With the help of a months-long training program, a senior member dedicates himself to volunteer with people struggling with sickness, old, age, and death A couple years ago, I noticed that my collection of books about illness, end of life, dying, and death had overflowed from a third shelf onto a fourth. Around the same…

A vintage koan commentary by the Center’s founder, the late Roshi Philip Kapleau. Mumonkan number 35: Sei and her soul separate The Case Goso asked a monk, “Sei and her soul separated—which is the true one?” The Commentary If you realize the One, you will know that we pass from one husk to another like…

So, what happens when the backward step is taken on the mat or through the looking glass of the mind and we turn the instrument of our being back onto being itself?

Koan commentary How can we convey the teaching beyond words and letters… in words? Once, when the World-Honored One in ancient times was upon Vulture Peak, he held up a flower before the assembly of monks. At this all were silent. The Venerable Kashyapa alone broke into a smile. The World-Honored One said, “I have…

We have, perhaps, a little veto power over what feelings impel us to do, but the idea of some rational decision maker who’s in charge seems to be a fiction of the mind.

A vintage koan commentary by the Center’s founder, the late Roshi Philip Kapleau. Mumonkan number 14: Nansen kills the cat The Case Once the monks of the Western and Eastern Halls were arguing about a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “You monks! If you can say a word of Zen, I will spare…

Searching for solidarity: when technology helps more than it hurts.
A gender-questioning member finds warm support in a private online group.

“Both painting and sitting require a willingness to stay in one place for hours.” An interview with Dave Dorsey.

A few rounds with a new sitting group trigger a maddening case of Zen snob stink.

The First Buddhist Precept — to resolve not to kill — sounds deceptively simple, and yet it can be a lifelong koan.