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.