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It is Official!
Our next book in the Treeleaf "Beyond Words and Letters Book Club" (after our current reading of David Loy) will be Shohaku Okumura Roshi's LIVING BY VOW: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts (which, of course, includes the Heart Sutra, not to mention the "Identity of Relative and Absolute", the Verse of Atonement, Four Vows and more ... ) ...
Probably won't be there until the summer, however. I might offer some Heart Sutra talks in the meantime.Exploring eight of Zen's most essential and universal liturgical texts, Living by Vow is a handbook to walking the Zen path, and Shohaku Okumura guides us like an old friend, speaking clearly and directly of the personal meaning and implications of these chants, generously using his experiences to illustrate their practical significance. A scholar of Buddhist literature, he masterfully uncovers the subtle, intricate web of culture and history that permeate these great texts. Esoteric or challenging terms take on vivid, personal meaning, and old familiar phrases gain new poetic resonance.
Gassho, J
SatTodayALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Looks like a very good book.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_Comment
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Awesome, thank you Jundo ... I very much look forward to it, lovely book. =)It is Official!
Our next book in the Treeleaf "Beyond Words and Letters Book Club" (after our current reading of David Loy) will be Shohaku Okumura Roshi's LIVING BY VOW: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts (which, of course, includes the Heart Sutra, not to mention the "Identity of Relative and Absolute", the Verse of Atonement, Four Vows and more ... ) ...
Probably won't be there until the summer, however. I might offer some Heart Sutra talks in the meantime.
Gassho, J
SatToday
Gassho
Shingen
s@todayComment
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Thank you Beakon.
It is a very beautiful film. I will say that the presentation is a bit idealized. I read the diary of the 7th Chinese monk Xuanzang during my own recent pilgrimage to India (by train and plane, not foot and elephant however). In a sense, he went to India looking for the "real Buddhism" and probably did not find it there ... or, better said, found many Buddhism(s) that had blossomed over time. Nonetheless, it was an incredible human journey and testament to his faith.
The Heart Sutra was not actually preached at Vulture Peak (another place I was fortunate to visit!). It was written hundreds of years after the life of the Buddha, by other authors ... now believed to have been in China by the way, not India. However, in a real sense, because the Heart Sutra contains powerful and timeless teachings on Emptiness, it was truly preached on Vulture Peak and everywhere in the world, in the Buddha's time and our time and all time. It is the "Buddha's words" even if the man called Buddha never actually mouthed them. Understand?
The movie also features the Dalai Lama and many Tibetan Buddhist teachers. Their interpretations of the Heart Sutra can sometimes be a bit philosophically different from Zen approaches, though often just the same. I sometime say "always the same, even when sometimes very different ... frequently quite different, yet precisely just the same."
Gassho, JundoLast edited by Jundo; 03-16-2017, 10:21 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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"The movie also features the Dalai Lama and many Tibetan Buddhist teachers. Their interpretations of the Heart Sutra can sometimes be a bit philosophically different from Zen approaches, though often just the same. I sometime say "always the same, even when sometimes very different ... frequently quite different, yet precisely just the same."
I once read that the dharmakaya is essentially everything that arises into being. How would you explain the dharmakaya in the context of the variety of the teachings? I wish that question could be simpler. It's like what you said about the teachings being frequently different, yet precisely just the same. What was it like at Vulture Peak? Did you get to see the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, too?"May I be a flashlight to all beings living in life's dreary and despicable basement" - Sean C.T.Comment
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Hi Beakon,
The "Dharmakaya" is so everything and the kitchen sink that it includes Buddha, Jesus, atheists, the mafia hit man,and the Dalai Lama, you and me. In fact, the "Dharmakaya" is so inclusive and "Dharmakaya" that even sticking a name on it like "Dharmakaya" already is a crime.
Nonetheless, not all realize this fact. So, although all and everyone is "Dharmakhaya", most folks don't know so and, moreover, most folks don't try to live embodying so (the Dalai Lama probably does, the mafia hit man probably does not).
Yes, I saw that Bodhi Tree in India, which is actually the great great great grandson of the second cousin of the original because the tree has been cut down or burned down by invaders and neglect many times (even this is Impermanent). However, one realizes the timeless and indestructible Bodhi Tree each time one sits a moment of Zazen.
