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Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on December 10, 2008.

"There is no self and no person; how, then, kinfolk and stranger? I beg you, cease going from lecture to lecture. It is better to seek the truth directly."
-- Layman Pang

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG57.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:45 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG56.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:15 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG55.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:40 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG54.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG53c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG53b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:30 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG53a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG52.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG51.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:30 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG50.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

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.
Direct download: TDG49.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:45 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 15, 2008.

On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Rinsen talks about Atonement and the Zen way of working with it.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG48.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 8, 2008.

When Ch'an Master Wu-yeh of Fen-chou went to see the Ancestor (Ma-Tsu), the Ancestor noticed that his appearance was extraordinary and that his voice was like (the sound of) a bell.  He said, "Such an imposing Buddha hall, but no Buddha in it."

We-yeh respectfully kneeled down, and said, "I have studied the texts that contain the teachings of the Three Vehicles and have been able to roughly understand their meaning.  I have also often heard about the teaching of the Ch'an school that mind is Buddha: this is something I have not yet been able to understand."

The Ancestor said, "This very mind that does not understand is it. There is no other thing."

- The Teachings of Ma-Tsu.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG47.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on September 24, 2008.

"A Layman asked: 'I'm grateful for your teaching of the unborn, but I find that thoughts easily come up as a result of my ingrained bad habits, and when I'm distracted by them, I can't wholeheartedly realize the unborn. How can I put my faith totally in the unborn Buddha Mind?'

"The Master said: 'When you try to stop your rising thoughts, you create a duality between the mind that does the stopping and the mind that's being stopped, so you'll never have peace of mind.  Just have faith that thoughts don't originally exist, but only arise and cease temporarily in response to what you see and hear without any actual substance of their own.'"

- From Master Bankei's Hogo Instructions: Duality.


For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG46.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on September 17, 2008.

"Well, the interesting thing is, that where that difficulty is, when
you're honest, is the edge of our practice.  That's where the edge is
for you."
- Rinsen

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG45.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
Comments[0]

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

"Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent."
- Shih-Tou

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG44.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on August 20, 2008.

"I've built a grass roof hut, where there's nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in between."
-Shih-Tou

"When you can get past the 'It's not OK' about 'It's not OK,' and just be OK with 'It's not OK,' then, OK!"
-Rinsen

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG43.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:35 PM
Comments[0]

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on August 17, 2008, this afternoon workshop discussion explores the teachings of Shih-T'ou with Rinsen.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG42b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:30 PM
Comments[0]

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on August 17, 2008, this afternoon workshop discussion explores the teachings of Shih-T'ou with Rinsen.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.
Direct download: TDG42a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 AM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on August 6, 2008.

"All of the senses and all of the things sensed -
they interact without interacting.
Interacting, they permeate each other,
yet each remains in its own place.
By nature, forms differ in shape and appearance.
By nature, sounds bring pleasure or pain.
In darkness, the fine and mediocre accord;
brightness makes clear and murky distinct."
- Shih-T'ou, Identity of Relative and Absolute

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG41.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:35 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on July 30, 2008.

"The mind of the great sage of India was intimately conveyed from West to East.
Among human beings are wise ones and fools, but in the Way there is no northern or southern patriarch."
- Shih-T'ou, Identity of Relative and Absolute

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG40.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on July 27, 2008.

"I've built a grass roof hut, where there's nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in between."
-- Shih-T'ou

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG39b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:25 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on July 27, 2008.

"Shih-Tou's awakening happened as he read this passage from the teachings of the early scholar monk Seng-Chow:

"'The Ultimate Self is empty and void.  Though it lacks form, the myriad things are all of its making.  One who understands the myriad things as the Self, isn't that a sage?'

"That seeming dichotomy right there, the myriad things and the self, the form, the empty, the void, the relative and the absolute became the essential insight that Shih-Tou would plumb the depths of and elucidate in a way that hadn't happened before him, to such a degree that his 'Identity of Relative and Absolute' is a teaching that we chant to this day."

Note: This talk also addresses what it means to "sit with" koans as a practice, and how it relates to concentration practices.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG39a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:45 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on July 16, 2008.

