In this talk, Gyodo Sensei share a passage from Hongzhi's Cultivating the Empty Field titled “ The Practice of True Reality.” The practice of true reality is to be present with true reality, even when we face hardship or adversity. Zen path embraces meditation as the front door for shifting our relationship with ourself and our hardships. To practice true reality, vulnerable and open, tender and unhindered.

The antidote for the poison of ignorance of delusion is wisdom, or clear seeing into our true nature. But this wisdom is not something you can attain — and there is no shortcut. It arises as embodied experience through the practice of not-knowing or not-abiding in anything. Including not abiding in not-abiding. No one to abide. No one to not-abide. Not getting stuck anywhere.

In the Shobogenzo, Dogen encourages us to “simply release and forget both your body and mind and throw yourself into the House of Buddha.” Releasing our ideas about the ways things are, our preferences, opinions, and truths, and our desire for clarity, "then there can be no obstacle in anyone’s mind.” This spirit of practice is essential.

Ignorance is one of the three poisons that the Buddha taught which create all suffering, and it’s also the root of all three. To counteract ignorance, we have to choose to live with what is, including our confusion — to radically accept everything, including ignorance itself. This is the spirit of the Holy Fool, the grace of foolishness. Can you live like this, and also not attach to ignorance either?

The first collection of koans in our lineage is called the Mumonkan, or Gateless Gate. Mumon himself says “Zen has no gates”? And yet we chant “Omnipresent Dharma Gates I Vow to Experience.” How can something be both a gate and no gate at all? How do we experience a gateless gate?

When we turn the light inward and become a lamp unto ourself, we find our true power, our agency. In our delusion, we often give this power away. What type of wisdom and power unfolds when we make the decision to practice? How does agency differ from willfulness? How do we take responsibility for our actions, for our life?

The Buddha taught “Be a lamp unto your self.” To study the self, to become fully intimate with our life, we practice not resisting or grasping at anything we experience. Through this practice, we fundamentally shift our relationship with ourself, and find our true power — our agency — in our life, in our relationships and in our work in the world. This is the path of Zen.

What is delusion? Zen Master Dogen said "To carry youself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is enlightenment." Do you experience yourself as experiencing things? Or is life just happening?

Physical and Mental Postures are the essence of our Zen practice. By committing to and bringing our attention to postures of stillness, non-reactivity, non-thinking and non-interference in both our body and our mind, a transformation happens.

Our Zen practice is actually quite simple: be fully alive. When we experience our life fully with -- as Shishin Roshi encourages -- awareness, courage, and tenderness, we wake up to our true nature and find liberation. This is the essence of the Bardo teachings.

GYODO SENSEI | Impermanence is a primary seal of Buddhism -- it is the reality of life. Everything is always changing. We’re always in transition from one state to another. Our habit patterns of our mind are not very oriented to appreciating this constant transformation. Bardo practice help us to experience this at the most intimate level.

Faith, Doubt and Determination are the Three Pillars of our Zen Practice. Together, these qualities can serve as a firm foundation for our practice and as a useful guide to see where we may be out of balance.

In our life, we make and cling to distinctions, alive and dead, dreaming or awake, enlightenment or delusion — but it’s not like that. Everything seems to have a real existence, but when we look deeply and see reality as it is, we realize the line from the Lotus Sutra: "this fleeting world is like a phantom, like a dream.”

Tibetan Teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote about the experience of the Bardo as being both confused and awake at the same time, of the possibility of experiencing both absolute sanity and complete madness simultaneously. Both/And. This bothness is the quality of awakeness, of Zen -- to have all of our experience present at the same time.