I’m just so happy that we’ve all made an effort to be here together in this beautiful place. I’m always awestruck sitting here and looking out of the windows, whatever the weather’s doing. It’s beautiful. I’m tempted to say we can’t make it any better with our words. But words are it, too.

Our theme for this sesshin is being a Buddha, and I want to explore the practice of living by vow as being Buddha. In our Jukai ceremony last night we said the precepts are not rigid commandments to be blindly followed but instead are a bridge—a bridge between the Buddha nature, the truth at the heart of our existence as we sense it wants to express itself, on the one hand, and the manifestation of its expression in our daily lives, on the other hand. 

I know from conversations with each of you, including a couple conversations last night, that some of us grew up in a Christian tradition with the notion of sin. And, if you did, maybe your tradition’s notion of sin; and its ethical principles, like the Ten Commandments designed to discourage sin; and the way people talked about and related to those things, did feel like rigid commandments. Maybe.

But what does this word sin mean, really? It has linguistic roots and it also has a theological gloss or interpretation. 

What are the linguistic roots? In both Old English and in precursor languages to German, it’s straightforward. Sin is moral wrongdoing, which was understood in terms of deviation from divine law. It meant deviation from God’s law in this early European context in which the notion of sin began to take shape. The word also conveyed a sense of “being” or “true existence,” suggesting that sin is deviation from truth or being itself. So, linguistically, etymologically, sin also suggests deviation from that which is true; deviating from being or existence itself—or, in Zen terms, we might say not being Buddha, not being oneself, not being one’s highest self.

When the Christian Bible was translated from Greek into Old English, the Greek word that was translated as sin is an archery term that means “missing the mark.” I kind of like that because I used to practice Kyudo, which is Zen archery. The archery reference is lovely, I think. Linguistically, and in theistic terms, sin is deviating from godliness or from ultimate truth. It’s missing the mark. 

In our non-theistic Zen idiom, we could think of God as oneness or the Absolute, which all relative things like you and me manifest and express. Missing the mark is thinking speaking or acting in some way that denies or obscures this reality of oneness. 

When we speak about the Three Treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—which are the first three of our sixteen precepts—we sometimes translate Buddha as oneness. To be Buddha—which we can’t help but be, but which is a reality that we’re not always awake to, and which we can awaken to—means to know and to feel this oneness as ourselves, as others, and to live it. It’s to know that we’re distinct, but in no sense separate.

I said earlier that, in the Christian tradition, there’s a linguistic root to the notion of sin, but there’s also theologizing about it. Sin is sometimes theologized about in terms of separation; separation from what is ultimately true and real. And here we find a tight connection to Zen. If I had to pick just one word to sum up the Zen Way, it might well be non-separation. Or, to state it positively: oneness, wholeness, integration. Thich Nhat Hanh’s word for this was interbeing. 

Bernie Glassman, our Dharma great grandfather, in his book about the precepts, really summed it all up by saying that the precepts and all the teachings are about realizing that all is Buddha. Oneness. It’s no surprise that Nancy Mujo Baker titles her book on the precepts, which is the main text for our precepts study group, “Opening to Oneness.”

I’m a big fan of a contemporary philosopher whose name is Terry Warner. He taught at BYU. His “secular” philosophical work is deeply informed by his Christian faith. In one of his big philosophical themes, which lies at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, is self-deception. He says we almost always know when we are about to miss the mark, to separate. He says we very often have a flash of clear insight before we transgress or miss the mark, and that we betray the reality of oneness when we act in a way that’s contrary to that higher standard, to hitting the mark. We separate from our Buddha nature. We separate from others. We separate from truth itself or reality in that moment. 

Warner is very influenced by Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher and mystic, who distinguished between what he called I-Thou and I-You modes of relating. I-Thou seeing the divinity, or we might call Buddha Nature, in others and in all things. When we’re in an I-You mode, we’re objectifying and instrumentalizing others; making ourselves separate from them. And you know what? We’re also objectifying ourselves when we do this, which is to say separating from our own true nature.

With all that as background, I thought we might just walk through each of the ten Grave Precepts, briefly, one by one, and look at how they encourage us to aim towards wholeness or interbeing; not to separate. Really, all 16 precepts are about non-separation. Each of the three treasure—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—is a different way of saying that all is Buddha. They are different angles on the reality of oneness, and we have a context, a community, in which we discover it and make it real. The Three Pure Precepts—ceasing from evil, doing good, and helping others—begin to make that reality of oneness more concrete. They help us think about it more concretely. And the ten Grave Precepts guide us on how to make the reality of Oneness concretely manifest in our daily lives.

Recognizing that I am not separate from all that is, I vow to take up the way of non-killing.

There you have it. In classic Zen fashion, we get right to the heart of the matter. Have you ever wished that someone or something would just go away? Even die. That is the pretense of separateness in the extreme. That is the most forceful desire to separate imaginable. Dogen’s version of this first precept on non-killing, which I just read, appropriately opens with the statement, “Recognizing that I am not separate from all that is . . .”.

