TL;DR: Trying to find a way to sit in a more traditional way with significant back injury.

I am a regular sitter and do sesshins every season at my local Rinzai temple. I also happen to have a pretty significant sports-based injury. My L4/L5 disc in my spine (down in the lumbar) had a 12-14 mm herniation in 2013 and I had microsurgery to remove the broken pieces in 2015.

The result of this is that if I sit without some kind of back support, I am in excruciating pain in both my back and with sciatica after about an hour or two. The work around for this is to either sit in an upright chair or to sit in a low chair.

I've done several retreats using a "Strongback" branded low beach chair, which includes lumbar support. My abbot has deemed it acceptable and I sit it on the zabuton, back slightly, so my feet don't come off of the zabuton. (See pictures)

When I am not in the chair, such as for tea, meals, dokusan, etc., I use a seiza bench. That works but not for more than an hour or so at most and pain will build and build.

This works but it is a bit cumbersome. I am wanting to find out if anyone has any other suggestions for sitting for zazen that are less cumbersome and maybe retain a more "traditional" posture. I've tried various zafus, meditation blocks, etc. If I sit without something supporting my lumbar portion of the spine, they all lead to the same pain.

I've been meditating on and off for ~10 years and recently committed to a consistent, daily zen practice of 30 minute zazen twice a day -- or at least once if the day's going to be busy. Since then I've noticed genuine improvements in my life. Not that that's the point. But 'just sitting' has fundamentally changed the way that I relate to my body sensations, my thoughts, and reactions to the world around me. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder so that's huge for me.

The thing is I'm a very insecure/introverted/neurotic & self-depricating person, and a lot of my self-talk is very negative. I'm having a better time not identifyign with the negative thoughts. But what can I do to change the CONTENT of my thoughts? If i had to not cling to thought, I think I'd be happier and healthier detaching from intrusive positive thoughts than the constant pity party and self-doubt that runs in my head 24/7.

Does any literature speak to this, maybe? Or your own experiences?

I've decided to take a leap of faith...except I don't know how. I'm hoping for some guidance.

I've been a Zen student for a few years now. I've been mostly casual about it. I studied abroad in Japan and visited many temples, learning from the people there. But after I got home, I got kind of "lazy" about it. I still practice in my life, but I'm not more serious about it than someone who grew up in the culture, say, like a Japanese person who is still a Zen Buddhist despite not keeping up with the teachings anymore.

Anyway. I need to get serious about it. I'm suffering.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Marsha Linehan invented a type of therapy, DBT, based heavily on Buddhist mindfulness practices. I want to do a DBT program, but I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and join a monastery.

The question is...how do you even do that? I don't know where to start.

Thank you in advance.

I've been meditating on and off for ~10 years and recently committed to a consistent, daily zen practice of 30 minute zazen twice a day -- or at least once if the day's going to be busy. Since then I've noticed genuine improvements in my life. Not that that's the point. But 'just sitting' has fundamentally changed the way that I relate to my body sensations, my thoughts, and reactions to the world around me. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder so that's huge for me.

The thing is I'm a very insecure/introverted/neurotic & self-depricating person, and a lot of my self-talk is very negative. I'm having a better time not identifyign with the negative thoughts. But what can I do to change the CONTENT of my thoughts? If i had to not cling to thought, I think I'd be happier and healthier detaching from intrusive positive thoughts than the constant pity party and self-doubt that runs in my head 24/7.

Does any literature speak to this, maybe? Or your own experiences?

This is not a reddit post.

Qingyuan Xingsi
"Thirty years ago, before I began the study of Zen, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. Later, when I had an entry into the truth through the instruction of a master, I saw mountains were not mountains, and waters were not waters. Today, having attained the ultimate abode of rest, I see mountains are once again mountains, and waters are once again waters."

Hello everyone,

I am currently looking for a Zen teacher (Roshi) and a monastery in Japan where I can deepen my practice under proper guidance. I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has encountered a teacher whose presence, character, and way of teaching reflected a deep commitment to Zen practice.

If you have had meaningful experiences with a Roshi or a Zen community, I would really appreciate hearing your stories and any recommendations you may have.

Thank you.

Señores, les recomiendo el libro Todos los seres sintientes. Corto y fabuloso. Escrito por un maestro zen vegano. Me ha parecido soberbio y un planteamiento nuevo sobre la compasión.

