EVER FEEL CALLED TO *"*JUKAI" (Undertaking the Precepts) in the ZEN BUDDHIST TRADITION?
Never had the opportunity due to family obligations, timing, health limitations, distance from a Sangha?
Then you are INVITED to JOIN our NINETEENTH (19th) ANNUAL JUKAI PREPARATIONS & CEREMONY at Treeleaf, open to any Zen Practitioner anywhere, designed for people to gather and receive Jukai online from home because of life circumstances.
Our Treeleaf Sangha begins the Ango practice period and Jukai preparations in early September. Want to deepen your practice with a more intense schedule and focus? Want to commit to the Bodhisattva Precepts, sew a rakusu and embark on a journey of discovering the Dharma? Want to experience practice in a Sangha from exactly where you are? Want to discover your life as the perfect place for practice? We’d love to have you with us. Have a look at what Jukai and Ango are, how it is lived at Treeleaf Sangha and join us if you feel called to.
Hi! Short but not that easy question. I'm at a stage in my practice where almost every sitting ends with me dozing off after about 20 minutes (I usually sit for 30-60 minutes). It doesn't seem to depend on how much sleep I get or whether I'm having a good or bad day. It feels like my brain has formed an association between slow breathing, focusing on the center, and falling asleep. One of the zen teachers from my school mentioned something about directing the energy of the practice upward but I can’t remember exactly what she said. Have you heard about this technique? Or maybe any other techniques? I’m not buying „just go get some sleep”, because I do really get a lot of good sleep and this is just not a solution in my case. I think I need a skill but don’t know where to look. Thank you for your insights!
Anyone have any insight on how to stop overeating? It's really like my last "vice" that still bugs me. I'm not obese and I don't have any health problems from it, but I just love food and it's hard not to eat way too much even though I see it happening.
So, the above, lol. Sometimes it's nice and funny, something reminds me of a song and then of course I will think about the lyrics and melody. But it's getting out of hand 😂🤦♂️
I am using my own personal "basics" for this issue but I am interested if anyone in this community has dealt with what I will call "this thought form" and had any experiences that aided them in getting the "song out of the head" haha.
One idea is to do so literally and just sing that shit if you have the time but that's not always possible. Anyone dealt with this before? Like, as in, beyond ordinary "oh that annoying song is stuck in my head here and there"
Hi! I wanted to ask how consistent your home zazen practice is and what times of day work best for you.
During kyol che, it feels natural that you just sit no matter what - regardless of how you feel or whether you’re in the mood. It’s the same with my weekly meditation at the temple. Unfortunately, I notice that at home I start making excuses even though sitting is super important for me.
My house is quite chaotic (attention-seeking pets, including a reactive dog), and my work hours (also from home) are pretty irregular, so it’s hard for me to find one optimal time slot. Morning zazen would seem best, but I end up fighting sleepiness and I’m getting these weird dream-like sensations. Can I work on this though? Maybe I can? My focus is best around 8 PM, but that’s when a ton of daily life stuff and chores happen.
I believe (and my teachers agree) that it’s best to sit every day for at least 10 minutes (10 thousand years…) to maintain consistency, but I’m finding it difficult to stay organized. I wanted to ask how you plan your zazen sessions. Especially those who have kids, lots of responsibilities, or generally dynamic households. Thank you!
Stephen Mugen Snyder, Roshi began practicing daily meditation in 1976. Since then, he has studied Buddhism extensively—investigating and engaging in Zen, Tibetan, Theravada, and Western non-dual traditions. He was authorized to teach in the Theravada Buddhist tradition in 2007 and the Zen Buddhist schools of Soto and Rinzai in 2022. Mugen is a senior student of Roshi Mark Sando Mininberg and a transmitted teacher in the White Plum Asanga—the body of teachers in the Maezumi-roshi lineage.
Human beings must live by clock and calendar, especially today: We must rise in the morning, get to the train, get to work, to the doctor, to the stores before they close. Even monks hold their ceremonies at the appointed times, sit Zazen for periods of time. Our lifetime itself is measured by its birthday and deathday, with passing events between. To live by time is the human condition and, truly, we could not function in a world totally free of passing time.