Being satisfied with what I have, I vow to take up the way of not stealing.

Me, my, mine. My need, my thing. Being unsatisfied with what I have is separation. Appreciating what I have, working to satisfy my reasonable wants and my true needs such that others’ reasonable wants and true needs are respected and satisfied alongside mine: This is appreciating what I have; non-stealing. Getting what I want and need in a way that doesn’t separate myself from others, or me from the recognition of what’s sufficient, is to take up the way of non-stealing.

Honoring mutuality and respect and commitment, I vow to take up the way of not misusing sex.

Sex, needless to say, is a domain in which we see people instrumentalizing others, objectifying others, and so objectifying myself. What a shame; such a squandered opportunity to hold and conduct ourselves in a way that honors Oneness. Such wonderful potential to express beautifully the reality of Oneness. Such a shame when sex is not approached that way.

Listening and speaking from the heart, I vow to take up the way of not speaking falsely.

To speak falsely—saying things we know not to be true or even being reckless about the truth—is to separate from truth. Speaking carelessly is to separate from the truth and to separate ourselves from others. I love the way this Dogen’s version of this precept opens with “Listening and speaking from the heart.” When we’re doing that, we’re being present, present to others in this speech act, in this speech communion. It’s another way to express non-separation. Another word for this is presence. When we truly are present to ourselves and others, we’re not separate. We’re manifesting the reality of Oneness. 

Cultivating a mind that sees clearly, I vow to take up the way of not intoxicating mind and body.

Intoxicants of all varieties—anything we might overvalue, including work, TV, and Instagram, not just drugs and alcohol—can be a way of separating from our own lives and from others. Not being present, truly present. I drink wine. I enjoy it. And, with a nod towards Terry Warner’s idea of self-deception, it’s my practice to pay attention to that first impulse to have a glass of wine. What’s it about? Sometimes when it arises, I recognize it as a desire to separate from something that’s been difficult; that I don’t like about the day or about my experience presently. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the glass of wine necessarily, but I’ll do my best to shift into another mode around it if I do. At other times that glass of wine is so much about enjoying the company of others; communing; non-separation. Lovely.

Unconditionally accepting what each moment has to offer, I vow to take up the way of not finding fault in or with others.

“Unconditionally accepting what each moment has to offer”: right there, presence, non-separation. I don’t think too much more needs to be said about this one. This is just so common, isn’t it? Speaking for myself alone, I can and often tend towards separating myself from others in this way. Blame. Being blind to my own contributions to some difficulty.

Meeting others on equal ground, I vow to take up the way of not elevating myself at the expense of others.

In some ways, this is my favorite precept. It’s the hardest one in so many ways. It’s as if we needed a precept just to say, “It’s all about non-separation.” Elevating myself at the expense of others is the very move of the separation we’re talking about.

Using all the ingredients of my life, I vow to take up the way of not sparing the Dharma assets.

We can steal, take things from others, and we can also hoard what we have: our time, our capabilities, our talents, our resources. We can refuse to participate fully in the circle of life; in making the circle of life a virtuous circle. The circular economy, so to speak. By withholding our love. Withholding our truth; what we know to be true; not speaking up about our reasonable needs. When we’re doing that, we’re often actually elevating ourselves above others. We’re denying others the opportunity to meet us and to meet our needs, which they might want to do. Even if they don’t want to do it, they might need to learn to do it for there  to be a virtuous cycle.

Transforming suffering into wisdom, I vow to take up the way of not harboring ill will.

Anger. Anger is all about separation. In the version of the Four Vows we chant, we use the word hatred. In other translations, you’ll see that word as anger. I think hatred really makes a point. It’s about aversion. Aversion is about wanting to separate from something. It’s a helpful, adaptive impulse on some level. There are things we don’t perpetually want to abide; that we want to work skillfully, and perhaps collaboratively, to change. Yet that impulse can be taken too far when it manifests as outwardly expressed anger, even hatred. That can lead to missing the mark on other precepts we’ve looked at. Anger-driven killing is the most extreme example of that.

Honoring my life as an instrument of the Great Way, I vow to take up the way of not defaming the Three Treasures.

Well, this is just another way of saying everything we’ve said so far. We’re pointing back to Oneness. Non-separation. Separation is a fraud. Indulging in it is a pretense. It’s a story. It’s impossible. The precepts remind us of this truth and help guide us towards living in truth, living this truth.

So, we can see the precepts as a little instruction manual for how to be a Buddha. If we’re living our vows and living them from the right mindset and heartset, we are likely to be showing up as Buddha, not separating from our Buddha nature. We tend to think of other practices, like zazen and koans, as the centerpiece of our practice. Thy really are not the centerpiece of our practice. They’re all just ways to help us learn to show up as Buddha; to hit the mark. They are supportive of the heart of our practice, which truly is the precepts. 

Realizing, manifesting, living by them. This is being Buddha.

