The most important thing you can do is train your mind so that you can see the conflicting emotions about what your own life is fundamentally about. Don’t get your understanding from anyone. It needs to come through your consciousness, your awareness. You will not be able to figure this out. You actually have to see it yourself, and it’s not going to be easy. As the Buddha said, "Life is suffering." Begin by looking at what’s in front of you. Be willing to not know what you’

When I say, "Don’t do 'something'," it’s not a command.When I say don’t do something, it’s not a command. It’s meant to help you question, through the action of awareness, whether you are doing that kind of thing. Bardo means gap or intermediate state. When your life comes to an end, you have no touchstone at all. You don’t have this incredible physical form that anchors you into this dynamic where things look so intensely real: the bardo of this life. What is fundamentally t

Classically, the parts of practice are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. It’s pretty hard to do this unless you meet someone who has been doing this for awhile and has some clarity about what this is. Of these three, the very most important thing that I spent my time on as a student of the buddha’s dharma, and that I was introduced to by my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was the sitting practice of meditation. You’re going to need the other ones, but this is absolute

According to the Buddhadharma, there are three kinds of pain. The pain of pain is anything from a toothache to some kind of paranoia about what’s around the corner. Sometimes the most difficult kind of pain is emotional: mental anguish, anxiety and pain. The pain of alternation shows up in the pain of pain. The pain of conditioned existence shows is the pain of the composite. All three show up in each one. If it shows up in your mind stream, if it shows up in your lifestream

Don’t ignore the incredible vastness of the relative by shrinking down into your little petty mind with your concerns about what he said or what they did. The shrinking down is out of fear of too much space. If you need an image, go outside and look right down at your feet. Then look up at the vastness of the sky. This is just the relative vastness, minuscule compared to the vastness of your mind. The ego’s experience of vastness may only be fear. Don’t abandon this for some

Sokuzan speaks on the difficulty of striking a balance between helping people and meddling.

Sokuzan speaks on "All Dharmas Are Without Blame" at the December 2015 Month's End Sesshin. Please consider donating to SokukoJi Buddhist Community: Click the banner in the upper right corner.

Sokuzan is using quotes from the teachings of Dogen Zenji to comment on the possibility that Dogen may be incorrect in his teaching. Of course, Sokuzan is only joking but is using that example to further teach about the lack of separation that we so often grasp in our everyday life.