A nice video on how to sit zazen (meditate)

You may need to turn on close captioning for the English.

Get to know me.

A few months ago I gave the Sunday talk at West Valley Unitarian Church. The Sunday theme that month was Journeys so the talk is more autobiographic than dharmic. There is also a couple other talks be me on that site. Here and here. I hope you'll join us soon for our Tuesday meditation group.

Meetup page

Raichozan is now on meetup.com

Nice Journal from the compilier of local Buddhist Group listings

Steve Henes who I know absolutely nothing about other than that he put together a website for people to easily find Buddhist groups in Arizona called Paths of Growth has complied a nice journal with writings for old and contemporary sources. Enjoy.
Matters of the Heart Journal

What is Zen?

I feel a little funny posting this now as on a friends blog he has a new entry that's almost the same title but I think this is different enough. And actually I'm not posting anything in this post except a link to what I think is a great article on the subject. This blog post is by  Domyo Burk

of Brightway Zen.

Good Spiritual Friends

Here's a link to a sermon "Good Spiritual Friends" I recently gave at West Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Also if your so inclined I gave a talk there on the Interconnected Web of Existence.

My first sermon

Recently I was ask to speak to the congregation of the UU church that has opened their doors for our meditation group. They record the sermons from their Sunday meeting and share them on the interweb so here's my first shot at preach'n. I don't claim to be a teacher or anything like that so if you listen to this ( as you should with anything else remember the Buddha's teaching to the Kalama's and verify it's truth or heresy in your own life.

Poetry by one of our regulars inspired be our Tuesday practice period.

tuesday night zen

Yet Another Request

For the last couple years I've been meeting the meager needs of the Zen sitting group I host at West Valley UU.  We could use a few more zabutons (meditation mats) and if anyone is interested in helping me out with this it would be much appreciated. Two excellent places for meditation supplies are, Zen Works Store and Still Sitting. Purchasing from these groups also supports the work they do in making the Dharma available. Or if you have extra zabutons that would be great too. Black would be best. For shipping info contact Mui,

A Change of Venue

For the past 3 years we've been meeting regularly at my home on Tuesday evenings and the core group has been pretty solid but I think new people who are interested in the practice may be a little uncomfortable meeting in someone's home. Well the good news is that the West Valley UU church would like for us to host our meetings there so starting on Tuesday, April 3 we'll be at the WVUU Church at 59th Ave. and Cholla.

The first cause and the first causer

As someone who was caught up in fundamentalist Christianity for awhile I thought I might do a post on the Creator and then I thought maybe I won't for the reasons Daiho Roshi says in this nice blog post about creation,"the Buddha...flatly says such discussions are not worth talking about as they are distractions from our real purpose which is the personal realization of the truth.Then further down in the post Daiho Roshi says"So, it would seem we could consider discussions of concepts, theories, and even conversations regarding First Cause as useful provided these are understood as skilful means toward creating conditions within which (through our practice) we find personal realization." So here's a link about somethings the Buddha said about the first causer.

Oneness and the true Godhead

Jesus, Mohamed and even you and I are not separate. From the Blue Cliff Record

Hekiganroku - Case 57: Joshu and the "Bumpkin"

A monk asked Joshu,
  "'The supreme Way is not difficult; it simply dislikes choosing'. What
   is non-choosing?"
Joshu said,
  "Above the heavens and under the heavens I am the only one, alone and
   exalted."
The monk said,
  "That is still choosing."
Joshu said,
  "You stupid bumpkin, where is the choosing?"
The monk remained silent.

My thoughts, Dogen and koans

I hear that the the difference between Soto and Rinzai is that Rinzai uses koan as a practice and Soto doesn't. I've been reading the Dogens  Extensive Record and to me it seems that all he did was to heap koans on to his community,

Maybe I should be ashamed.

