This story about Buddha's dharma heir Mahakassapa and his consort Bhadda Kapilani is taken from the book, The Hidden Lamp, a compendium of stories of awakened women through the centuries. It tells of how two people navigated their practice and love for one another at the same time, and how in cooling their passions they… Continue reading Bhadda Kapilani and Mahakassapa: Going Forth Together
Category: The Masters
Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra
The Maka Hannya Haramita Shingyo - often referred to as the Heart Sutra - is the most ubiquitous sutra of the Mahayana canon. It forms part of a much longer work called the Prajnaparamita Sutra - the Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom - which was composed between 100 BCE and 500 CE. The Heart… Continue reading Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra
Muso’s Green Mountains
Muso Soseki was a Japanese monk born in the 13th century who achieved satori at the age of 30 while staying in a hermitage in the countryside. One night he was walking about in the dark and reached out for a wall he thought was there. When he realized it wasn't, he gave a great… Continue reading Muso’s Green Mountains
Host and Guest
The theme of host and guest is popular within Chinese Zen, broadly used to illustrate the interplay between relative and absolute. One of Zen's major tenets is that our personalities and beliefs are not absolute, but rather 'guests' within an impenetrable 'host'. This relationship then becomes more complex when we talk about guests within hosts… Continue reading Host and Guest
Swift Clouds and the Jewel Hare
This short poem by an 11th century Chinese poet called Gen of Kohoin is written as an uncomplaining, almost joyful anticipation of death. The Jewel Hare he refers to in the last line is a classic image for the moon, after the myth of the rabbit on the moon's face. At ninety-nine, snowy side-locks,… Continue reading Swift Clouds and the Jewel Hare
From Huineng’s Platform Sutra: What Does Maha Mean?
Huineng was an illiterate woodcutter who became a Zen master and the sixth patriarch of Ch'an in China. His defining work is the Platform Sutra which emphasizes the importance of direct experience over intellect and learning in the study of Zen. In this extract from the second chapter of the sutra, entitled 'Prajna', he talks… Continue reading From Huineng’s Platform Sutra: What Does Maha Mean?
Alive Without Being Born
Master Hongzhi Zhengjue was a 12th century Chinese monk and author of the famous collection of koans, the Book of Serenity. Like Eihei Dogen, he was also resident on Mount Tiantong (close to present-day Shanghai), but preceded the Japanese master by about a century. Nonetheless, Dogen was inspired by Hongzhi's writings and quoted him a lot… Continue reading Alive Without Being Born
The Hsin Hsin Ming
The Hsin Hsin Ming, known as the Shinjinmei in Japan, is attributed to Master Sengcan (Kanchi Sosan in Japanese), the third ancestor in China. One of the earliest Zen teaching poems from China, the Hsin Hsin Ming emphasizes that the Great Way is not involved in the game of opposites, and that in order to… Continue reading The Hsin Hsin Ming
Rumi’s Guest House
Jelalludin Rumi was a Sufi mystic who lived in the thirteenth century and was a contemporary of the Zen master Dogen. Rumi's poetry transcends cultural and religious borders to appeal to a vast readership, mainly on account of its humanity and sincere ecstatic engagement with life's questions. In this poem, The Guest House, Rumi was… Continue reading Rumi’s Guest House
The Genjo-koan (Part 2)
This is the second part of Dogen Zenji's Genjo-koan, (read the first part here), one of the most fundamental chapters of the Shobogenzo which illustrates the key tenets of Soto Zen philosophy. In this second half of the text, Dogen talks about the mystery of knowing the elements we live in and how practice occurs… Continue reading The Genjo-koan (Part 2)