Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on December 3, 2008.

"The Supreme Way is not difficult; it just precludes picking and choosing. Without yearning or loathing, The Way is perfectly apparent, while even a hair's breadth difference separates heaven and earth. To see The Way with your own eyes, quit agreeing and disagreeing. The battle of likes and dislikes is the disease of the mind."

--Seng-ts'an, "Relying on Mind"

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 26, 2008.

"The teachings of the Three Vehicles all cure diseases such as greed and hatred. Right now, thought after thought, if you have such sickness as greed or hatred, you should first cure them. Don't seek intellectual understanding of meanings and expressions. Understanding is in the province of desire, and desire turns into disease. Right now, just detach from all things, existent or nonexistent, and even detach from detachment."
- Pai Chang

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 19, 2008.

"In reading scriptures and studying the doctrines, you should turn all words right around, and apply them to yourself."
- Pai Chang

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008.

"This principle is originally present in everyone. All the Buddhas and bodhisattvas may be called people pointing out a jewel. Fundamentally, it is not a thing - you don't need to know or understand it, you don't need to affirm or deny it. Just cut off dualism; cut off the supposition 'it exists' and the supposition 'it does not exist.' Cut off the supposition 'it is nonexistent' and the supposition 'it is not nonexistent.' When traces do not appear on either side, then neither lack nor sufficiency, neither profane nor holy, not light or dark. This is not having knowledge, yet not lacking knowledge, not bondage, not liberation. It is not any name or category at all. Why is this not true speech? How can you carve and polish emptiness to make an image of Buddha? How can you say that emptiness is blue, yellow, red or white?"

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008.

"In the teaching hall, the master said, 'The spiritual light shines alone, far transcending the senses and their fields. The essential substance is exposed, real and eternal. It is not contained in written words. The nature of mind has no defilement; it is basically perfect and complete in itself. Just get rid of delusive attachments and merge with the realization of thusness.'"

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008.

"Somehow, a process started to happen where things went from [being very freeform] to being very much sectarian. Things started to close down, people started to need to self-identify their group as distinct from other groups, and it's in the midst of that transition that this character Pai Chang finds himself."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 12, 2008.

"A man sitting in a mountain pass --
robed in clouds, tricked out in sunset's rose.
In his fingers a fragrant flower, to pass along,
but the road's so long and hard to climb!
In his mind: disappointment and doubt;
old as he is, he's accomplished nothing.
People laugh at him, call him a cripple,
yet he stands alone -- constant, untouched."
- Han Shan

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 5, 2008.

"I wanted to go off to the eastern cliff--
how many years now I've planned the trip?
Yesterday, I pulled myself up by the vines,
but wind and fog forced me to stop halfway.
The path was narrow, and my clothes kept catching,
the moss so spongy I couldn't move my feet,
So I stopped under this red cinnamon tree.
I guess I'll lay my head on a cloud and sleep."
- Han Shan

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 29, 2008.

"I think of all the places I've been,
chasing from one famous spot to another.
Delighting in mountains, I scaled the mile-high peaks;
loving the water, I sailed a thousand rivers.
I held farewell parties with my friends in Lute Valley;
I brought my zither and played on Parrot Shoals.
Who would guess I'd end up under a pine tree,
clasping my knees in the whispering cold?"
- Han Shan

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 22, 2008.

"Now I have a single robe,
not made of gauze or of figured silk.
Do you ask what color it is?
Not crimson, nor purple either.
Summer days I wear it as a cloak,
in winter it serves for a quilt.
Summer and winter in turn I use it;
year after year, only this."
- Han Shan

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.