Sublime

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

The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being “without anxiety about imperfection.”

Often when you go to a Western Dharma center you’ll find a shrine room full of shabbily dressed men and

Then we have the third category, or Sun. Sun has a sense of all-pervasive brilliance, which does not discriminate in the slightest.

Yantou said, “Don’t you know that the family treasure doesn’t come in by the gate? Let the teaching flow out from your own breast to cover the sky and the earth.” These ordinary words hit Xuefeng like a blow in the chest. His heart felt larger than all of space; he wept and shouted. He yelled out for joy, “Today Tortoise Mountain has finally awaken

Chi-fo says, “The reason Subhuti asked these questions was because he realized that in the Buddha’s everyday actions of wearing his robe, eating, washing his feet, and sitting down, he never stopped manifesting the marvelous workings of his true mind and that all such instruction contained the essence of perfect prajna. Hence, Subhuti’s words of pr

R. H. Blyth’s marvelous study of Zen in English Literature has shown most clearly that the essential insights of Zen are universal.