"Mostly, our mind remains fixed in what's called a dualistic state...which means being trapped, unawaredly in a way of perceiving the universe such that everything is shattered, separate and distinct... In the practice of Zen, there is uncovered another way of perceiving, a way that's not bound by the traps of this and that, or the distinctions of high and low... You have to be willing to drop your images of what God is to be able to really see God's face. As long as you have an image in your mind, your mental construction of what you think that's supposed to be, there's a block. There's a stage at which having an image can be a useful thing.  There's a stage at which it becomes a problem and needs to be transcended."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG38.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
Comments[0]

Visited by a local University World Religions class, Rinsen contextualizes Zen practice and awakening within religious Tradition.

"Most religious traditions are founded with the experience or essential insight of an individual or group of individuals who have some unique way of perceiving themselves and the world that fits the society that they find themselves in, in a way that hadn't happened before."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG37.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 PM
Comments[1]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on June 11, 2008.

"Develop meditation that is like the earth, for when you develop meditation that is like the earth, agreeable and disagreeable contexts will not invade your mind and remain. Just as people throw clean things and dirty things, excrement, urine, spittle, pus and blood on the earth, and the earth is not horrified, humiliated or disgusted because of that." --Buddha

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG36.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:25 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on June 4, 2008.

"One of the primary ways that we do great harm to ourselves and to those around us is by becoming attached to a particular view. 'Attached' here means a very specific thing: it means sort of an unexamined clinging that has almost a panting, desperate quality to it. The majority of these views, these opinions that we hold, are actually unknown to us, ironically enough. They're more or less unconscious."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG35.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:00 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 28, 2008.

"Long seeking it through others, I was far from reaching it.
Now I go by myself and I meet it everywhere.
I now am not it, and just now, it is nothing but myself.
Understanding this way, I can be as I am."
-Master Dong-Shan

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG34.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 21, 2008.

"In studying the teachings of the Buddhadharma, in studying reality, what we're actually studying is ourselves.... Ironically enough, the way of studying those teachings, the way of studying that Self, is that you have to get the Self out of the picture.... What that means, what that's pointing to, is the direct experience of your life. The direct experience of experience itself, free from the conditionings and the boundaries of the limited mind. What happens, then, is that you become awakened by everything. Everywhere you go, you encounter the teachings."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.
Direct download: TDG33.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008.

"Styling himself a latter-day Vimalakirti framed Wang Wei's dual life in the most positive terms. Not as a split or a straddle, one foot in the affairs in state, the other in monkhood, but as a unity; the best of both worlds. It states his understanding that fundamentally there are not two worlds, pure and impure, and that a true person of the Way may go anywhere unhindered." --The Roaring Stream

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG32c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:51 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008.

"Mindful creativity - or Zen art, if you will - requires a certain kind of consciousness to be able to really call itself Zen art. There's a quality required, expressed in the body, of tranquillity; open, receptive, clear, awake presence. It's absolutely essential. In other words, not discriminating, not judgmental, not tangled up in ideas and concepts."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG32b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008.

Hidden on this mountain, many Buddhist monks
Chant sutras, meditate together;
Men on distant city walls gazing towards the peaks
See only white, enshrouding clouds.

-Wang Wei, A Poem to my Brothers and Sisters

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG32a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
Comments[0]

In honor of the first anniversary of the Drinking Gourd Podcast, Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives an interview at the Toledo Zen Center on October 22, 2008.

"When I finally got to see a full-out Zen monastery, I was hooked. It really helped me by providing a specific way of working on this, and working with this whole contemplative intelligence, that I couldn't find in the Western approach."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG31.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 AM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 14, 2008.

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many people, to want to help everyone and everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." -Thomas Martin, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG30.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 7, 2008.

"If with kindly generosity one merely has the wish to soothe the aching heads of other beings, such merit knows no bounds. No need to speak, then, if the wish to drive away the endless pain of each and every living being, bringing them unbounded virtues." -Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG29.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 30, 2008.

"How do you take a spiritually awakened individual and how does that individual engage their life? What are the qualities of an awakened being in the world? ...One of the aspects that you'll find in any of the traditions is there's an embracing of this sort of luminal not-knowing."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG28.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a talk and discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 23, 2008.

"Elements of the self come and go like clouds, without purpose. Greed, hate, and delusion appear and disappear like ocean foam. When you reach the heart of reality, you find neither self nor other, and even the worst kind of karma dissolves at once." —Yung-Chia

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG27.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:15 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008.