Layman P’ang 3

Jeff

This is the third of three talks I gave at our weeklong sesshin, held from August 24-30, 2025, at Providence Zen Center, a monastery. Our theme was “Chop Wood, Carry Water”: Everyday Form and Formation on the Householder Path. A recording follows the text, which is edited for clarity and conciseness.

This is Case 2 in The Sayings of Layman P’ang:

One day, Shih-t’ou said, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?” 

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.”

Shih-t’ou said, “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?”

The Layman made up a verse:

“What I do every day is nothing special.

I simply stumble around.

What I do is not thought out.

Where I go is unplanned.

No matter who tries to leave their mark,

The hills and dales are not impressed.

Collecting firewood and carrying water

Are prayers that reach the gods.”

Shih-t’ou approved saying, “So, are you going to wear black or white?”

The Layman said, “I will do whatever is best.”

It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha.

In this talk, my third and last for this sesshin, I aspire to seize at least one of two opportunities, where I perhaps have room for improvement. My other two talks were longer than usual . . . although, honestly, I am known to give long talks. This one may be just a tad shorter. I hope I don’t break that promise. The other opportunity: the past two talks were packed with a lot of points to follow. Well, I’m going to fall down big time on that front again!

What I’ve been thinking about since the second of the talks I gave is the moment when it came to pass that P’ang didn’t shave his head to join the sangha. He chose a householder’s life. When we meet him here, what words of encouragement might we be able to offer someone who is choosing that life? What words of encouragement might I be able to offer P’ang?

Somehow my response to that question began to come out in a series of tips or encouragements. I think this is probably because, as those are you who join us on Thursday nights know, Nick Patterson, when he it’s his turn to do reading, has for the last several months been reading three or four of Wumen’s 14 Cautions that come at the end of his compilation of the Mumonkan, The Gateless Gate. Wumen is offering cautions presumably for people who live in a monastery. I thought I might offer some encouragements for people who don’t. 

I’m not sure I was driving for 14, but I came up with 14. This is something like the alpha version, v0.1 of them. I’ll be continuing to think about them. And because there are 14 of these points, and because I’ve got just a little bit to say about some of them, well, that’s a lot. I encourage you just to listen and let them wash over you. If one thing I say jumps out and sticks with you—is meaningful to you somehow—we’ll be lucky. These eventually will be in writing on my blog, so there’s no need to try to remember it all.

These are not ready for prime time, so thanks for bearing with me as I test drive them with you. Maybe someday these will be in one of those to-be-written books I mentioned during my first talk. One book I want to write is about householder life on the Zen path; maybe I’ll put a more developed version of these points at the end as, I don’t know, Kōgen Roshi’s 14 encouragements or something. We’ll see.

There is no inside or outside

Don’t imagine you leave the world when you enter a monastery or that you enter the world when you leave one. 

To be in the world is to be of the world.

As Linji says, “There’s no Dharma outside to run after. There’s no Dharma within to obtain.”

There is no home leaving, ever.

Hide it in plain sight

As Dongshan says, “With practice hidden, function secretly, like a fool, like an idiot,”

As Shih-t’ou, who our beloved P’ang knew well, said “If you wish to speak ten times, keep quiet nine.”

All is sangha

By which I mean: Buddha is Dharma is Sangha.

Be the guest house of which Rumi writes. Welcome all.

There’s truly nothing worth begrudging, as Bodhidharma said.

Relate: Lead with the relational perspective

Those of you who’ve been in our Precepts study group this round, or in the past, or who have read Bernie Glassman’s book on the Precepts, Infinite Circle, know that, in Zen, we look at our Bodhisattva Precepts—our ethical precepts—from three different perspectives: the literal, the relational, and the Absolute. 

For our lives in the world, of the world, whether in a monastery or outside of one, the relational is in the lead. It’s where the rubber of the Absolute meets the road of the literal.

Non-killing is the first of the ten grave precepts. Let’s look at it:

The literal is don’t kill. Full stop.

The Absolute: nothing is born or dies. Non-killing.

The relational: If you’re a vegan and the cook doesn’t know it, don’t kill her joy, his joy, whether you choose to eat the beef stew or not.

Not too tight, not too loose

That’s the phrase a hidden Buddhist friend of mine—a certified, crusty, old, cheap Vermonter named Bob Bender, the elder brother of my close friend, Bill—repeats often. “Not too tight, not too loose.”

In other words, seek the middle way.

Make space

This universe is the altar. This planet is the wisdom seat.

Clear a place for yourself; a little place at home to sit. Make a simple altar at which to dedicate your practice and your life.

Make time, and mark time

Make time a time to sit each day; time for group practice; time for sesshin—all as your circumstances permit.

Mark time: holidays like Bohdi Day, the Buddha’s birthday, and Obon. Holidays from your birth tradition if you have one and they’re still meaningful to you.

In Zen monasteries in Japan, they have endless regular and special rites and rituals and religious holidays. In householder life, especially as our cultures mixed and secularized, we can feel adrift in time.

