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.
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
So you want to be a meditator? Read More »
No birth and no death What I am at now doesn’t know that it is alive, it has no need to see itself in this way and so it doesn’t fear or doubt death either. Sometimes this is clear, sometimes it isn’t. What is clear is that this life is not a possession of mine
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Because the way of zazen is indivisible from everything, it is the activity of faith. If there’s any division, then faith in enlightenment cannot take effect and it becomes belief. Faith opens up experience, effecting a receptive and responsive engagement within time and place. There are aspects of trust in this but this trust is
Without impermanence, there would be no beauty. If it were possible to eradicate impermanence, from that point on there would only be a hellish eternity where nothing moves or breathes. My shoes Then and now, now Doubting impermanence, we may attempt to create a permanence and imagine that it is working. This could be a
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“When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly”. This dropping away is integral to the practice of zazen and the Soto Zen tradition, it is immediate realization of our true form and the
Wherever we are, whatever is going on, attention can move effortlessly around breathing, thought, sensation, the immediate surroundings, and so on. This integrated functioning is not special and is not a skill acquired through a technique, something to switch on or off. It’s the functioning wisdom of our real nature. We have probably become
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In trying to become an accepting person, we get in our own way and smother the possibility of real acceptance. At best we make a clumsy imitation of what is always energetically liberated, cannot be contained and is simply unconditional. If our actions are tinted with signs of resigned frustration, defensiveness, striving and the like,
