Please feel free to add comments/questions on anything you would like here!!
The Open Heart Zen Sangha:
This is an open forum for sangha to share and comment on anything at all related to practice. We begin every Wednesday in a circle where everyone is invited to introduce themselves and, if they so choose, share with the group any words they'd like.
Popular culture in the West is not a particularly clear teacher. Our taken for granted wisdom, nourished by so called "self-help" books, blogs, television programs, in a cruel irony, is actually not at all about the present.
The wisdom of so called "Self-Help" is like holding faith in a crystal ball that paints a gloomy future unless we achieve x, y, and z. Self-help culture is therefore not concerned with strategies for attending to the burning house that stands before us. It is only a manual for standing in the ashes. Even if we get the "hard abs," the chase is never over.
We never can be smart enough, happy enough, rich enough, kind enough: Self-help, from the popular Western perspective then has no use for the present.
The wonderful simplicity of Zen practice is it's utterly stubborn realism. Nothing is taken for granted. Every moment of our lives is to be studied. Every experience is a teacher.
The bedrock of all Buddhist practice is to understand the fundamental [...]
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The wisdom of so called "Self-Help" is like holding faith in a crystal ball that paints a gloomy future unless we achieve x, y, and z. Self-help culture is therefore not concerned with strategies for attending to the burning house that stands before us. It is only a manual for standing in the ashes. Even if we get the "hard abs," the chase is never over.
We never can be smart enough, happy enough, rich enough, kind enough: Self-help, from the popular Western perspective then has no use for the present.
The wonderful simplicity of Zen practice is it's utterly stubborn realism. Nothing is taken for granted. Every moment of our lives is to be studied. Every experience is a teacher.
The bedrock of all Buddhist practice is to understand the fundamental [...]