So find ways to mark time, including over the course of a day: waking time, mealtimes, bedtime. We can mark these with little gathas. Like our simple meal gatha, which I say to myself at every meal: We receive this food in gratitude to all beings who helped to bring it to our table, and vow to respond in turn to those in need with wisdom and compassion.

Be time, by which I mean be present and give your presence. Give your genuine attention to other people. There is no greater gift you can give them, and yourself.

Everybody here is keeping time during sesshin: Matt and Libby and Paul and Cheryl—each of us in different ways. You have given me a real gift. Over the last couple of days, I’ve mostly not been wearing my watch, which I realized was making me mildly anxious. I don’t need it. Dropping the watch has helped me be time.

Make a mark

We can’t help but make a mark, whether we intend to or not.

Some of you know I practiced Zen archery years ago with Kanjuro Shibata Sensei XX, one of my first teachers. He was the imperial bowmaker of Japan. He stood in a long line, as the 20th of Japan’s Imperial bow makers.

Most of the shooting one does is inside a kyudojo room where there are hay bales, each covered with a white sheet. You stand a few yards from a hay bale and shoot into it. Far more arrows are shot into hay bales than circular targets far away.

As you can imagine, those sheets get poked full of holes. Everything you do in kyudo is ritualized, like what we do here. There is a ritual way to pull the arrow out of the hay bale. You pull it out slowly, twisting it. And the last thing you do, before you return to where you stand and prepare to take another shot, is to put your finger at the tip of the arrow and touch the arrow tip to the hole you have made. This gesture acknowledges you’ve made a mark. We can’t help but make a mark.

How do we make a mark through our householder existence? By not sparing the dharma assets. Develop and share your talents. Master some craft to life craft, to self-craft: teaching, cooking, poetry, medicine, hospitality, physical therapy. In other words, like Pierre, Maurice Sendak’s character, who I loved—and if you don’t know this reference, check it out: Care.

But as you make your mark, be gentle, and leave no trace. Don’t forget: The hills and dales are not impressed. 

All is precious, but don’t be too precious

All these forms to which we attend in minute detail are only to help us have a good shared experience. They’re not for the sake of the forms themselves. We embrace them to give life a pleasing shape and texture and feeling when we’re practicing them, and to learn to give life a pleasing shape and texture and felling when we’re not.

So hold them with the light touch. Don’t force them if we are forcing others by forcing them. If we’re pooping the party.

It’s nothing personal

By which I mean two things:

First, enlightenment isn’t something we can get. Something we can have.

Second, don’t take that, or anything else, too personally.

Optimize for wholeness and integration

This also has two dimensions:

First, about our life choices. You probably will make less money if you walk the Zen path. We could all be working right now. It probably will influence choices you make about your livelihood and how you live; opportunities we don’t take up.

Still on this first dimension, don’t privilege the formal forms of our practice over the rest of your life. Find the right balance, like the surfer. For example, if you’re married, your marriage probably will suffer if you don’t leave sesshin to celebrate your spouse’s birthday, if it falls during the week of sesshin. I know this from personal experience with teachers who expected me to be at sesshin over my wife’s birthday year after year. Don’t ever practice with a teacher who wouldn’t let you leave sesshin for an evening to celebrate your partner’s or child’s birthday.

Second, optimize for wholeness and integration by exploring your shadows and welcoming what you meet there.

Okay, on to the last three encouragements. I have less to say about them.

Life is the teacher

Trust your experience.

A footnote on that is, if you invite somebody into a Zen teacher role in your life, make sure that is what they are teaching. Make sure that’s what they want for you. That they know life is your ultimate teacher.

Time passes swiftly, and opportunity is lost. Do not squander your life.

This is from our Evening Gatha, of course. Some of these aren’t very original.

Choose the long road, take it easy, and enjoy the ride

Sometimes swiftly, always slowly.

There is no short road. There are no shortcuts, either.

Layman P’ang 1

Jeff

This is the first of three talks I gave at our weeklong sesshin, held from August 24-30, 2025, at Providence Zen Center, a monastery. Our theme was “Chop Wood, Carry Water”: Everyday Form and Formation on the Householder Path. A recording follows the text, which is edited for clarity and conciseness.

During this sesshin, we are going to be exploring the theme of form and formation along the householder path of Zen. This is the reading we’ve chosen as our launchpad for exploring this theme. It’s the second story—one could call it a case, and I’ll say more about that in a minute—in The Sayings of Layman P’ang. It’s titled “Subtleties of Daily Life”:

One day, Shih-t’ou said, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?” 

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.”

Shih-t’ou said, “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?”

The Layman made up a verse:

“What I do every day is nothing special.

I simply stumble around.

What I do is not thought out.

Where I go is unplanned.

No matter who tries to leave their mark,

The hills and dales are not impressed.

Collecting firewood and carrying water

Are prayers that reach the gods.”

Shih-t’ou approved saying, “So, are you going to wear black or white?”

The Layman said, “I will do whatever is best.”

It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha.