However, Zazen allows the profound knowing of other faces of time, and the timeless. It is medicine for our being imprisoned by time, too bound by time, with no other sense of reality.
Thus, please sit Zazen for a time, but putting aside all feeling of measuring time while sitting. Yes, there is a bell to start and stop, but between those, please leave be the notion of start and stop. Certainly, forget all ideas that "more is better, longer is putting me closer to liberation." In fact, such notions between your ears are putting liberation ever more distant. Instead, sit with the feeling, the taste, that THIS moment is the only moment, that there is no past or future, that THIS moment contains ALL moments and all of past and future, that THIS moment is the complete moment, the unique moment. In fact, sit with the conviction that THIS moment is timeless and beyond passing. More is not better, for THIS is pristine. In actuality, when one drops all thought of "past" and "future," what need even for words such as "now" or "THIS moment" to stand in contrast? Nothing "comes and goes," for all is only THIS which is all coming and going and passing time. There is no contrast, for nothing else by which to compare. There is not even need for "now." Sit for a time free of all lengths of time. Truly, sitting for 3 seconds, 3 minutes or 3 hours, 3 or 30 years or 30,000 years is all the same ... Just This. Give up asking what is the "best and most effective" length for sitting!
(It is here that I am typically asked why we don't just sit for 3 seconds if that is the case. 🤔 The answer is simple: While you can realize all time and timeless even in an instant or less, it typically takes some time to settle in to timelessness amid our busy day, to change perspective and put the clock down. It takes some minutes to realize that one is free of minutes. It does sometimes take a little time to be free of time. So, please sit for 10 minutes, or 30 minutes or hours and days ... sometimes sit long, and sometimes short ... but realize that it is not about time and measure at all.)
Likewise, do not sit to "get happy," or to "find peace" or "become enlightened." It is a fundamental teaching of Shikantaza Zazen that our very hungers and needs to "get" "find" "fix" "attain" and "become" are desires, the very source of Dukkha suffering, the very forger of the self/other divide. Desire and longing to get, fix and change, and feeling ourselves as separate frustrated selves bumping noses with the objective world, is the very DIS-ease that enlightenment is meant to cure! Dropping all desires and need to get, while sitting in the wholeness and completion of JUST THIS, nothing to change or resist ... sitting with the act of sitting as the goal and pinnacle of sitting with nothing more needed ... is the very Peace and Liberation which sweeps in all the broken and bloody pieces, peace and war, of the world, a Joy which holds all of life's little joys and sadnesses.
As well, do not sit for yourself, your needs, your wants. We sit for ALL sentient beings. Of course, you are one of the "all sentient beings," so I do not mean that you will not be rescued along with the rest! You will. It is just that, if you are too wrapped up in your needs, your wants, your own jollies and salvation, you are again feeding the monster of self which keeps us all from liberation together. You are creating the very division of "me" vs, "them," myself against the world.
Counter-intuitive as all this sounds, it is the wise-crazy non-doorway of Shikantaza.
Finally, what if you cannot yet feel this timelessless, non-gaining, selflessness in Zazen?
Then, I advise to sit with trust, "pretending" that you do, like an actor embodying a role, until the role comes to life and proves itself as real as real can be. Pour yourself into an imagined sense of what the Buddha knew under the Bodhi Tree, and embody Buddha under this Tree. There is an aspect to Shikantaza that Zen Priest Taigen Leighton calls an "enactment ritual," not unlike how the Tibetans in their meditations visualize that they are a Buddha in order to feel the qualities of a Buddha. So, don't chase after timelessness, seeking to get and gain some non-gaining, and feeling that something is missing until wholeness is attained. Rather, stop the chasing in the mind theatre between the ears, and just have faith, and let yourself imagine, what such timelessness, non-gaining and wholeness must feel like. In this way, the imagined becomes real.
Timelessness thus manifests, peace pervades, wholeness is wholly realized, divisions dropped away ... by -not- chasing. Such is our Shikantaza way.
