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The Koan of Your Life:
The Koan of Your Life:
Living Encounters and Awakening Now
Living Encounters and Awakening Now
The Zen path describes itself with a fourfold phrase:
A distinct transmission beyond collected teachings,
Not established on words and language.
Directly pointing to the heartmind,
Encounter original nature and enact awake awareness—Be Buddha!
The path to wakefulness and liberation is relational—relating to oneself, with one another, with teachers. And with the objects, circumstances, and actions of everyday living. We can bring forth inherent freedom in each moment, relating and responding to life as it is, with natural wisdom and spontaneous compassion. Giving ourselves fully in this way, we can encounter, recognize, enact, and reveal what Zen calls our “original nature.”
The Zen tradition has handed down to us scraps of story which serve as encouraging evidence that this kind of relational awakening and living is possible. These enlightening stories are poetic distillations that reveal—and can offer to us—moments of liberating realization. Teachers present these encounter dialogues as skillful means to tease and invite the mind and heart to loosen the grip on habitual hindrances. Engaging these stories helps us meet life with free- flowing immediacy. But first they help us see where we are stuck in our conditioned answers to life. And where we are stuck is precisely where we encounter and realize freedom.
In this retreat, we’ll meet four of these stories and the fourfold phrase of Zen above. We’ll plunge into this way of relating through zazen and other Zen forms of moving, living, and loving together. We’ll enact it through silence and through dharma teaching, discussion, and activity.
Please join us as we encounter it together.
This retreat took place 10-12 October, 2024
Handouts shared for the retreat
Handout Koan of Your Life Day 1.pdfJohn Tarrant on Zen Koans Short Version.pdfOrdinary Mind is the Way.pdfHyakujō and the Fox.pdfChiyono’s No Water, No Moon.pdfSeijo’s Soul is Separated.pdfAll the Hemispheres.pdfHandouts Shared After the Retreat
Be Patient - Rainer Maria Rilke.pdfSekito Kisen - Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage.pdfThe Summer Day - Mary Oliver.pdfThe Buddha's Last Instruction - Mary Oliver.pdfJohshu and the Monk.pdfKobun Chino Roshi.pdfBooks Referenced During the Retreat:
Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch'an Buddhism - by Peter Hershock
Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity - Soko Morinaga
Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice - by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart by Blanche Hartman
Seeing One Thing Through: The Zen Life and Teachings of Sojun Mel Weitsman - by Mel Weitsman
History of the Female Ancestors
The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women Edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon
Women of the Way: Discovering 2,500 Years of Buddhist Wisdom by Sallie Tisdale
Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters by Grace Schireson
Koan Collections
The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans
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