This little book I’m reading from, The Sayings of Layman P’ang, which I expect many of you are familiar with, is a classic in China, even to this day. It’s one of the most revered texts in Chinese culture. It is a collection of sayings of Layman P’ang—about whom I’ll say more in a moment—but probably not all of them. We think there were more. These were collected within, let’s say, 10 years after his death. 

P’ang lived in the late 8th century and the early 9th century. He died, I think, in 808. And he made quite an impression on people. This little book is really our first collection of koans—of stories about teachers. P’ang became a teacher. I’ll say more about that in a minute, too.

This collection of anecdotes, of koans, about P’ang and his encounters with monastics, was compiled before the first compilations of koans that we’re familiar with. Even today in China, most people aren’t going to be very familiar with the koan collections centered on monastic Zen teachers. But they are still familiar with The Sayings of Layman P’ang.

So who was P’ang? He grew up the son of the governor, of a provincial governor, or—we’re not sure—maybe the son of an official who worked for a governor. That’s a little murky. But it’s safe to say he grew up in privilege. Likely with some affluence and access and education.

When we meet him in this story I’ve just read, which is the second story in the book—I’ll say a little bit about the first story in just a second—he’s probably in his 30s. He’s married. I guess we can’t know whether he’s had both of his kids, but he does eventually have two kids, a daughter and a son. 

And, apparently, he had been something of a scholar of Confucius thought. By the time we meet him, he’s probably wandered around quite a bit. We know he had encounters with Taoist teachers. So he’s steeped in Confucian thought and Taoist thought, which were the two big schools of thought in China that predated the emergence of Zen.

And when we meet P’ang, he’s meeting some of the earliest Zen teachers. Towering figures in the history of Zen. It is the heyday of Zen in China during P’ang’s life. He lives during the Tang dynasty, which was a time of real prosperity and cultural flourishing and relative peace and stability in the rocky history of ancient China. 

Shih-t’ou, the teacher he encounters in this story, is one of two towering figures who live in the area where P’ang is living. (Shih-t’ou authored the Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage, which we just read.) He is the Dharma Heir of Huineng, the sixth ancestor of Zen, who was himself a layman when he entered the monastery, and for some time after he became a teacher. The sixth ancestor made a sort of scandalous progression from kitchen boy who cleaned rice to head of a major monastery. Shih-t’ou is the person to whom we trace the Soto Zen school in which we practice.

P’ang will go on throughout this book to meet many other local Zen figures, including the teacher to whom we trace the Rinzai school of Zen. So he’s really making the rounds at the foundation and formation of the Zen tradition. He’s exploring the emergence of Zen as Zen is exploring itself, so to speak. He develops a close relationship with not only these two major teachers I’ve mentioned, Shih-t’ou and Ma-tsu, but another 15 or 20 more monastics who live in the area. 

When we meet P’ang early in this collection of sayings, in the story I read, the second case, it’s not his first encounter with Shih-t’ou. They have had at least one other meeting we know about. It is the subject of the first story in this collection. It’s a famous story. In that story, P’ang is visiting Shih-t’ou, who, at that time, probably lives as a hermit in the area in which P’ang lives. P’ang brings Shih-t’ou his genjokoan, his life koan. This is what genjokoan, which Dogen later writes about, means, by the way. Many of us walk around with a burning question, like “What’s the meaning of life?” Mine was “When can I stop sitting?” When can I stop practicing? That question ate at me for years, years ago. 

The genjokoan P’ang brings Shih-t’ou, the burning question P’ang asks him, is, “What about someone who has no connection with the 10,000 dharmas?” This is P’ang coming to a teacher and actually declaring something. I am a person who no longer has any connection to the 10,000 dharmas, to the 10,000 things, to the world of form. 

What does Shih-t’ou do? He covers P’ang’s mouth; silences him. And P’ang has a great realization.

So, in our case, the second case, Shih-t’ou is coming to check in on P’ang. He says, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?”

Well, you know, this is a Zen teacher. So, as always, this could either be an innocent question or a not so innocent question. Maybe he’s asking. “Hey, P’ang, I’m wondering: Are you still stuck in emptiness?” Or, has that realization you had in our last encounter really begun to sink in. Do you know, as we chant in the Heart Sutra, that form is exactly emptiness, and emptiness is exactly form? Do you know that as more than an idea? Do you know it in your bones? Do you know it so completely that you’ve forgotten it?

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.” That’s a promising response. It seems P’ang may be returning Shih-t’ou’s double meaning with a double meaning of his own. It seems perhaps P’ang realizes his ordinary life is validating and expressing the inexpressible. That he’s realized the 10,000 dharmas speak for themselves.

Shih-t’ou says. “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?” A joust to P’ang’s parry! This is a checking question. Shih-t’ou is saying, “That’s a nice response, P’ang, but I’m still wondering: Is it just for show? Is it just for me, or do you truly get it for yourself?”

The Layman made up a verse, “Truly, what I do every day is nothing special.” 
The ordinary is extraordinary. I’m not trying to put a second head on top of my head anymore. 

