Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

Photograph of Chinju-ki, 2004, over Dainen-ji  taken by Rev. Jido Comeau anagarikaPhotograph of Chinju-ki, 2004, over Dainen-ji taken by Rev. Jido Comeau anagarika

This evening the moon is almost full, bright right through the clouds. Tomorrow evening will be the Harvest Moon of Chinju-ki but this O-sesshin will end before then.

Zhaozhou and the opening lines of the Xinxin Ming appear again in the Hekiganroku in Case 57, Case 58, and Case 59. The cases are not connected in the sense of a developing story and so these three cases are not like a trilogy but are more like a triptych, in this case showing the same thing from three different perspectives. What we see is Zhaozhou's point of view and how he embodies the Vast Way in his interactions. In these cases we see students approaching the Master to engage in "hossen" or "Dharma combat".

The tradition of Dharma combat is one in which a student or a master approaches another with a question or statement that expresses their own understanding and realization of Zen. This is unlike kien-mondo or a question and answer encounter as the intent is not so much to ask a question and receive an answer but rather definitely one of putting oneself forward, exposing oneself, and challenging the other. This was not a matter of a debate in which the argument is won by marshalling facts or supporting evidence or through more consistent logic. The purpose of hossen was to sharpen one's understanding and one's ability to express it not only verbally but in one's deportment as a whole. While it might seem in such stories as if students are sometimes being rather rude, and certainly the Teachers can sometimes seem extremely stern or brutal, these were just the rules of that ancient game in the Tang and early Song dynasties.

Many koan consist of records of such hossen and are used in koan study in which a formal student studies the koan intimately within their own practice and with their Teacher in daisan or dokusan. This provides an opportunity for the student to learn many things about how they confuse themselves, how to see into a situation from different perspectives, to understand the relevant view and so themselves come to the same understanding that Teachers and students have come to for hundreds of years, and how to express that understanding in a kind of playful performance. Koan study is a rigorous course in learning how to think rather than just have thoughts. It is also an opportunity for deep study of various aspects of the Dharma and for the student to not only deepen their understanding but begin to take responsibility for that understanding through expressing it.


- Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, concluding teisho 24: Three Cases of Zhaozhou part one (Hekiganroku 57, 58, 59) from the series "Without Difficulty: Commentaries on Jianzhi Sengcan's Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness,” Thursday, October 5th, 2006. (If strange characters instead of 漢字 hanji or kanji appear this means that you need to enable UTF-8 in your Character Encoding settings.)

Every Breath You Take 92: Seeing People Unarmed

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, November 27th, 2010

Breathing in and out,
in the bright, clear morning of the Hatto,
a little bit of snow has fallen outside and light reflected off the snow brightens the day even further.

So you're breathing in and out,
you're alive...
for now.
But since now is what's going on,
feel that breath,
sit up straight,
open that eye gaze,
notice seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, smelling,
the clothes on your body,
this moment:
bright
right now.

The verse:

Seeing people unarmed,

Every Breath You Take 91: Seeing Armored People

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, November 6th, 2010

It's a funny thing,
when we let it,
when we are willing to take the chance,
EVERY BREATH WE TAKE
can show us what it is to be a human being.
It can show us misunderstandings.
It can show us that not only do we not know everything, we really don't know anything at all.
That's kind of funny.

But...

Universally, we pretend that we know,
we know the right way,
we know the right way to be,
we know how everyone else should be.

Sounds kind of harmless,

Too Intimate to be Personal (2): This Time It’s Personal

Please don’t take this personally... because what we consider to be our personality is generally only a gathering of contractions: grasping and clenching and recoiling and refusing the openness of reality. You will often hear Anzan Hoshin roshi, Eihei Dogen zenji, Keizan Jokin zenji and the other Awakened Ancestors speak of “intimacy”. Yet students seldom understand what they mean. “Intimacy” seems to be something they experience only very rarely and momentarily, it is something exceptional. And yet the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors speak of it as the ordinary quality of each moment.

Every Breath You Take 90: Seeing People Who Are Disciplined

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, October 30th, 2010

Feel that breath.
Feel the rise and fall of the shoulders,
the ribs.
Feel the movement of the clothing on your body.
See the seeing,
colours and forms.
And sounds...
hear the hearing.
Notice anything that's arising.

At the moment of noticing anything whatsoever,
and that anything can be a little squiggly thing floating in the jelly of your eye,
or it can be a thought,
or it can be a sensation in the knee,
anything
whatsoever,

Every Breath You Take 88: Seeing Aristocrats

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, October 16th, 2010

This whispering of the leaves reminds us that everything that's born will die.
Those leaves were once just little buds and then they unfurled,
spent the summer doing their thing,
making food,
and now it's time...
The colours come out,
the green disappears and then the leaf falls from the tree.

But in the meantime, there's the whispering, moved by the same air which you are breathing in and out.

Every Breath You Take 87: Seeing Mendicants

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, October 2nd, 2010

Well, up to this point the breath has been rattling the bones in each and every one of you, so you are alive.

“Eh... who cares?”

“Yeah. Hrmph. But there's so much that I have to do...”

“Oh my goodness, here I am, I'm sitting on a beautiful, beautiful October morning and I have to write that letter...”

or

“I have to take care of this thing, what am I doing?”

And then there's a moment, you go: “Oh!” and Knowing, which is what you really are, says:

Every Breath You Take 81: Seeing People Who are Happy

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, July 10th, 2010

Yesterday, here in Ottawa
it was hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot...
People were walking on the street,
they were riding on the buses,
they were riding their bikes,
they were riding in their cars,
shiny with sweat.

Every Breath You Take 86: Seeing People Without Gratitude

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, September 18th, 2010

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE
can be felt with the whole bodymind
each cell vibrates with the oxygen
that supplies the energy
that in the mitochondria in the body
ignites
and provides energy.

The verse today is:

Seeing people without gratitude,
"May all beings
Not add to the punishment
Of those who are hurtful."

Well. Well well well. Well...

Every Breath You Take 85: Seeing People Who are Grateful

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, September 4th, 2010

Breathing in,
breathing out,
bones rattling, creaking, groaning,
celebrating life in this moment,
which is the only place
that this life
is taking place...

Every Breath You Take 83: Seeing People in Good Health

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
Dainen-ji, July 24, 2010

Maybe you woke up this morning and a thought came up that you “weren't feeling very well” or maybe a thought came up: “Oh wow! Feeling great!...”

“Oh, not so much...”

Regardless,
regardless of wanting to come to sit,
not wanting to come to sit,
feeling good, feeling bad,
growing older by the nanosecond,
you all put your feet on the floor, put one in front of the other,
maybe noticed the breath moving the body in and out,

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