"Let others criticise you. Let them condemn you. Trying to set the sky on fire, they'll just end up exhausted. I hear abusive words as though I were drinking ambrosia; everything melts, and suddenly I enter the inconceivable. When you understand the real value of abuse, your worst critic becomes a wise friend. If harsh words raise no waves of bitterness or pride, how better to show the persistence and compassion of the unborn?" —Yung-Chia

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG26c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 4:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008.

"Seeing into the fundamental fact, you see into its expression as well." —Yung-Chia

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG26b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008.

"Haven't you met someone seasoned in the Way of Ease, a person with nothing to do and nothing to master, who neither rejects thought nor seeks truth? The real nature of ignorance is buddha-nature itself. The empty, illusory body is the very body of the Dharma. When the Dharma-body is realized, there's nothing at all. The original nature of all things is innately Buddha." —Yung-Chia

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG26a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:45 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 16, 2008.

"Coming from a Judeo-Christian theistically-based approach, there's an unconscious assumption -- or teaching, basically -- that moral and ethical guidelines come from someplace outside... something outside saying, 'This is what I expect.' In the teachings of the Buddhadharma, the moral and ethical precepts do not come from any outside source.... The moral and ethical teachings are expressions of how a realized Buddha lives their life. They are the description of how an awakened being interacts with themself and with others and with society."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG25.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 PM
Comments[0]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 9, 2008.

"One of the things that people run smack into when they come to a place like this for the first time is, there's a bunch of ritual happening. What's that all about? What's the deal with all the bowing and the incense and all that kind of thing? These are moments of re-awakening, if they're used well. They're supposed to be moments of re-checking-in to the moment, to the now."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG24.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 PM
Comments[1]

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 2, 2008.

"What does it mean to be mindful of the body? This is always the entry gate.... Breath is part of the body awareness, cultivating the practice of being awake to this one breath. In many, many lineages of Buddhist practice, not just Zen, the beginning thing you do is sit down and work with the breath. It's no small thing to be able to actually, completely embody that breath... to just completely, fully, be awake and aware and alive to that breath."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG23.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:00 AM
Comments[0]

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

"The pure nature exists in the midst of delusions. With correct practice alone, remove the obstacles. If people in this world practice the Way, there is nothing whatsoever to hinder them. If they always make clear the guilt within themselves, then they will accord with the Way." —Hui Neng

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG22.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 19, 2008.

"Within the dark home of the passions, the sun of wisdom must at all times shine. Erroneous thoughts come because of the passions; when correct thoughts come the passions are cast aside. Use neither the erroneous nor the correct, and with purity you will attain to complete nirvana." —Hui Neng

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG21.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008.

"Successive thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present thoughts, and future thoughts follow one after the other without cessation. If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there will be no place for attachment to anything. If one instant of thought clings, then successive thoughts cling; this is known as being fettered. If in all things successive thoughts do not cling, then you are unfettered." —Hui-Neng

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG20c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:59 PM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008.

"Good friends, how then are meditation and wisdom alike? They are like the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp, there is light; if there is no lamp, there is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the function of the lamp. Thus, although they have two names, in substance they are not two. Meditation and wisdom are also like this." — Hui-Neng

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG20b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008.

"Oftentimes in spiritual teaching, there is a great attempt to deny any kind of shadow, or any kind of difficulty, and it's important to acknowledge it.... It makes the teachings more alive and full and complete and real, but also real honest and very direct. The historical context has a direct influence on what these teachings are, and that's important to know and to acknowledge and to understand."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG20a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 6:40 PM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 12, 2008.

"The tiny is the same as the large, once boundaries are forgotten." —Relying on Mind, Seng-ts'an

This talk works with some of the differences between Taoist teachings and those of Zen.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG19.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 5, 2008.

"The wise have nothing to do, while the unwise tie themselves in knots." —Relying on Mind, Seng-ts'an

This talk works with some of the similarities of Taoist teachings with those of Zen.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG18.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on February 27th, 2008.

"The Supreme Way by nature is all embracing. Not easy, not difficult. But quibbling and hesitating, the more you hurry the slower you go. Holding on to things wrecks your balance, inevitably throwing you off course. But let everything go, be genuine, and the essence won't leave or stay. Accept your nature, accord with the way, and stroll at ease, trouble free." —Relying on Mind, Seng-ts'an

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG17.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on February 17th, 2008.

