The Life of Training

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

Follow this link to see the October 2019 Priory Newsletter where this was originally published.

– By, Rev. Master Daizui Macphillamy Head of our Order from 1996 to 2002

This transcription, originally published in the Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives is of part of a talk given during Jukai at Shasta Abbey in the 1990s, edited by Rev. Master Hugh.

Huineng’s Robe Sculpture at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey

When do we start Buddhist training? When do we keep on training? You start training – at least I did – when you see someone else training. Because, well, how else am I going to know it’s possible! Reading books is great, but… (sigh) for me at least, it takes seeing someone else walking the path. So that’s how I know, when I see someone else walking the path. And we’ll come back to that point.

There is a saying that, “When the student is ready the teacher appears.” Unfortunately a number of people take this as something magical: that somehow the Continue reading →

A Mistake Was Made: Taking a Problem to Meditation

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

Follow this link to see the Priory Newsletter where this was originally published.

Recently, someone was asking me, via email, about some turbulent difficulties they were having with a family member and it seemed like it might be helpful to share a revised and expanded version of my written response to that person.

Just talking with someone else about a difficult situation can be helpful in clarifying what might be going on, but bringing a problem to practice can add an extra dimension to our insight and, in addition to the help this might add to resolving the trouble, it can also help us to deepen our practice.

One of the things that emerges when we bring our troubles to practice Continue reading →

Just Drop It

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

Follow this link to see the Priory Newsletter where this was originally published.

Shasta Abbey's Great BellIt is axiomatic that the most important aspect of Zen is the practice of meditation. But, it is also very important that meditation be practiced in the context of the other aspects of Buddhism. Meditation practiced in the context of preceptual inquiry and restraint becomes a life of compassion. Meditation in the context of the Eightfold Path is Buddhist meditation and all of this rests on the bedrock of compassion: if the outcome of our practice is suffering, then maybe we have gone astray from at least the Buddhadharma, but also from our own basic intention?

I say all of this, in part, for context as I zero in on an important aspect of the mind of Zazen, the aspect of just dropping whatever arises in the mind. When we sit down to meditate, our technique is to pay attention and when we notice that our mind is wandering around in some stream of thought, we just Continue reading →