Getting Beyond Light And Dark - Master Rinzai
zengateway's podcast
Martin gives a commentary on the following passage from The Zen Teachings of Rinzai tr. Irmgard Schloegl. 'Venerable Ones, do not delay and spend your days idly. In former days wen I could not yet see clearly, all the world seemed dark to me. I could not get beyond light and shade. I ran around with fever in my belly and with my heart in a flurry, asking about the Way. Later I gained strength and now I am here, preaching deliverance to you, followers of the Way. My advice is not to come here for just your food and clothes. Life in the world passes quickly, and it is difficult to meet...
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Book Extracts Audio: The Zen Way - Life in a Japanese Zen Monastery
zengateway's podcast
This is an extract from The Zen Way by Irmgard Schloegl who spent 12 years training in Zen Buddhism at Daitokuji. In this extract Martin Goodson reads an extract from the book detailing the daily routine of the monks plus the ordeal of entrance begging undergone by all monks to gain entry to the monastery.
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How do I practice Zen?
zengateway's podcast
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Three Types of Zen Student
zengateway's podcast
In this talk Master Rinzai explains that he sorts the students who come to him into three sorts. This introduces us to the notion that is there in early Buddhism that the path is made up of stages. The Arhat path has five stages that go from the earliest stirrings of interest to Arhatship and the attainment of Nirvana. The Mahayana Path has the ‘One Way’ as explained in the Lotus Sutra that sees the earlier Arhat Path as the stage prior to the Bodhisattva Path to Full And Perfect Enlightenment. In Zen too, the masters made distinctions in what is called ‘root ability’. What is...
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Win the Game or Lose your Head!
zengateway's podcast
In this talk we hear the story of a young man who, becomes disillusioned with life and turns to a Zen Master for help. The master then challenges him to a game in which if the young man loses he will also lose his head. In the process he discovers the inner strength of his own Buddha-Heart. This story in many ways is similar to the story of the Buddha who as a young prince also became deeply disillusioned with the world and set out to find an answer. This state of disillusionment, is a state of dukkha (suffering), and it becomes the spur to follow the spiritual life, but it...
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Death’s Three Messengers
zengateway's podcast
In this talk, which coincides with Halloween, a young man on his wedding day finds himself standing in front of Yama, Lord and Judge of the Dead. The man bitterly complains having been taken away before his time and Yama in an unusual gesture of compassion agrees to send him back and also offers to send the young man three messengers so that he will be reminded that is time will come. What happens when the now older man finds himself once more before Yama teaches us that facing the truth of our own impermanent nature is so easily forgotten. Not because we are not surrounded by Yama’s...
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The Power of Now
zengateway's podcast
Jamie Shavdia () and Martin Goodson discuss the hugely popular book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. In this podcast, they discuss where this book sits in the development of contemporary spirituality and psychotherapeutic treatments which introduce the present moment as a psychological medicine for many of our modern complaints. Eckhart Tolle had what he described as an ‘enlightenment experience’ spontaneously, following bouts of deep depression and suicidal ideation. Jamie and Martin discuss the fact that there are some people who, without any prior spiritual training, do have...
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Rinzai 35: Do not follow the 10,000 things
zengateway's podcast
‘Followers of the Way, if you want to become Buddha, do not follow the ten thousand things. When the heart arises the ten thousand things arise too. When the heart is stilled, the manifold things cease. And when the heart does not rise, the ten thousand things are without blame. In the world and beyond the world, neither Buddha nor Dharma manifest themselves nor do they disappear. Though things exist they are only as names and words, sentences and catch phrases to attract little children; or expedient remedies for treating diseases, superficially revealed as names and phrases.’ The...
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Do you know Buddha from Mara?
zengateway's podcast
In this podcast: What are the characteristics of delusion and delusive seeing? What is the connection between suffering and delusion? How truth can become toxic. Karma and habitual thinking and seeing. --------- A man who has left home should know how to see clearly and calmly, should know Buddha from Mara, the true from the false, the worldly from the sacred. If he has got this knowledge, he can truly be called a leaver of home. If he does not know Buddha from Mara, then in effect he leaves one home only to enter another, and is what is called a...
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Troubleshooting Zen Study & Practice 55
zengateway's podcast
Q) Will all the problems go away when I stop thinking about them? ….. In this podcast: • The context for this question - mental health crisis over climate change etc. • The disciple who reads the Vedas three times (introvert approach) • Problem solving and the difference between the extrovert and the introvert approach • God, grant me the serenity to accept the things • I cannot change, • The courage to change the things I can, • And the wisdom to know the difference. (The...
info_outlineQ) Will all the problems go away when I stop thinking about them?
…..
In this podcast:
• The context for this question - mental health crisis over climate change etc.
• The disciple who reads the Vedas three times (introvert approach)
• Problem solving and the difference between the extrovert and the introvert approach
• God, grant me the serenity to accept the things
• I cannot change,
• The courage to change the things I can,
• And the wisdom to know the difference. (The Serenity Prayer Reinhold Niebuhr)
• Sitting with the dying and emptiness of the heart.