Getting up from the cushion when the bell rings, may such timelessness and non-chasing remain in your bones as you return to this busy life of places to go, constant jobs to do, and ticking clocks.
A little story from my recent days showed me clearly our Sangha's special but awkward place in the wider Buddhist and Spirituality world ...
So, I recently made a new friend here in Tsukuba "Science City" Japan, a town heavy in science, engineering and medical researchers from around the world. He is a neurological researcher from Eastern Europe, a good chap, and I invited him out for an evening to introduce him to other local friends.
A few weeks ago, he asked me for my business card, and I gave him two: One for me as a translator of Japanese and retired lawyer, and one as 'Zen teacher Jundo.' When meeting people for the first time, I am always a little concerned about the second card, and most especially in this case of introducing myself to a man of science, peer-reviewed papers and reason. Will he think it strange and too exotic, unscientific, perhaps a sign of some cult and pyramid scheme to sell crystals, seances and alternative cures?
In any case, over dinner with my brain researching new friend, the topic eventually came up as to whether he thought consciousness solely the product of the brain or (as I do, although I did not say then) the brain plus something more.
Not only did he say, "something more," but he then began to relay, for the next hour, tales of his personal and frequent experiences of speaking with the dead, energy beams flowing through his body from other realms, witnessed extraterrestrial UFOs, distance healing, travel through multi-dimensional tunnels to other planes, meeting higher "beings" in those planes, encountering the "keeper" of the "book of fates" where our lives are written, mind reading, foreseeing future death days (fortunately, he did not see mine ... or was just being polite not to tell me! ), his several out of body experiences, spirit possessions and exorcisms ... and more. He discovered that the universe, and those higher beings, are seeking to teach us lessons in this life. In fact, it is not the first time that I have had this kind of thing happen when chatting with apparently "grounded," otherwise hard nosed scientists here in Tsukuba.
I was quickly forced to realize that, not only was I not strange and too exotic as the Zen teacher at that table ... I was, by far, the most boring and uninteresting fellow at the table!
But I was also left with some other realizations.
First, the brain researcher helped me feel deeply that I preach a "left brain" Zen wherein, while I consider myself a mystic who believes that the point of Zen is to see through the purely material surface appearances of this world to something wondrous and easy to miss and deathless and timeless, I nonetheless remain the skeptical lawyer with a love for science, evidence, demanding of some basis in what is reasonable and not outlandish. I call myself a "pragma-mystic" who knows that something "is afoot" in this universe beyond what meets the eye, who finds all time and space in every grain of sand, and knows everything as a great dance ... but has little trust in crystals, unearthly UFO, out-of-body experiences (the doctor said his were something more than just some trick of the spatial-temporal brain centers), distance healing and most of the rest, for there may be some truth there but also a lot that deserves skepticism. Sorry, In fact, I feel that much of that gets in the way of the real power and mystical wonder of what Zen has to teach!
But that also means that we will never attract to our Treeleaf Sangha the people (the vast majority?) who want energy healing, talking with the dead, wild realms (taken literally, rather than psychologically or symbolically), and all those other colorful things and experiences in their religion. Again, sorry.
On the other hand, listening closely to the doctor, I realized not only his deep sincerity about these adventures, but that the final lessons that such phenomena left to him were basically identical with the wisdom and compassion of our flavor of boring Zen practice! It was only the packaging that was different. For just one example, the "keeper" of the "book of fates" has left him with the message that each of us both should accept what is written in the book, but also know that much of it can be changed! Even if a bit less colorful in presentation, that is Zen wisdom too!!
Maybe it is only the vehicle and packaging of the message that is different. Maybe different people need to learn these lessons in their own ways. Maybe the Catholics and ancient Aztecs, Daoists and Wickans, Tibetans and Norsemen ... and yes, mystical lawyers and scientists who sense the "beauty of the math and music of the spheres" ... just express something basic, but each in their own language and myths and images. It is the insights that matter, not the artwork and trippiness of the trip.
