articles by Willard
These aren’t written with a particular audience in mind other than anyone who wishes to read them. I suspect that they might not make much sense to someone completely new to Soto Zen practice, (they might not to anyone).
This isn’t to say that they are ‘advanced’ in any way. Zazen though, does change how we habitually see ourselves and the world. The mind of the way is not limited to commonly accepted ways of understanding and it doesn’t stand against them either. In other words, the mind isn’t caught in opposites and this may contribute to some difficulties in reading.
I have posted some information on suggested introductory reading on this page.
Articles here may be continued to be worked on.
The Dharma Gate of No Restriction If you want to realize what the Buddha taught, then simply: when eating, just eat; when walking, just walk; when sitting, just sit; when thinking, just think; when talking, just talk, and so on. That’s it, gather yourself together, diligently apply yourself to directness, and let your intrinsic nature […]
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Compassion and a dreamlike world The material and physical world is as dreamlike as the world of the mind. So the self of a human being is dreamlike too. Dreamlike – but not – a dream. Though both are equally valid aspects of experience, they are not the same. Part of the ongoing examination of
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What do I get? ‘And what is blind ignorance? All wordly beings from time immemorial have matters turned around in a variety of ways so that they keep returning to the same place, just as anyone does who is lost and wanders off in all directions. They mistakenly perceive the four elements to be properties
Stages If you think of practice in the sense of a verb, then it’s an activity. The activity of practice is the giving of yourself to respecting (being attentive to), allowing for and immersing yourself in, your true nature. Your true nature manifests as you are respecting and loving it. The meaning of true nature
Beggars Banquet All that continues to obstruct you revolves around thought. Both acceptance and faith are active states of unobstructed being. Letting go of thought is how acceptance and faith are made actual. Acceptance and faith are essentially two sides of the same coin, which is worth reflecting on, I think. Both reveal the immeasurable
Just eat “To just eat a meal, is the most difficult thing in the world.”* When you eat, do you ever just eat? Forgetting for a moment any meals that you share with others, if you find yourself sitting down and eating alone, do you ever just eat or do you always have to have
Willingness to change It’s akin to a disaster for a meditator to approach life from fixed viewpoints (attitudes) of knowing, or not-knowing. Both are like a solid walls between the supposed self and everything else “out there”. Knowing pushes a wall onto the world and not-knowing is like a wall that hides from the world,
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The joyful activity of the life of meditation cannot be taken away by anything. Whatever comes, pleasurable or painful, is liberated when freed from the tight grip of a self concerned with itself. The open way of what is good to do can always be found. This joy is not whimsical or reckless, within its
Words Sandokai1, a well known Buddhist teaching poem, contains the lines, “If from your experience of the senses basic truth you do not know, how can you ever find the path that certain is, no matter how far distant you may walk?” It’s straightforward enough to understand the logic of of such a simple piece
So you want to be a meditator? The founder of the OBC, RM Jiyu, said something along the lines of, “it is better not to start at all, than to start and then try to stop”. Once the bliss of ignorance has had a little light shone on it, it will be painful to try
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