Bright Way Zen

All of our various Zen garments: the Wagesa, the Rakusu, and the Kesa, correspond with different (entirely optional) sets of vows that can shape our lives. Domyo talks about the origin, appearance and meaning behind these items. Soki, who is considering priest ordination in our tradition, comments on her journey.

In this podcast Sangha member Tyler looks at the ways in which Zen practices are made to slow us down and how these practices have an affect on our brain that allows us to more fully enact our Buddhist ideals in our day to day life.

Four, long time Bright Way Zen Sangha members, take Zaike Tokudo.

Sōtō Zen, among religions, uniquely presents as a path of practice. There are many different ways to manifest your Bodhisattva vows along this path at Bright Way Zen, which include: Jukai, Zaike Tokudo, Shuso, etc. This is, in a way, a koan of Sōtō Zen practice - if there is nothing to attain, and nothing to achieve, then why do there seem to be goals?

In the foruth week of our annual precept study, Sangha member Dan leads a discussion on the Precept of Do Not Steal. Honour The Gift Not Yet Given.

Many Dōgen writings (as well as other Ch'an and Zen writings), although poetic, can seem vague and obscure. However, they can communicate the truth deeply and be quite profound through study. Domyo and Sangha members begin to read from and discuss this fascicle and its meaning.

This episode marks the first talk in our 12 week series on the precepts. In this first talk is led by our senior student Coral as she guides us through the Precepts as practice in our lineage, the The refuges and the karma verse.

Sangha As The Next Buddha

Social relationships can be very challenging to our practice. It's common for people to feel a sense of lack, rejection or inadequacy. How can we stay connected to one another and feel mutual acceptance and belonging? It starts with realizing everyone around you is suffering, and meeting them where they are - acknowledging their own inherent goodness and value, with a sense of responsibility and compassion for them as if they were our only child. When we adopt the attitudes of a Buddha, we transform ourselves and the world.

Pamela Ayo Yetunde writes in Casting Indra's Net: Fostering Spiritual Kinship and Community: "Mobbery is a process that centers on anger, energy, and power—it is the aggregation of personal anger into a collective anger that develops a power far beyond that of individuals. Mobbery entails using the energy of anger to find people who are angry about the same things you're angry about, then together harnessing this anger in ways that place blame on others. By taking no responsibility for soothing one's own anger and projecting blame collectively onto groups identified as "other," a new shared reality is created and allowed to harden. The more that angry people gather and strengthen one another, the more their sense of power intensifies. Those identified as others are vilified and attacked, and this is repeated over and over again. This dynamic builds momentum while demonstrating how the power of anger can be exerted on others and how such acts can be interpreted as victories."

Humans evolved to look out for our own interests but also developed the capacity for completely selfless action when we closely identify with a group. When we feel as much concern for another's wellbeing as we do for our own, you might call this a sense of "kinship." The Buddha taught us to practice extending Metta, or loving-kindness – just as a mother would feel for her only child – to all living beings without discrimination. We will discuss the evolutionary psychology perspective on human altruism, ways that our sense of kinship gets activated, and the implications for the way we operate in the world.

Mick shares his challenges to keeping a committed and confident practice at home, and reads from the Shobogenzo Zuimonki. Are we "vessels of the Dharma" even in our perceived inadequacies or difficulties? Is the big "E" attainable even if we feel too small for it? Dōgen's radical idea is that practice and enlightenment are not separate. It's when we return to this place, here and now, and simply do our practice that we can find that thing that we're looking for.

David Hinton makes the following argument in his book "China Root: On Taoism, Ch'an, and Original Zen" - that when Buddhism arrived in China from India, it was fundamentally reinterpreted and reshaped by Taoist thought, and then the resulting amalgam of Ch'an, or Zen, is so transformed by Taoism that it is scarcely recognizable as Buddhism at all. Our guiding teacher explores this idea in the context of how original Buddhist teachings combined with Mahayana features such as inherent Buddha nature, interdependence, thusness, "sudden" realization, and radical nondualism to manifest as the Ch'an or Zen that we recognize. A lively discussion follows.