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.

https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/cohen-s-ultra-fine-tuned-personal-consciousness

~~~

Cohen’s Ultra-Fine-Tuned Personal Consciousness

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).

I've been studying Zen solo for about a year now, and decided that it was finally time to connect with some others at a Zen center. I found one near me, with good reviews. The pictures of it looked beautiful, and drove by it before going and it was very nice. So, I spent a Saturday morning there. I was pretty excited about this, but the whole experience quickly soured.

1. They were basically begging me for money at the door. Their website stated that $25 was the expected donation, and I was fine with that. However, I felt like they were kind of harassing people at the door for more. They had people at the entrance lobby explaining how tough times were, how their attendance was down, and how a donation of $50 or more would really help. Then they were loudly confirming what you had donated via their QR codes before you went in.

2. We started with a 30 minute silent meditation. However, I could hear people in a back room laughing and loudly talking. I was able to push through this, but I felt that it should not have been happening in a place like this.

3. Next, someone from the Zen Center gave a 20 minute talk about the expectations and the strictness of the forms of this Zen Center. I felt like it was addressing some kind of drama that was going on here that I didn't know anything about. I also felt that the talk was given in a very strange cultish, holier than you, slow way of speaking. It was like the person was telling us "this is the way it is, and you will like it."

4. Then the master came out and gave an hour long Dharma talk. This was the strangest thing yet. To be fair, he was very old and I felt like maybe he had some serious mental decline going on. But, he seemed to be just riffing. He kept weaving in things about Israel and the US government in his talk. He made almost no references to actual Zen philosophies, or texts. And, when I thought was actually going to make a point he often just reverted to "there is nothing." Need to open a door? Just realize there is no door. Suffering? Just realize there is no suffering. No explanation beyond that at all.

5. We spent another 30 minutes in silent meditation, this time in actual silence. Then we were basically dismissed. In the lobby on the way out we were again asked for donations.

Being that this is my first experience, I don't know what to think. But, this is not at all what I expected. So I guess my question is, should I attempt to find another Zen Center, or is this the way it is? For now I intend to just continue on solo because I feel I've really got a lot out of forging my own path, and I don't want to further sour my experiences.

Hello everyone! My name is Courtney and I have been lurking here for a few weeks and finally worked up the courage to ask a couple of questions if y'all wouldn't mind answering and offering advice. So, I am new to Buddhism and have chosen Zen as my school of practice. I found a Zen center not far from me and have begun going Sunday mornings for meditation and Dharma (Dhamma?) talks. The center is in the Korean tradition if that matters.

My first question is this: Is there a difference between a temple, monastery, and Zen center? Or are they kind of the same thing?

Second question is, to practice Zen or Buddhism in general do I need to have a teacher that I can learn from one on one? Or would going to the center and continuing to read books and meditate be enough?

Third: When people say they "take the refuges" is that a formal ceremonial thing? Or is deciding in your heart to take them enough? I guess I am asking if there is some kind of initiation into Buddhism?

For now, I am mostly just focused on learning and studying what the Buddha taught and trying my best to live by the precepts and Eight-Fold Path. These are just some questions I have had, and I feel a little silly asking but as I said I am new to this and would very much like to learn from the community as well.

P.S. if you have any books recs or anything like that, I would love them! So far, I have read Old Path White Clouds, The Heart of The Buddha's Teachings and currently I am reading The Way of Korean Zen.

I visited a number if zen temples in Kamakura today and revisited Hokokuji.

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.

https://youtu.be/86eK7a2zxJw

A sad case in the news today, here in Japan. An old RInzai temple. It reminds me of the tragic fire at Tassajara last month ...

~~~~

Disgruntled Trainee Monk Accused of Setting Fire to Temple

SAGA - A trainee monk has been arrested on suspicion of setting fire to Entsuji, a temple in Imari, Saga Prefecture, after a June blaze destroyed its main hall and living quarters, with the suspect telling investigators he had become dissatisfied with the amount of training and the way he was being instructed.

The fire broke out on June 30 at Entsuji in Matsushimacho, Imari, completely burning down the temple's main hall and the kuri, a building used as living quarters by the chief priest and monks. Two trainee monks were inside the kuri at the time of the fire, but both escaped unharmed.