"There is no need to seek the truth — just put a stop to your opinions! Dualistic constructs don't endure, so take care not to pursue them. As soon as positive and negative arise, the mind is lost in confusion. The two exist because of the one, but don't cling to oneness either..."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG16c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:59 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on February 17th, 2008.

"Mind has the totality of space: nothing lacking, nothing extra. It's just selecting and rejecting that make it seem otherwise. Don't pursue worldly concerns, don't dwell passively in emptiness; in the peace of absolute identity, confusion vanishes by itself. Suppressing activity to reach stillness just creates agitation..."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG16b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on February 17th, 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 hairbreadth difference separates heaven and earth. To see the Way with your own eyes, quit agreeing and disagreeing. The battling of likes and dislikes — that's the disease of the mind..."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG16a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on February 13th, 2008.

"The Ultimate Truth is Beyond words. Doctrines are words, they are not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions; they are no different from things that appear in your dreams at night..." —Bodhidharma's Bloodstream Sermon.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG15.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on January 30th, 2008.

"Our Nature is the Mind, and the Mind is our Nature. This nature is the same as the mind of all buddhas. Buddhas of the past and future only transmit this mind. Beyond this mind, there is no Buddha anywhere..." —Bodhidharma's Bloodstream Sermon.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG14.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on January 23rd, 2008.

"Everything that appears in the three realms comes from the mind, hence the Buddhas of the past and future teach mind to mind, without bothering about definitions."

"But if they don't define it, what do they mean by Mind?"

"You Ask, That's Your Mind. I Answer, That's My Mind..."
—Bodhidharma's Bloodstream Sermon.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG13.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 20th, 2008.

"Entering through practice refers to four all-encompassing practices: the practice of requiting animosity, the practice of accepting one's circumstances. The practice of craving nothing, and the practice of accord with the Dharma."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG12c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 20th, 2008.

"Entering through practice refers to four all-encompassing practices: the practice of requiting animosity, the practice of accepting one's circumstances. The practice of craving nothing, and the practice of accord with the Dharma."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG12b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 20th, 2008.

This workshop begins with a historical overview of Bodhidharma's time and the teachings ascribed to him as they relate to other spiritual teachings of the day. After this, Chikyo begins working with the text: "There are many avenues for entering the Way, but essentially they all are of two kinds: entering through Principle and entering through Practice..." - Bodhidharma's Two Entrances and Four Practices

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG12a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 11:59 PM
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Karen Zuihan Weik offers a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on January 16, 2008.

"There once was a beautiful young girl who loved nothing more than to gaze at her reflection in the mirror. Every morning she would get up and look and she was very well pleased with herself. One morning, however, she looked in the mirror, but she didn't see her reflection..."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG11.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Karen Zuihan Weik offers a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on January 9, 2008.

"Opening the space, what I really want to do is connect with you, connect with your heart. And have all of our hearts connect with one another, and the beauty of this silence, and this breath, and this vast and spacious moment without beginning, and without end. This is where I want to live with you..." - Karen Zuihan Weik

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG10.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on December 19, 2007.

"The Way is perfect like vast space / where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. / Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject / that we do not see the true nature of things." -Seng T'san, Faith Mind

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG9.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:30 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation entitled, "Obstacles to Practice," given at the Toledo Zen Center on December 2, 2007.

"There are four basic ways that a bodhisattva will guide or help or engage sentient beings to the purpose of helping to relieve suffering. The first one is called Giving, the second one is Kind Speech, the third one is Beneficial Action, and the fourth one is called Identity Action."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG8c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation entitled, "Obstacles to Practice," given at the Toledo Zen Center on December 2, 2007.

"Typically, what are taught as being the primary challenges or the main difficulties have to do with the six realms. In the center of those realms, there are three poisons that are providing the gravity that's holding these beings in these various realms of suffering. What those three poisons are called are Greed, Anger, and Ignorance."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG8b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 10:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation entitled, "Obstacles to Practice," given at the Toledo Zen Center on December 2, 2007.

"Today, our mission is to talk a little bit about the things that might get in the way of maintaining a spiritual practice; now that we have a sense of what the practice is, what kind of things arise that actually get in the way and obstruct and hinder us in that effort; and then some solutions. What can we do to help that?"

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG8a.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 9:00 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 28, 2007.