“I simply stumble around. What I do is not thought out. Where I go is unplanned.” What is this “I” that P’ang repeats three times? That I is now in its place. P’ang now experiences small mind as situated, at ease, and at rest in Big Mind. Small mind has given up its pretense of control, its control project. Even while I’m goal directed, I stumble around. Even as I chatter to myself, direct myself, what I do is not thought out. Even when I’m executing on my best laid plans, where I go is unplanned, P’ang is saying.

“No matter who tries to leave their mark, the hills and dales are not impressed.” I (Jeff) have for a long time planned to write, and have been working on writing, a couple of books. It’s gone much slower than I would like. And that bothered me a lot for a long time. It still bothers me, but not quite the same way as it once did. It used to bother me because I was so sure the world needs these books.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I’ve got something to say. If I do complete them, I hope they’ll be good books that people find useful. And yet, I realize and have come to accept, that if I do complete these books, and even if they’re best sellers, they don’t have the ultimacy, the extra ultimate importance, that I once invested in or imagined of and for them.

Last weekend, I was on sesshin with another community that I’m sort of loosely connected to. At one point on a break, I was sitting in the library of the retreat center, where this sesshin was happening. I looked over to my left, and I saw a book by someone I knew; one of my early teachers, the Trappist monk, Thomas Keating. I got up and I wandered along the bookshelf, which was quite long. At the other end of it I saw a book by another one of my teachers, the adult developmental psychologist, Robert Kegan. Keating is now dead. Kegan is alive but retired. 

I saw lots of books between these two, by people I don’t know. I had never heard of many of them, many of whom presumably are dead. Keating and Kegan and their books matter a lot to me. Yet, no matter who tries to leave their mark, the hills and dales are not ultimately impressed.

“Collecting firewood and carrying water are prayers that reach the gods.” Maybe you didn’t know that one of the most famous phrases in all of Zen originates from this householder, P’ang. It’s usually expressed as “chop wood, carry water,” and it’s been popularized in many ways, by many people. It’s been in the title of books. It’s in the lyrics of a Van Morrison tune.

Every day: sacred. Life as prayer. Our actions as prayer. What we do is continuous practice. And this is what our Zen practice is about. It’s about discovering ourselves, washing the dishes, as the universe’s meditation.

Shih-t’ou approved, saying, “So are you going to wear black or white?” No more checking questions. 

“Are you going to wear black or white?” In those days in China monks wore black and householders wore white. Notice I’m not saying priest and layperson. I won’t go off on that riff here. You’ve heard it from me many times before. But, you know, in those days, there was a kind of normativity around monasticism. The Buddha had given the example of leaving home as what it meant to step on the path of spiritual development. That’s a simplification and too hard a binary, of course, because there were householders who were respected members of the Buddha’s broader network, like Vamilikirti. But becoming a monk was thought to be extra special.

Apparently, P’ang has confided in Shih-t’ou that he thought about leaving home; becoming a monastic. Maybe Shih-t’ou, having seen the depth of P’ang’s insight and commitment, had raised that possibility. From our present-day perspective, that seems almost unthinkable. P’ang is married. He has kids or kids on the way. What? Really? Would he leave? Apparently, it was a live question for P’ang at this point in which we meet him on his journey.

The Layman said, “I will do whatever is best.” In other words, I’m still thinking about it. I’m still in a process of discernment. I’m not sure. What is my karma? What is my life to live? I don’t know. I don’t know yet. 

What do people imagine? What do people imagine today about leaving home and going to live in a monastery, or to live as a hermit? Did you think that’s what we need to do to be “spiritual”? To be holy, live a holy life. What was P’ang imagining?

“It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha” Well, as you know, in the Buddha’s day, and really throughout history, even to the present in most Buddhist streams in Asia, “sangha” means the community of monastics. But we use that word more broadly and think of ourselves, we householders, as part of the sangha. But that is not how people have primarily thought about it within mainstream Buddhism in cultures beyond the West.

In fact, Zen teachers in Japan—because in modern times they tend to spend very little time in training monasteries, and they live in local temples with their families, where and they eat meat and drink alcohol—are not regarded by monastics in other parts of Asia as real members of the sangha. Even the founder of the White Plum lineage in which we practice, Taizan Maezumi Roshi: he was, much revered by Tibetan teachers and Burmese teachers and Sri Lankan teachers, but, at events at which they all gathered and spoke to Buddhist practitioners, I understand Maezumi Roshi was not always, maybe not even most of the time, invited to sit up on the Diaz with these other teachers. Because the way Japanese teachers practice is not considered pure, or right, from their perspective. So they’re not really part of the sangha.

Okay, spoiler alert: I’ll tell you a little bit more about what comes after today’s story. P’ang continues to wander to meet Zen teachers and other monastics. He soon meets Ma-tsu, who I mentioned earlier, to whom we trace the Rinzai Zen stream. P’ang goes away at one point and lives with Ma-tsu for a year or two. But he eventually leaves. His karma became clear, his path became clear. It came to pass that he never shaved his head and joined the sangha.