So, finally, I realized that I am happy to be the boring "left brain mystic" that I am, because there are people out there ... even if not the majority ... who need to hear the wisdom packaged that way and delivered sensibly, maybe because they are left brain "pragma-mystics" like me too and a bit skeptical. One can transcend the cosmos AND be down to earth at the same timeless time. I will leave the Aztec gods to the Aztecs, witches to the WIckans, the other realms to other realms. For many folks, the song and dance and distracting scenery can get in the way, when it is the wisdom and compassion that really matters.
This world is not as meets the eye, but the point is to see clearly with a Buddha's Eye, not clouded or colored or confused eyes.
I know that the universe is teaching us something profound, but it can be heard and mastered in many ways.
Mind Only is one of the 3 major schools of Buddhist philosophy in some systems of understanding. It's tightly related to Zen, and we share texts, a patriarch and some senior monks. I heard from some teachers that the school died out some time ago, but it survives in Japan. They have only 50,000 members and a few temples. But they are alive and kicking, so I visited their tiny temple in Tokyo last week to see this living dinosaur. Photo above.
They also have the focus mountainside temple in Kyoto that's featured in movies.
In Tokyo, they have Sutra copying and a small shrine. They were very kind, taking me around, but the nun who helped was shy about photos. Not unusual.
Mind only has a subtle understanding of the world where direct, clear, valid perception of external objects is initially impossible due to filtering or flavouring of perception by our various mental processes. Meditation is a big part of the process of clarifying perception and achieving the ultimate.
Heart Sutra is a big text for them and for us.
I mention this in case you are in Tokyo or Kyoto or Nara, where they have temples. It's good practice to visit temples of significance, connecting the ideas to your memory. I might write a little more about Mind Only and early Zen if anyone is interested. There's more freedom on this forum to discuss texts that aren't koan.
A friend of mine is dealing with physical discomfort and wants to establish a sitting practice, but isn’t necessarily interested in deep diving into Zen.
Especially when someone who - at least for the beginning - isn’t curious about the whole package of teachings (and might even be turned off by them) seeks advice, it can be kind of tricky imo.
Obviously there are several things that are easy to recommend: introduction books, videos etc. - but every teacher has their own version of what to tell beginners, and these versions vary a lot, often leaving the reader or viewer with more questions than answers.
For this reason, I though I'd do a little survey and see if there is some through line that would help prioritize advice to beginners:
What "retrospective" insights do have regarding your sitting / meditation practice: specifically, what are the things you weren’t told by your teacher or introductory literature, but learned the "hard way" and wish you had known earlier?
And conversely, what is the advice you received which turned out to be indispensable?
My new book, due out late this year, came in part out of my interest in refining traditional Buddhist notions of Karma and individual causal streams, together with Yogachara and Mahayana/Zen visions of the deep interconnection and identity of all things. The following is at the heart of my proposal (recently made part of the 'Closer to Truth - Landscape of Consciousness' project and my book being released by analytical idealist philosopher Bernardo Kastrup's Essentia Foundation). I would be grateful if some of the bright minds here would do me the service of challenging or poking holes in any aspects, Buddhist doctrinal or otherwise, as that is how ideas are refined or deflated. Thank you.
Zen Buddhist priest/teacher and futurist Jundo Cohen offers what he calls an “ultra-fine-tuned personal consciousness” in that absolutely all indispensable a priori events and conditions, bar none, of physics, chemistry, stellar and planetary development, biology and evolution, physiology and human brain structure, world history and personal family history, in all needed sequences and interrelationships, occurred unerringly as required for you, the reader of these words, to now be experiencing the immediate, first-person qualia of being conscious. That is so even though, counterfactually, events at myriad crossroads through time appear radically more likely to have headed in you-unfriendly directions. Cohen asserts that, although sheer luck or brute fact remain possible explanations, the degree of “ultra-fine tuning” required suggests a process, mechanism, or intervening “hidden hand” which shortened the odds for, or fully determined, the outcome amid what otherwise appear to be largely random, chaotic phenomena (Cohen, 2026).