For someone who pretty much has only hung out with people of the Rinzai persuasion I've found myself reading a lot from that heretic Dogen. How ever much I repent tough it won't change the fact that I've found no one who exposes the implications of what non dual reality implies. From his commentary on Linji's (Rinzai's) "True Person of no Rank" in his 300 koan Shobogenzo

 "The true person of no rank is the real form of truth as it appears throughout the universe. It is fluid and in a constant state of becoming. The true person of rank is the real form of truth as it appears throughout the universe. It, too, is fluid and in a constant state of becoming. Rank and no rank are nondual. Therefore, each and every thing up to and including each one of us exists thus!  The essence of all phenomena is thusness; the real nature of body and mind is thusness. Therefore, it cannot be attained by any personal effort. Realized or not, it has always been manifesting as our very life itself."

Misunderstanding no-self and emptyness.

In The Lankavatara Sutra the Buddha says something like " Nothing is as it appears nor is it otherwise" It's easy to enter into nihilism if we misunderstand these teachings. I'm know I've spoke a little about this before but I found this blog post by Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi that really speaks well to the matter. I liked his analogy of the ocean and the wave I heard it used by others but probably not this well and after all the wave isn't separate from the ocean. I hope you enjoy this post from The Order of Clear Mind Zen.

Not money just help.

I've kept the doors to my home so people in the West valley have a place practice in a group setting. While we've managed to keep a small core group going we haven't picked up any of the new people that have come around, I believe this because a lot of people just aren't that comfortable hanging out in someone's home with a bunch of people sitting around and not talking to each other. If anyone has any ideas about how we can get a more neutral space for our meeting where newcomers may feel more comfortable that's in the NW valley and within a couple miles of the free way I'll love to hear from you.

Shu jo mu hen sei gan do (Beings are numberless I vow to free them).

Recently I read a debate between Robert Thurman and Steven Batchlor. Towards the end of this debate Bob takes the stand that you can't really take the vow to save all beings if you don't believe in reincarnation and the great skeptic Steven leaves a very mundane, yes you can. Needless to say, it left a dry taste in my mouth. So how do we we keep the Great Vow to liberate all beings, we awaken

Zen Master Dogen said

“When without expectation, suddenly you break through the lacquered bucket of the ancestors* style, and lift your head and hit yor chest [in unmediated expression], suddenly you attain realization of the way. When one person realizes the way, self and other together realize the way. In one morning of realizing the way, past body and future body together realize the way. “

When the Buddha awakened he said  

“I and all sentient beings on earth, together, attain enlightenment at the same time.” Our enlightenment belongs to the universe.

Ritual

Before the opening service at our Tuesday night sitting I read a quote from the Sweeping Zen website, it's part Bodhidharma and part a contemporary teacher.  
"Bodhidharma, the mythological  founder of Zen Buddhism, said that ritual and liturgy are the expression of the whole mind. Is there a place where your mind can’t express itself? Do you relegate it to a time a place? Is it at the bedside but not in the rest of your life? To do this is a form of deprivation from living your life." - Koshin Paley Ellison"
At the recent retreat I attended at Great Vow Monastery, Chozen Roshi said something like when you don't give your self to the chanting you not only deprive your self but you deprive the entire Universe.
I've often heard that Zen or Buddhism isn't a religion, I don't really care if it is or isn't but the "religious" things we do like chanting and bowing don't just compliment our practice they are our practice.

The right tool for the job

Often when people find out I have a meditation practice they think it must be peaceful or stress relieving, maybe it is or isn't) but I'm not looking for that. As far back as I can remember more than anything else I've been interested in spiritual things even when I walked away from my church. I didn't come to Buddhism for self help, I came because things like teachings on the Three Marks of Existence, just made sense to me. I just read this article on The Buddhist Channel that inspired me to do this little piece. While Buddhist meditation practices may bring feelings of peace and transcendence as the article I referenced states- "But Britton argues that stress reduction and relaxation are more like side effects than what meditation actually was designed for.". Sometimes our practice brings us into our dark places in fact some of the practices that the Buddha taught involve contemplating the decay of our dead bodies. Buddhist practices are tools for liberation and sometimes their not all rosy. If you just want a few moments of peace you should probably look somewhere else but if your ready for liberation and are ready for the possibility of walking trough some dark places then you may find what your looking for in the teachings of the Buddha.

From the Gosple of Thomas...

22. Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom."

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."