ZenLife Blog
Trusting the Dharma
A teaching Joshin Roshi gives in the Six Paramitas: Courage and Grace Under Fire course is to trust the Dharma. The spiritual path need not be religious. It could very well be secular. But the Dharma while including science and physics goes beyond that. The logic of science is that 1 + 1 = 2. In the Dharma, 1 + 1 need not equal 2. It can equal anything because emptiness operates mathematically like infinity. So measurement doesn’t apply. The Dharma is a force-multiplier.
Shambhala Warrior Prophecy
“There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. At that time great powers have arisen, barbarian powers, and although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common. Among the things these barbarians have in common are weapons of unfathomable devastation and death and technologies that lay waste to the world. And it is just at this point in our history, when the future of all beings seems to hang by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of shambhala emerges. Now, you can’t go there because it is not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the shambhala warriors….
Congratulations to Genshin and Ungo
Congratulations to Jacquelyn Genshin Weiner-O’Shea and Patrick Ungo O’Shea on their Jukai ceremony, on Sunday, September 24, 2023 at the Zen Life & Meditation Center of Chicago. Genshin means “Source of Truth” and Ungo means “Cloud Abode”. It was such a wonderful and joyous occasion to have these two dedicated practitioners take these Bodhisattva vows together in this rich Jukai ceremony.
Thinking Beyond Words
I think it is useful to maintain this perspective of a less-than ideal Buddha. A person who struggled with finding the right way to live, with right actions and right speech. Having this vantage-point fosters an understanding that anyone can enter the Bodhisattva path. Pema Khandro has noted that “Wherever you find yourself, that’s the starting point of the Bodhisattva path — all we need to do is to take that first step.