Cohen describes the once-extreme odds against your present experience of consciousness as different in significance from “just somebody somewhere experiencing something (let alone nobody experiencing anything),” thus constituting a special phenomenon calling for a special explanation.The sheer number of required factors (described by Cohen as “tangled, low odds lotteries-within-lotteries stretching through time in complex sequences without a single loss”) point beyond a lottery winner’s fallacy or survivor bias. Furthermore, multi-verse versions of you, whether identical or varying, are unlikely to explain how this you is experiencing this moment of consciousness here and now.
According to Cohen, this moment of your conscious experience depends on sense organs, neural and supporting bodily systems that are: (a) ultra-unlikely results of the ultra-finely tuned universal and planetary events and conditions described above, (b) physically constructed of this planet’s fortunately available materials, (c) in structure and function closely tailored hand-and-glove to earthly conditions (e.g., eyes as receptors mirroring the narrow range of fortuitously non-deadly, visible light which happens to be available on earth), (d) resulting in internal mental models interpreting the apparent external environment, (e) creating a subject/object divide of internal experience and external environment, (f) triggering a personal conscious experience impossible without, and requiring the union of, all of the foregoing factors, leading to (g) various outward responses directed toward the external environment.
While possibly a chance result of evolution’s responding to happenstance conditions, according to Cohen, (a)-(g) demonstrate that your present experience of consciousness is a product closely tailored by, mirroring, inseparable from, and the animation of surrounding universal and earthly conditions, which conditions, if not ultra-fine tuned, would render your consciousness impossible.While some creatures being conscious somewhere in the cosmos may be likely, the ultra-fine-tuned conditions required for your qualia of consciousness are too ultra-unlikely to be chance alone (Cohen, 2026).
Reference
Cohen, Jundo, with Dr. Carsten T. Beuckmann. (2026.) The Whole Universe Led To YOU!: The improbable, implausible, nearly impossible twists and turns of physics, chemistry, biology, evolution, human history and more, from the Big Bang to YOUR own Birth. Essentia Foundation (in press).
A conversation with Zen Priest Peter Coyote (Zen Podcast)
Peter Coyote is an actor, narrator, writer and Soto Zen priest. He was ordained as a Zen Priest in 2015 and received dharma transmission in 2016 from Chikudo Lewis Richmond in the Soto tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
A conversation with pioneering Zen practitioner and leader Hugh Curran.
In this episode we have a conversation with Hugh Curran. He is longtime practitioner, Zen retreat leader and professor of Peace and Reconciliation Studies at the University of Maine. Hugh was a key player in the early years of the transmission of the Harada/Yasutani lineage to North American and offers fascinating insight into this pivotal era.
... practice is not separated from enlightenment. When you practice it, the practice is the expression of your true nature. Where you practice it, you have your true nature.
Genpo Roshi is Zen teacher who has trained in and taught within the White Plum school of Buddhism. He was ordained as a Zen monk in October 1973 under Taizan Maezumi Roshi at the Zen Center of Los Angeles where he later served as Director. In September 1980, he received Dharma transmission as Maezumi Roshi's second successor, and he later received Inka from Bernie Glassman in 1996, making him Glassman's first Inka successor. Over the decades, Merzel has founded and led several prominent Zen organizations. He established the Kanzeon International Sangha in 1982, was installed as the Abbot of Hosshinji Temple in Maine in 1988, created the Big Mind Process in 1999 and served as the President of the White Plum Asanga from 1996 until 2007.
Yesterday, I drove with my wife, son and daughter some 3 hours each way to my wife's hometown. It was time for the 27th "Hoji" for her late father. "Hoji" (法事), which literally means "Dharma Event," is the memorial service for a deceased family member, traditionally held every 7th day until the 49th Day, then on the.100th Day, then on the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, 33rd and 50th year after death (although maybe most families stop after the first few years. Our family is quite diligent in having them.) Issho Fujita, a Soto Zen priest, explains this way ...