Back from a Rohatsu Pilgrimage to India - Nothing Found
Gassho, J
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 03-18-2017, 03:48 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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I am really looking forward to this and will start looking for the book. It will be so interesting to read and hear teachings from another point of view - having studied in the Tibetan tradition and recited the Heart Sutra most days, I've come to look upon it as something that could be said to cover everything one needs to know in one handy teaching - it was great to find it here in the Treeleaf chants too. I personally think it's wonderful and inspiring to see so many interpretations of one teaching because we are always students and always able to learn something new.
It's amazing how many varieties of tomatoes there are these days, I can buy cherry, spanish, round, purple, green, tiny plum, big plum, small vine, big vine etc etc, but in the end, they are all in essence tomatoes and have that unmistakeable tomatoey quality. I find the Dharma is like that too.
Gassho
Sat with you all today命 Mei - life
島 Tou - islandComment
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Reading the word or saying 'dharmakaya' makes my heart region do that 'glowy' thing I mentioned in my intro. A friend once brought the seeds from The Bodhi Tree to The Winnipeg Dharma Centre. He gave each and all one seed he packed in an envelope. I was excited to learn how to grow my own bodhi tree, but I lost it in my old apartment. Like you said everything is impermanent."May I be a flashlight to all beings living in life's dreary and despicable basement" - Sean C.T.Comment
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Hi Tom and everyone,
As requested, I will often a little Talk this month on the Heart of the Heart Sutra during our monthly Zazenkai tomorrow ...
Let's see if I can sum the whole, Timeless thing up in about 25 minutes!
I may offer a more detailed series of talks later when, as I mentioned, we turn to Okumura Roshi's book in a few weeks as our next "Wordless Book Club" selection ...
LIVING BY VOW
A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts
Shohaku Okumura
I just announced it as our next selection ...
Our Next Book Selection: LIVING BY VOW
Gassho, J
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 03-31-2017, 05:03 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Beakon when you talk about the "glowy thing" it always reminds me of this song
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkComment
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Looking forward to this!Hi Tom and everyone,
As requested, I will often a little Talk this month on the Heart of the Heart Sutra during our monthly Zazenkai tomorrow ...
Let's see if I can sum the whole, Timeless thing up in about 25 minutes!
I may offer a more detailed series of talks later when, as I mentioned, we turn to Okumura Roshi's book in a few weeks as our next "Wordless Book Club" selection ...
LIVING BY VOW
A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts
Shohaku Okumura
I just announced it as our next selection ...
Our Next Book Selection: LIVING BY VOW
Gassho, J
SatToday
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkComment
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Engaging talk yesterday Jundo, quite full of emptiness.
The five Skandhas are always worth reflecting on. The first time I ever heard neuroanatomy applied to the Dharma was in "Buddha"s Brain".
I had read that , while you can categorize them in a linear fashion, the neurological aspect of them are much more integrated and recursive.
Take optical illusions, for example.
The drawing is there (form), your eyes process the light (sensation), the brain categorizes aspects such as size, shapes, and color (perception), now it draws our attention and discernment (formation), we decide it's a print of some stairs and it's interesting (consciousness). But what if it is this drawing
IMG_0060.JPG
Then back and forth we go through the Skandhas, each time with more and different results as we recognize the physical impossibility of such a structure.
Life is, I guess, the same way. Only instead of being drawn into the illusion, we are drawn into delusion. With the Dharma and Zazen guiding our way on the emptiness stairwell.
Wow, my brain that's not really here hurts
Gas SHO
SatMarc Connery
明岩
Myo̅ Gan - Bright Cliff
I put the Monkey in Monkeymind
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Isn't that the truth.....how easily it is to be drawn into the delusion. And that's why we return to this again and again and again....."Practice intimately, and return to where you are." Not some other place out there that we create or want or our mind tells us we need in order to be happy.
Gassho,
Joyo
sat todayComment
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The Heart Sutra is one that i have never understood but very much want to learn about, and the descriptions here have made it even more compelling. Also makes me more glad that I just ordered the "Living By Vow" book, very much looking forward to it.
Also - I love Buddhist humor, got quite a few chuckles out of these posts, some much needed laughter this morning
Gassho
Kim
sat today鏡道 | Kyodo (Meian) | "Mirror of the Way"
visiting Unsui
Nothing I say is a teaching, it's just my own opinion.Comment
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