"For reasons as varied as the people who have them, we have a really hard time letting ourselves be. We find it almost impossible to just not be so aggressive with ourselves.... If you are sitting on that cushion and you have some subtle or overt aggressive gaining agenda... it's just a matter of time before you give the whole endeavor up. And probably you'd be better served to give it up, if that's what you're practicing. Better yet, to learn how to practice well; to practice with real sincerity."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG7.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a talk and discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 21, 2007.

"From Master Dogen's Bodhidharma Shisoho: 'Giving means non greed.' This has to do with not just a physical thing.... In the dharma, the giving can be vastly more encompassing than material things. 'Giving means non-greed. Non-greed means not to covet. Not to covet means not to curry favor.... It is to give away unneeded belongings to someone you don’t know, to offer flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the womb of suchness itself, or to offer treasures you had in your former life to sentient beings.'"

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG6.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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This talk and discussion was led by Jay Chikyo Weik at the Toledo Zen Center on November 14, 2007.

The great way is not difficult / for those who have no preferences / When love and hate are both absent / everything becomes clear and undisguised / Make the smallest distinction however / and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart / If you wish to see the truth / then hold no opinions for or against anything / To set up what you like against what / you dislike is the disease of the mind / When the deep meaning of things is not understood / the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
—Sosan Zenji, Faith Mind

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG5.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation on the Four Noble Truths, given at the Toledo Zen Center on November 11, 2007. This is the third podcast of a three-part series.

"The second truth is that there is a cause for that [suffering]. There's a very specific thing that creates that sense of unsatisfaction. It's not just the way things are, actually. There's a reason why that's the way the experience communicates to us. And to make it as simple as we can, the cause of that suffering is basically craving, or thirst."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG4c.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation on the Four Noble Truths. This presentation was given at the Toledo Zen Center on November 11, 2007.

"One thing that will help make this talk a little more real, more helpful for you, is if you bear in mind that what we're talking about here is your own experience of your life. It's not an abstract.... It's not some story about how the universe came to be or anything like that. It's talking about how it is when you wake up in the morning; what it feels like between your bed and the bathroom; and how you deal with that child, that job, that ex-spouse, or that credit card. That's what it's about.... it's not intended to be abstract. However, it comes from a different culture; it comes from a very different time, and it takes a little digestion to get it to actually be helpful."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG4b.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation on the Four Noble Truths. This presentation was given at the Toledo Zen Center on November 11, 2007.

"Buddhism itself is a really large worldwide religion; there are many different facets and approaches. The Buddha himself taught for something like forty years, and he taught different things to different groups of folks.... The kinds of things that we're going to cover today would be included by any of the schools of Buddhism that exist, and there are many. But they all have certain things in common, and basically they revolve around these truths."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG4.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 8:00 AM
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The following mondo was presented by Jay Chikyo Weik at Shobu Okugyo Aikido retreat at Farm & Wilderness Center in Vermont on November 2, 2007.

"So, what is it about? ...There are many different routes and different practices and different techniques... but, basically, they all lead to expressing your true nature."

Chikyo wishes to acknowledge Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi and his Big Mind process, which influenced a portion of this presentation.

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org. For more information about Okugyo Aikido retreats with Chikyo and Bill Gleason Sensei, please visit www.shobuokugyo.com.

Direct download: TDG3.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 7:48 PM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a talk entitled, "Living Zen: Awakening the Joyful Heart." This introductory talk was presented at the Toledo Zen Center on October 27, 2007.

"So then [the Buddha] sat under a tree, and started to actually practice what we now know as zazen, sitting zen. In that process, he made a radical shift in his way of perceiving himself and the universe and everything around him. It's that shift in perception that has come to be called enlightenment, or awakening."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG2.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 6:00 AM
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Jay Chikyo Weik offers a Dharma Discourse and leads a Dharma Discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 24, 2007.

"What the Dharma does is get into the heart of that 'I'. Who is the 'I' that believes this? Who is it that's experiencing this feeling? (Suzuki) Roshi points out that the point of the practice is not to create some deep feeling, some religious feeling, some spiritual feeling.... What is it that the practice is doing? The practice is helping us to study ourselves."

For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit www.toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at www.hermitageheart.org.

Direct download: TDG1.mp3
Category: podcasts -- posted at: 6:00 PM
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