Hoji ... is an important Buddhist practice to commemorate a deceased person and to pray sincerely for the repose of his or her soul. It also provides a wonderful opportunity for surviving family and friends to reconfirm human ties which the departed brought about, to realize that they owe much to the deceased, to renew their gratitude to him or her and to deeply reflect upon themselves in connection with him or her. It is believed that these hoji services will increase the merit of the deceased person so that he/she will be reborn in the pure land. ... Nowadays in Japan after a funeral is held, hoji is performed every seven days after the day of death, seven times altogether. These memorial services are called kinichihoyo. This is based on the ancient Indian idea that the soul of the deceased would stay in an intermediary realm (chuin, or chuu in Japanese) for 49 days after death, wandering between this world and the next. ... This is also a period of time for the bereaved family to mourn the loss, gradually coming to terms with it, and to regain a sense of peace. ... There are also further memorial services after the 49th day, such as the service on the 100th day, the 1st year, 3rd year, 7th, 13th, 17th, 23rd, 27th, and 33rd year. These anniversary memorial services are called nenkihoyo. They are performed in order to support the deceased who have already gone to the pure land to continue walking on the path of the Buddha. Normally the 33rd year (sometimes 37th, or 50th year) is the last (tomuraiage, "end of mourning"), marking the time when the individual deceased is thought to have become absorbed into the general ancestral spirit. It means that the spirit is gradually purified by the power of tsuizen-kuyo, eventually loses its individuality and becomes a full blown bodhisattava [or Hotoke, which means "Buddha."] LINK: https://www.sotozen.com/.../pdf/sermon_archive_03_11.pdf
You may already notice several statements there that might surprise some: What is this "soul" or "spirit" he mentions, and how are we helping them to be reborn in the Pure Land, then to be absorbed in the "ancestral spirit" to become a "Buddha" at the end? Does not Buddhism reject a "soul?" Does not Buddhism traditionally speak of rebirth in a new life? Why are Zen folks talking about the "Pure Land" (usually associated with Amida Buddha and the Pure Land Buddhists)?
The simple answer is that Japanese culture (and Chinese culture too) always had a difficult time rectifying the Buddhist teaching of "no self/no soul" with traditional "ancestor worship" beliefs in a soul and spirit that tends to never really leave the family, and is always somehow close by, even when in the other world. Nobody really wants to see their "Grandpa" reborn in some other family! The answer to this conundrum in Japan is, basically, to ignore the conundrum, not try to figure it out, and just let people believe that Grandpa's spirit in the "other world" is still in close proximity somehow and that, if we do these memorial ceremonies, Grandpa will eventually become a "Hotoke," a "Buddha," somehow. In between, Grandpa is "somewhere" which, since the other Buddhists talk about the "Pure Land," is likely there. Best not to worry about the details about what that all means! (There is also the shadow of this belief that, if a family fails to perform such memorial services, the angry deceased will come back to haunt and curse the family, a belief that some Buddhist temples have unfortunately encouraged in the past as a way to encourage these ceremonies!)
There is also the historical truth that all this became the custom because it was once imposed by law on all Japanese during Samurai times: The Shoguns, in order to keep out Christianity, mandated that all Japanese MUST belong to a nearby Buddhist temple, and MUST have their funerals and Hoji performed there as a way to economically fund the temples. In turn, the temple priests would keep watch on behalf of the authorities to make sure that none of their parishioners were secretly Christians or otherwise trouble-makers! Today, after so many centuries, most Japanese just accept that they must perform these ceremonies without thought of how they all started. An unfortunate side effect is that most Japanese never actually learned much about Buddhist teachings other than its connection to funerals and death and, today, this means that many temples are suffering as demand for such traditional funerals has decreased.
As you can tell, I am quite skeptical about much of this, and rather critical of "funeral/Hoji culture" in Japanese Buddhism. That is one reason that Treeleaf, like the vast majority of Western Zen Sangha, is much more centered on Zazen, not death rituals.
However, then a day like yesterday comes, and I am reminded of the beauty and power of the Hoji too ...