To this day, even in the West, when you meet somebody who uses the word “priest” to identify themselves, what that really means traditionally is that they went through the ritual of Shuke Tokudo, which is the ceremony for entering a monastery. It’s about becoming a monk, not becoming a “priest”—historically, traditionally, anyway. They shave their head, and they take some vows, as they move into a monastery. The vows are pretty much the same vows we take at Jukai. 

P’ang decided not to shave his head and enter a monastery. It’s lucky for us that he didn’t, because his decision, his example, reverberates and resounds throughout history. He was eventually acknowledged as a teacher. He received transmission from Ma-tsu. So early on in Zen history, we see all the supposed rules being broken.

P’ang didn’t leave any successors as far as we know. But along the way, his wife and kids, it seems, became inspired to practice. The family took all their luxury goods at one point out into the middle of a lake, on a boat, and sunk the boat. They supported themselves from that point forward by weaving and selling baskets.

I really commend this book to you. Basically, it’s a bunch of stories in which P’ang goes around one-upping all the local monastics. Or, as the British would say, taking the piss out of them. It’s all very amusing, in addition to being very wise.

P’ang is quite something, and he needs to be centered more on the path that we walk, because his life is our life. He clearly appreciated his life in the world. And he provides encouragement to us. Singing in an a cappella group. Caring for a loved one with dementia. Taking kids off to college. These are prayers that reach the gods.

Let me close with a reading from our Sutra Book. The lovely poem by Judith Collin, titled The Layman’s Lament: 

Shame on you Shakyamuni for setting

the precedent 

of leaving home. 

Did you think it was not there – 

in your wife’s lovely face 

or your baby’s laughter? 

Did you think you had to go elsewhere 

to find it? 

Tsk, tsk. 

I am here to show you 

dear sir 

that you needn’t step 

even one sixteenth of an inch away – stay 

here – elbows dripping with soapy water 

stay here – spit up all over your chest 

stay here – steam rising in lazy curls from 

cream of wheat 

Poor Shakyamuni – sitting under the Bo tree 

miles away from home 

Venus shone all the while

Layman P’ang’s Dialogue with an Oxherd

Jeff

I gave this talk on August 6, 2025, at Full Moon Zen’s Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 49, Where the Path Leads, in The Sayings of Layman P’ang:

One day the Layman saw a young boy herding oxen and asked him, “Where does this path we’re following lead to?”

The boy said, “I don’t know where it goes.”

The Layman said, “Aren’t you herding the oxen?”

The boy said, “They live in these fields.”

The Layman said, “What time of day is it anyway?”

The boy said, “It’s time to take the oxen to pasture.”

The Layman laughed heartily.

Let’s take this wonderful story line-by-line.

One day the Layman saw a young boy herding oxen and asked him, “Where does this path we’re following lead to?”

P’ang is an acknowledged Zen master and his question is the sort of coy one you’d expect from a teacher. One of those questions that seems ordinary and innocent enough but is probing the depth of your insight (and your sense of humor). But is that really what’s happening here? P’ang is the trickster who knows all the holier-than-though monks in the region and takes great pleasure in one-upping them. I’m inclined to think he’s in unfamiliar territory, is innocently asking this young stranger for directions, and is about to get beaten at his own game.

The boy said, “I don’t know where it goes.”

The boy’s opening line reminds me of something my eldest, who’s now 20, said when he was four or five. Esther and I were in our bedroom and one of was griping about something a parent or sibling had done. As I walked out of the room, I said, “Well, you know what they say: You can’t choose your family.” 

We didn’t realize our son had been just outside listening the whole time. Without missing a beat, he lit up and exclaimed, “Yeah, and you can’t even choose yourself!”

Wisdom from the mouth of babes. Does anyone really know what this is, who we are, and where we’re going?

The Layman said, “Aren’t you herding the oxen?”

Now we begin to sense P’ang knows he’s bumbled into a trap and may have met his match. “Okay, little sage, so seemingly self-possessed, surely you imagine you’re in charge and leading the way here?”

P’ang’s second question is anything but innocent. It’s a joust to the boy’s parry. The boy is herding ox, but will he recognize and has he tamed the ox I’m talking about? 

Has he discovered his wandering small mind situated in and as Big Mind , as we see in Zen’s famous Ox Herding pictures? Has his small mind been weened of the illusion that it’s the center of the universe and locus of ultimate control?

The boy’s response?

The boy said, “They live in these fields.”

Touché!

There’s a footnote in the text which says, “The sense of this statement is that the oxen know where they are going.”

Indeed. Let me read you a short passage about dealing with distractions in meditation that makes the boy’s point more explicitly. This is from a wonderful new book, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism, by Bret Davis, an American Rinzai teacher and philosophy professor who has extensive practice experience in Japan. Drawing inspiration from Shunryu Suzuki, founder of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center, Davis writes:

Another teaching Suzuki Roshi gives in this regard goes even deeper and wider. He says: If you want to control your mischievous mind, don’t try to control it. Don’t try to pin it down or confine it to a mental jail cell. Do the opposite and give it a wide-open space in which to roam. Using another vivid metaphor, he says: “To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.” That wide-open pasture is an image for what he and other Zen masters call “Big Mind.” All the thoughts and distractions of our small minds take place within a wide-open and non-judgmental field of awareness.

