Choosing to Train

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the January 2021 Priory Newsletter where this was published.)

(The other day a Dharma friend mentioned that he found that the most difficult things for him to look at were often the most important things for him to look at. As we make choices as to how we might spend our time in the coming year, I hope that I will be able to make the choice to devote a little time to doing some sitting meditation. I hope that I will not avoid the looking and seeing, even though it is difficult and I offer this article as an encouragement in that direction. LK)

Rev. Master Rokuzan Kroenke

— Columbia Zen Buddhist Priory, Columbia, SC  – USA —

From Columbia Zen Buddhist Priory Newsletter, December 2005, Number 10. (Recently appeared in the Winter 2020, Journal of the OBC.) Used with permission from the author.

 

In our training, we have the choice to see our suffering as an opportunity to train or something to be run away from, to be solved, to be relieved. On some level, we all believe that happiness is our due. We believe that if we get everything right, we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is Continue reading →

How to Meditate: Part VII

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the December 2020 Priory Newsletter where this was published.)
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Rev. Master Koten Benson

This Article was originally published in the October 2020 Lions Gate Buddhist Priory Newsletter and is part of a series available on the Lions Gate Priory website. Also, the original Dharma talks are available as well (How to Meditate 1-7).

The following text is a transcription of the seventh and final part in a series of Dharma Talks offered by Rev. Master Koten to the community of Lions Gate Buddhist Priory in 2016. It was transcribed and edited by Tracy Kitagawa, Michele Feist, Pierre Kohl and Rev. Master Aurelian with minor revisions made for ease of reading.

Homage to the Buddha
Homage to the Dharma
Homage to the Sangha

Buddhism teaches that emptiness is simply empty of anything our minds can grasp and that this emptiness is the actual true nature of everything.

There is an old Japanese story of the Buddha trying to help somebody who was down in the deepest variety of, for lack of a better word we’ll call hell, but in Buddhism it doesn’t mean an eternal state. The Buddha saw this person suffering horribly Continue reading →

Generosity of Spirit

Portland Buddhist Priory Posted on by

(Follow this link to see the November 2020 Priory Newsletter where this was published.)

As autumn evolves, the garden begins to be a bit tattered, but the water in the fountain keeps steadily flowing!

The other day I was noticing how there is this quality of ungrudging kindness in the mind of meditation: this is the quality of mind that allows whatever is there to arise and be seen and felt without resistance or complaint. This quality is rooted in a confidence in the practice of meditation, a confidence that whatever arises can be helped to peace through the compassion of the Fundamental Mind of Buddha. I can’t say that I always notice the presence of this quality, but when I do, it is welcome.

This ungrudging kindness of mind reminded me of the idea of Generosity of Spirit that Rev. Master Jiyu encouraged in us and talks about in the short piece below. An important aspect of this generosity of spirit Continue reading →