Sublime

To nurture wisdom simply requires listening to others. Immeasurable knowledge comes from this. Compassion is for the sake of others. It is opting to do good things for other people rather than through selfish motives. Courage is found through “gritting one’s teeth.” That is to say, gritting one’s teeth and charging forth without concern for the con

Rinzai Roku (a celebrated Zen text of the T’ang dynasty) and the teachings of Bankei, the seventeenth-century Japanese master who, for me, represents Zen at its best.

Ma-tsu had another notable disciple in Po-chang (720–814), who is said to have organized the first purely Zen community of monks and to have laid down its regulations on the principle that “a day of no working is a day of no eating.” Since his time a strong emphasis on manual work and some degree of self-support has been characteristic of Zen commu

Surya Das, who looks 110 percent Jewish,

He teaches that by practicing Zen and coming to the same experience as Shakyamuni Buddha — the realization of the empty-oneness of all beings — we can transcend the divisions that separate us and find true peace in our hearts and in this world.

Yuiken leader Tosaka’s charting of three political currents in mid-1930s Japan: liberalism, Marxism, and Japanism (Nihon shugi), which Tosaka defined as the Japanese version of fascism.

Those of us who have even a curiosity about the Vajrayana must have some merit. And to actually encounter someone willing and able to teach is something truly precious.

A true teacher values experience over concepts.

moved out of Manhattan to a Brooklyn neighborhood where he teaches yoga and meditation