The Layman said, “What time of day is it anyway?”

P’ang, still fancying himself the teacher, hasn’t yet admitted defeat. We get another checking question, but who’s checking whom?

The boy said, “It’s time to take the oxen to pasture.”

Enough of this stuff about emptiness, Old Man. Bye, now. The cows and I are hungry. It’s time to eat.

The Layman laughed heartily.

May we all learn not to take ourselves too seriously and come to laugh this cosmic laugh with Layman P’ang. 

Shikantaza and Mindfulness (or Zen and the Other Mindfulness, Take 2)

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit today. A recording follows the text.

I gave a Thursday evening talk earlier this month about Zen and what I called “the other mindfulness”: the work of Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer, whose research has revealed the surprising power, and many health and other benefits, of simple awareness—of paying attention. You can find that talk on my blog if you didn’t hear it.

Langer describes her work as the study of mindfulness, but she chose that term without knowing about Vipassana meditation, which is more commonly called mindfulness meditation. She sees no connection between the two. In fact, she thinks mindfulness meditation can be mindless. She says mindfulness is what might happen for meditators after they meditate, and that you don’t need to meditate to experience it.

Langer’s disclaimers haven’t stopped people from making connections between mindfulness meditation and Langer’s research about the power of noticing. They’re all wishful thinkers from Langer’s perspective. But all the comparisons are made between her work and Vipassana meditation, which is very different than shikantaza, Zen’s approach to meditation.

I think there are interesting connections between Langer’s take on mindfulness and shikantaza. Those of you who heard my earlier talk will recall that I asked an AI tool, Claude, to help me explore possible connections. Here’s what it said, which I think is quite good:

1. Non-goal orientation: Both Langer’s mindfulness and shikantaza emphasize process over outcome. Langer critiques mindless pursuit of goals, while shikantaza explicitly avoids meditation as a means to an end.

2. Present-centered awareness: Both approaches value immediate experience rather than abstract analysis. Langer emphasizes noticing novelty in the present moment, which aligns with shikantaza’s open, non-discriminating awareness.

3. Rejection of rigid techniques: Langer’s approach doesn’t involve formal meditation techniques, and shikantaza is considered the most technique-free form of meditation.

4. Creative engagement: Langer emphasizes creative engagement with one’s environment, which has some resonance.

So, this morning I want to say just a bit more about what’s going on in Zen’s approach to meditation in my experience, and why I do think it supports “the other mindfulness” (Langer’s version), whatever may or may not be happening in other forms of meditation. 

Here are some of the key functions of Zen meditation and how they help us cultivate the presence of mind and being—presence to experience, to life—that Langer studies:

  • Capacity to cope. When many of us begin to meditate, we fear we won’t be able to sit still for 25 minutes. That we won’t be able to tolerate the discomfort. That the sky really will fall if we don’t respond to that email now. Maybe we fear just being with our thoughts and feelings. One of the first things meditation does is simply increase our confidence that we can bear experiences we’d cast as unbearable. This reduces adventitious suffering: the extra suffering we tend to layer over suffering we can’t avoid, like an injury, or that we choose to endure, like a surgery to repair an injury. Meditation—all or most forms, I imagine—develops our capacity to cope, and this helps us become more at ease with life, with ourselves, and with others we find challenging.
  • Inclination toward noticing. This is Langer’s territory. It’s what she studies. Shikantaza truly is the most technique-free form of meditation. We just sit. There’s nothing more to it. So all that’s left is being. All that’s left is noticing, receptivity. What do we notice? We notice leaves rustling and sirens getting louder, then quieter, then gone; we notice our stomach growl; we notice our noticing come and go. We notice impermanence. Change. The river. 
  • Nonseparation; identification with it all. The river’s water works on the stone that we are, or at least that we’ve imagined ourselves to be. It smooths it, softens it, makes it porous, dissolves it in time. The distinction between stone and water becomes less clear. We feel less separate; more part of it all. More attuned to context, because we experience ourselves as woven into the fabric of our context. Sometimes we forget ourselves—in a good way.
  • Comfort with no-thing. The more we sit and notice, the more we know and don’t know. We know our experience more intimately, but confidence in our capacity to contain it conceptually declines. Our best concepts and constructs remain useful, but we see their limits. We no longer hold them so tightly. We develop comfort with not knowing and not being able to contain or control everything.

These are some of the fruits I feel Zen meditation practice, and Zen practice more broadly, offers over time. They seem very related to and supportive of the qualities in which Langer sees such value, including genuine curiosity and the capacity to get out of our own frame to consider others’ experience. Ultimately, she’s all about creativity: our capacity to respond freely and appropriately to life in the moment; to be creatures that co-create creation. I think Zen’s all about that, too.