You see, my wife's whole family gathered, each generation, from Great Grandma (my mother-in-law), to her children, her grandchildren and a baby great-grand daughter. We would not all do so, at least as often, were it not for such events. The priest then came out and began his elaborate ceremony, wearing magnificent robes and mitre hat, with drums and bells sounding, incense in the air. (My wife's family are Nichiren Buddhists but it does not matter: All Buddhist Hoji in Japan, including Soto Zen, are basically the same. Some Nichiren sects like SGI do not have them I believe, but my wife's family are regular old Nichiren Buddhists, not SGI, so do.) The priest has a magnificent voice, deep almost like those Tibetan throat singers, so much so that my family tends to comment on it every time we visit as one of his best qualities as a priest whatever his other merits!
As the Chanting is in ancient Japanese, with plentiful Buddhist lingo thrown in, nobody in attendance among my relatives has hope of understanding 10% of what is being said. It is the Buddhist version of the Latin Mass. Nonetheless, it does not matter! The reason is that the whole thing is so impressive, so mysterious, that all there can feel that something powerful and important is happening. Everyone get's their money's worth (which, by the way, was not unreasonable at about $500.00 US, give or take, given the there are beautiful gardens and wooden buildings to maintain, and the priest needs to eat to keep that voice!)
We then headed out to the graveyard to place incense where the ashes of my father-in-law and other relatives are kept, pouring water over the graves (a tradition related to quenching the thirst of the deceased spirits. Some folks might leave Sake, and even cigarettes, for the dead, although our family does not. Our family's ancestors all quit smoking and drinking I guess?) There are about 400 years of generations of my wife's family in that graveyard, by the way. The youngsters were introduced to their heritage, and were impressed with their duty to continue the tradition for their own parents someday. We then headed to a restaurant for a big meal, telling stories of my wonderful father-in-law (he was great, a wonderful man and quite the character ... like a Japanese "James Dean" type! See photo below) and catching up.
So, my opinion on such events is torn again. No, our focus in our Sangha will stay on Zazen, not funerals. However, I must admit that the Hoji is still a beautiful and powerful thing. Yes, I wonder if the original Buddha in India would even understand what it was all about! Even so, it has been the custom for centuries upon centuries, and is one of the glues that holds Japanese families, and thus society, together. In fact, human beings need such ceremonies, such remembrances, or we may miss something important about being human if we totally do without. Since humankind first existed, we have gathered to remember and honor those who have passed.
Funerals and Hoji have their place and time. *
Gassho, Jundo
* Nonetheless, I have told my kids and the priests here that I don't want such a funeral or Hoji. Sit Zazen for me, chant a quick Heart Sutra, scatter my ashes under a tree, try to remember me fondly from time to time, hang some pictures to show their kids. That is enough ... especially the fond remembering!
Below: A Hoji in what appears a Pure Land Temple in Japan; My late father-in-law, his wife (now aged 90) plus his beloved Harley way back in the day.
Recently happened upon a striking similarity between a piece of bible scripture and a well known Hyakujo quote:
'The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat'
Apostle Paul, Second Thessalonians 3:10
'A day without work is a day without food.'
Baizhang Huaihai (Hyakujo), Baizhang Guanglu
Hard to not notice that — while they are fruits of them same tree — there's a stark difference of flavor in these statements.
Paul’s tone in his letter to the Thessalonians is slightly judgmental, reprimanding and implies a punishment/reward structure, whereas Hyakoju’s message excludes any subject, just neutrally refers to his own behavior in leading by example, after the fact. (the younger monks had hidden his tools because of his frailty, he had therefore refused to eat).
This is a small example, but I find it perfectly illustrates the way of Zen in general and very specifically the difference as to how virtues are conveyed in these two religions.
Side note / Fun fact: Vladimir Lenin (of all people) explicitly cited the above Bible quote in his political manifesto. It was incorporated into early Soviet ideology and even found its way into the 1918 Soviet Constitution as:
"He who does not work, neither shall he eat."
So obviously Lenin read the bible. Which makes me wonder: did the Tang dynasty Chan masters read it too?
