Dealings With Pain

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the February 2024 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

Anna Ayse Atika, OBC

— The Netherlands —

This article first appeared as a posting on the blog Jade Mountains Buddha Hall in autumn of 2009. The article also appears in the winter 2009 edition of the Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. It appears here with permission of the author.

Ayse is a lay minister of the OBC living in the Netherlands. She contributes, with other lay ministers of the Order, to the blog Dew on the Grass.

A photograph of a collection of objects arranged on a table to form an altar. At the center of the altar sits a small statue of Shakyamuni Buddha sitting on a raised platform with a cup placed in front of the statue. Other objects are placed around the altar, including: a statue of Kanzeon Bodhisattva, a figurine of an elephant, flowers in a pot, a basket, and a photograph of Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett.

Rev. Leon’s Personal Altar

Due to orthopaedic surgeries and treatments I have been dealing with long periods of excessive physical pain. Because of my body’s condition, being without pain is a rare thing in general. So training with pain is a necessity. The following is an excerpt of sorts, some bits and pieces on my personal dealings with pain. I guess what I am learning in the process is in essence applicable to any form of difficulty or Continue reading →

Do You Need To Be Religious To Practice Zen?

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the January 2024 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

– Rev. Master Berwyn Watson, Abbot of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, Northumberland, UK.

(This article originally appeared in the Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplative and can be viewed here. It appears in this newsletter by kind permission of the Journal and the author.)

A photograph of a Buddhist shrine with various and festive ceremonial objects. At the center of the shrine sits a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha seated in meditation

Enlightenment Day 2023

The brief answer is: it depends on what you mean by ‘religious’. If we see ‘being religious’ as believing in a set of religious doctrines that define belonging to a particular religion, then I would say the answer is ‘no’.1 If by being religious we are implying that we would have faith in something more than just what we know now, I would have to say ‘yes’.

There are two reasons why faith cannot be left out of Zen practice. Firstly, I don’t believe that the Sōtō Zen tradition can be separated from the Buddhist tradition as a whole. And despite attempts from some to be selective and create a western form of ‘secular Buddhism’, the Buddhist tradition usually implies some form of faith in its various forms.2  This is especially true in terms of actual Buddhist practice. It is just about possible to write an academic book about Buddhism and say its doctrines are ‘secular’ in many ways. But this leaves out the important fact that Buddhism is actually practiced by Continue reading →

Praise and Blame

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the December 2023 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

A photograph showing a statue within a garden. The statue sits under a tree and is surrounded by autumn leaves, both on the tree and on the ground

Kanzeon Sits Quietly In Impermanence

There is a traditional teaching in Buddhism about what are called the “Eight Worldly Conditions.” These conditions are gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame and pleasure and pain. (These conditions are mentioned in the Dutiyalokadhammasutta one of the sections from a collection of Buddhist sutras called the Aṅguttara Nikāya.)

The sutra opens with the Buddha saying “Bhikkhus, these eight worldly conditions revolve around the world, and the world revolves around these eight worldly conditions;” it is said that these conditions will always be present in our lives. They will always be present and they will always be impermanent and therefore unreliable. Although we can appreciate gaining good things, they will inevitably and eventually pass away. Although we try to preserve what we have, what we have we will eventually lose.

We can tend to think that we should grasp after the positive and push away the negative: we like and want to pursue praise, and we do not like and want to avoid blame or criticism. But the Dharma suggests that this will be Continue reading →