Teachings

If you are not attached to anything, then you are free. If you hold something you are hindered.

If you have no direction, any problem is a big problem and brings much suffering.
But our practicing is only go straight – don’t check I-my-me.

All I can say to you is just try to be kind.
That's the biggest kong-an

The most common explanation about karma is cause and effect.
What’s important is what kind of choices you make.

That's the Buddha's complete stillness mind. When sitting, be still. When chanting, be still. When bowing, eating, talking, walking, reading or driving, only be still. This is keeping a not moving mind, which is only do it mind. We call that try mind.

Like or dislike is what creates a prison that we live in. So if you only practice when you want to practice and then don’t practice when you don’t want to practice, that’s a fundamental problem.

Question: Have you ever encountered any magical event?

We just sat for one half hour. Sometimes the clock goes very slow, sometimes it goes very fast. Sometimes your leg hurts, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes your mind is clear, sometimes it is not. Here’s the interesting thing, all of that was yours. That was your experience. That wasn’t anybody else’s idea, that was your idea. That’s what Zen means, “make your life yours."

Our practice is based on finding your center and making your center steady. Sometimes we say, „make your center strong.”

Nobody guarantees our life. So if there is anything that you think may be useful, just now is the time to use it. In our life, past mind cannot be attained.

When we return to don't know, our job is always right in front of us. In fact our whole life is just that moment! But if we immediately re-enter the realm of like or dislike, then we can never find our job.

Our minds are just insane. They're totally nuts. That’s what we do all the time. We go around making meanings, we make this good, this bad, something that I see as a lovely image of flowers and you see it as poisonous mushrooms — we’re both making something. We’re both doing that. It’s just exactly what it is.