Teisho Today Archives
Welcome to the Teisho Today archives where we present our most recent Daily Zen Journals as audio files for your enjoyment. Over time we aim to have the entire library of journals available in this format, however, this is a work in progress as the first journal was released in 1998, and this is now 2022!
Join us on this journey as Daily Zen evolves and grows into the present moment heading into our 25th year.
Dharma Talks – Part 2
Dull-witted as I am, I think if I put my mind to it, I could probably remember a couple of anecdotes to tell people. But that would be like feeding them poison. I don’t want to do that.
Discourse of Master Po Shan – Part 2
In ancient times people could enter Dhyana while tilling the land, picking peaches or doing anything. It was never a matter of sitting idly for prolonged periods, engaged in forcefully suppressing one’s thoughts.
The Basis of Awareness
Expand enlightenment, and the mind is always calm; go along with things, and consciousness runs at a gallop.
On the Transmission of Mind – Part 4
People are often hindered by environmental phenomena from perceiving Mind, and by individual events from perceiving principles; so they often try to escape from environmental phenomena in order to still their minds, or to obscure events in order to retain their grasp on principles.
Selections from the Song of Awakening – Part 2
What then is this transparent jewel whose breadth, height, and depth are without limit, within which the past, the present, and the future transpire?
One Practice Samahdi – Part 2
Deluded people are unaware, so they turn things upside down with their attachments. There are hundreds of such people who teach the Way like this. But they are, you should know, greatly mistaken.
Bodhidarma’s Bloodstream Sermon – Part 2
To find a buddha, all you have to do is see your nature. Your nature is buddha. And the buddha is the person who’s free, free of plans, free of cares.
Essentials for Cultivating the Mind – Part 3
One who comprehends the mind that is the source of all dharmas always understands everything.
On Gardens and The Way
A passage about gardens and how they can connect us with our practice
Guidelines for Studying the Way
Fearing the swift passage of sunlight, practice the Way as though saving your head from fire.
Always Mindful
Whether deep in the mountain valleys or in the bustling villages and towns, they never turned their back on being mindful for an instant.
Dreaming Asleep and Awake
Sincere and rigorous practice lets us calm both body and mind, which in turn allows us, day by day, to reduce our karmic obstructions.
Other Ways to Do Zen
Though sitting in the upright position is the very best way to perfect your body, there are innumerable occasions when you must get bodily involved in the things and conditions of the worldly.
Opening the Hand of Thought – Part 2
The feeling of opening one’s hand is a manifestation of non attachment.
Stillness in Action
While Takashina Rōsen’s piece sounds so simple, it embodies a deep principle of practice. And one that is easy for everyone to relate to.
Buddhism is Natural Truth
There seems to be as many descriptions of Buddhism as there are teachers and schools; each represents a different way of interpreting the essential teachings of Buddha.
Advice and Encouragement
With the change in colors and the sense of pause before the next step in the natural world, what better time than now to recharge our practice?
Discourse of Master Han Shan – Part 2
Such simplicity and clarity breaks through our tendency to complicate practice, something we all have done and still do at times.
Absorption in the Treasury of Light
Unless you form an alliance with the family of Buddhas lifetime after lifetime, how can you grasp what you hear in a lecture like this? Make sure that you do not become further estranged and further remote from it.
What is Zen?
Zen is discipline in enlightenment. Enlightenment means emancipation. And emancipation is no less than freedom.
Treatise on the True Sudden Enlightenment School – Part 3
The Great Path is fused with Mind, revealing the true pattern of reality. All worthy sages past and future tend toward this gate. For those who awaken, the triple world is only mind. Those who do not awaken create dreams as they sleep.
Wake-up Sermon – Part 4
Without the mind there’s no buddha means that the buddha comes from the mind. The mind gives birth to the buddha. But while the buddha comes from the mind, the mind doesn’t come from the buddha.
The Practice of True Reality – Part 2
The practice of true reality is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. When you have fathomed this you cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions
Joyously Alive
The essential requirement in studying Zen is concentrated focus. You don’t engage in any forced actions; you just keep to the Fundamental. Right where you stand, you must pass through to freedom.
Sayings and Dialogues
The mind of a Wayfarer is plain and direct, without artificiality. There is no rejection and no attachment, no deceptive wandering mind. At all times seeing and hearing are normal. There are no further details.
Since I Became Buddha – Part 2
Some people misunderstand the implications of this. They think, “What a wonderful law. We all live in paradise, and we’re all Buddha. So there’s nothing to do. We don’t have to study, or work, or make progress. We can do anything we want, can’t we?”
Since I became Buddha – Part 1
We tend to think that it has only been 2,500 years or so since the historical Buddha became enlightened, taught, and entered nirvana. So how could he have said at the time after his enlightenment that it had already been an incomprehensible period since he had been enlightened?
The Sermon of No Words
Whether we call what we do Zen practice or Buddhism or Humanism or any other ism, the higher vision of what we can be here is to walk our talk. This action-from-stillness way of life is what we live each day in our actions.
Mind of Enlightenment, Great Compassion, and Skillful Means
The path that all the buddhas teach is the same and is of a single universal taste. It is totally free from all differentiation like empty space and is the ground of all things like the great earth.
Hakuin’s Song of Meditation
In the original, the Song of Meditation is written in very easy language. Before Hakuin, Zen in Japan had not quite given up its Chinese flavor, but with him it became completely Japanese.
Silent Illumination – Part 1
The style of meditation called Silent Illumination is one of the greatest practices of the Chan (Zen) tradition. Originating around the eleventh century, its greatest advocate was Master Hongzhi Zhengjue of the Caodong sect.
The Empty Bowl Sutra
Once when the Bhagavan was dwelling near Sravasti in the Anapindada Garden of the Jeta Forest and expounding the Dharma to the assembly, Manjushri Bodhisattva put on his robe at dawn, picked up his bowl, and proceeded slowly toward the city.
Cultivation and Worldly Activities
For farmers the growing of crops is kufu; for carpenters and plasterers the construction of buildings is kufu. Drawing on this secular meaning, the word came to indicate cultivation of the Buddhadharma for seekers of the Way.
Wisdom and Ignorance
In the evening Rahula finished his meditation practice, went to the Buddha and asked, “O World-Honored One, how should one master mindful breathing, and what great benefit is there?”
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.
Practice of Meditation
Ultimately, all true learning is done on one’s own
