How often in practice have we wondered how best to essentialize what we are studying?  When one tries to “explain” what Buddhism or Zen is to someone, one can get tangled up in concepts that only serve to complicate the heart of the teaching.

Like so many of the early teachers of Zen and meditation, there is an outline of preparing oneself for meditation, but there is seldom too much direction about what exactly it IS you are entering into.

This selection takes us into deeper steps of preparation to sit with attention to breathing clearly spelled out. Rather than following the breath into the abdomen and back out, Chih I has us breathe into every pore and out to the periphery of our entire body.

No matter how many years we have practiced, or how many weeks, it is always refreshing to return to the beginning and look at meditation as if we are just being introduced to it. We can all benefit from a return to beginner’s mind.

At times when you read about what it takes to break through our illusions, it can feel a bit overwhelming. The intensity and steadfastness of the wise ones of old is humbling when we look clearly at our own efforts; one thing we must remember, though, is not to compare ourselves to others, but rather allow the stories to inspire us to go further.

I have often thought that the term Middle Way truly gives us a guideline for practice without a lot of extra expounding needed. Think about the sense of balance we have in certain activities – too far to either side can lead to a fall literally! So we do use this sense of balance in daily life.

It is quite a treasure to find a new piece in translation and one full of terms that seem to predate the usual ones we find in Buddhism and Zen.  In bringing Buddhism to new lands, it only seems natural that the earlier understanding of the Way, Taoism in this case in China, would find a way to make sense of the new teachings as similar to their native teachings of the Way.

No matter who the teacher is we need to have a balance between what they say that is clearly delivered and what can tend to cloud things over a bit.  To ascribe anything to nirvana is saying too much as it falls into “as soon as you try to explain things, the true meaning is lost.”

Wherever we find ourselves along the Way we can always find a handhold in these writings, however meager it may seem.  No one can say what phrase, which practice, what sound in Nature may cause a sudden awakening which is in reality, just a beginning.

No matter how we approach meditation on the cushion or in life, there is this lingering sense of so much “self” still coloring so much of our realities.

As beginners, to find our centered posture in sitting meditation we move side to side slowly and then back and forth,  naturally coming to know our center.  With practice, those movements are dropped, and we are familiar with the centered posture.  It is a technique we use at first and then can discard.

This is a classic exchange between one sincere student trying to finally get a grasp on what this One Mind is all about and how the experience of truly Being changes one's experience of the world.

Here is a refreshing and direct expression of something many of us make into a very complicated and abstruse issue. Bankei brought Zen to ordinary, everyday people along with the monks and nuns that he taught.

Po Shan gives us a few guidelines to help steer this wandering path we are on. For those who have never been given a koan or hua tou to investigate, how do you proceed?

This theme is one we return to repeatedly, that being the difference between thinking we understand versus having the direct experience.

In each reading, there will be a phrase, or several, which stand out for you. Sometimes they carry over into your meditation practice; sometimes they are like koans you can’t seem to let go of.

The simplicity and clarity of the commentary are delightful. In these lengthening nights, who can't appreciate the ability to stretch out our experience of time, and for those in the Southern hemisphere, who cannot feel the expansive days of summer?

The Platform Sutra is unique among the sutras which are considered to be the direct teachings of the Buddha.

Recognizing that teaching in itself has pitfalls for the teacher and the students, if one can keep one’s lights on, this is still a widely accepted way to practice.

This piece contains some clear instructions on meditation. It is uncommon to find much direct advice given in ancient times. These instructions were given to monks training with him, and the basis of this treatise consists of questions and answers.

Just like the heart of Zen is a teaching beyond words and letters, the teaching of the garden, the wisdom of inanimate objects, is a direct passage beyond the intellect.

Our sense and experience of time naturally changes throughout life. We keep seeing time slip away, so this connection is not difficult to make. However, it is still a challenge to feel impermanence to the degree that we realize there truly is no self. The “experience” of self is so entrancing that the jump to selflessness seems like the greatest mystery in life.

There is a simplicity and directness in this piece that serves as a guide to us all, even centuries later. Without one reference to the technique of meditation practice, Yuan wu manages to hand us the keys of practice and show it doesn’t matter where you are, turning the light back inside is always available to us.

The enchantment surrounds us and creates the almost unmistakable sense of an “I” which is sticky, and like a shadow, which appears attached, seems to be with us everywhere we go.

This piece taken from the Little Manual of Samatha Vipasyana Meditation covers one of the most challenging points in practice: how to bring awareness into daily activities.