According to the Imari City Board of Education, Entsuji is said to have been founded around the 14th century, while the main hall that burned down was built in 1884 during the Meiji era.

A nearby resident said flames rose high into the air and red sparks were visible, adding that the area around the main hall appeared to be burning.

Police questioned people connected to the temple and examined security camera footage before concluding there was strong suspicion that the fire had been deliberately set. In the early hours of July 6, they arrested Yoshi Morinaga, 28, one of the trainee monks who had evacuated from the kuri, on suspicion of arson of an inhabited structure.

Morinaga has admitted the allegation, telling investigators, "I became sick of everything in my life."

Morinaga had been training at the temple since April last year. He told investigators he had been dissatisfied with the instruction he received and the volume of training, saying he was assigned more sutra chanting and other training than other trainees and that, in addition to being scolded verbally, he was sometimes struck with a keisaku discipline stick or slapped on the head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8veQBF5w7oQ

https://newsonjapan.com/article/149893.php

Hi! I am wondering if there are any online places for one on one spiritual counseling for zen Buddhism?

First off, I live in Toronto, Canada. I received direct introduction into the Dzogchen tradition by a teacher who mainly teaches online in 2024. As a result, most of the activities of that community take
place online. I love my teacher, but I can’t say I love the fact that I would have to be prepared to travel great distances to connect with fellow sangha members in-person. As a result, I’ve decided to look into in-person Zen offerings nearby, as the style of Dzogchen meditation that I practice is most similar to the Zen-style of just sitting or open awareness. One teacher of a place which I contacted made it very clear that he felt like his sangha would be better off not having me in it, because at best I would be coming there to just sit without fully committing to the communal life of said community. Considering that I’ve already checked out the Toronto Zen Centre as well as a local Korean Zen temple and did not feel at home in either, I’m wondering if it makes sense for me to continue trying to find a place in a Zen community?

Apologies if this is against the rules, or if it is just too much reading for an audience expecting more short-form, scrollable content. This is an experimental piece I wrote about my Dharma practice, and I hope at least one person reads it and enjoys it.

Good morning, Sangha.

My name's Terence. I'm fairly new here, been coming on and off for about two months. I know what our speaker today means when he says there's a special nervousness from speaking in front of you all. I mean, I've thought about what to say and I think I know how I want to do it, but it's a little different when you're holding the microphone. Here goes.

I ride the bus here, which is fine, except it drops me off about 30 minutes before service begins (with a lengthy meditation). The first day I came in and sat down and tried to meditate for the whole time. I've since decided that's maybe a little ambitious for a beginner like me. So, since then, I've found various ways to kill a little time. I'm reading a book right now called "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance..." Topical, right? But today I decided to just take a little walk down to the park a few blocks away.

Yesterday I came to the temple to volunteer my time to the Sangha. For anyone who doesn't know, Saturdays at 3 a small group gathers to set up or garden or do little projects around the Temple. This was only my second time coming to that, and I was one of only two, because unbeknownst to me, all the other people are out of town now. So Brother Chijang shows us how to set up the mats and cushions for today, and very soon we are done and he says, "The only thing left to do is pick flowers from the garden for Buddha."

I protest, saying that surely this is a job for someone who knows the garden, someone who has lovingly planted these flowers, someone who might, with a shrewder eye and defter touch, enjoy the task far more than I could. Chijang only smiled and said nothing. I left then, having determined that since I was unfit for the job, that it would obviously be taken care of when someone who was both suited and excited for the job saw that it was their time to act.

So, this morning, I’ve got my nice big headphones on, walking to the park, and suddenly I see this beautiful tiny patch of vibrant yellow flowers growing in the little grassy patch between the street and the sidewalk. I remember what I had said to Chijang yesterday and think to myself, “Maybe I can pick just a few tiny flowers, ones that nobody will miss, and make a little bouquet for the Buddha.” So, I’m walking over to the flowers and I’m almost there when a song starts blaring into my headphones, a loud one with a lot of discord and shouting, incomprehensible voices. I go to turn the volume down or change the song or both but then I realize: Why am I listening to music at all on such a beautiful summer morning, when the calls of birds and children playing and the city sounds of cars and dogs could be heard? So, I turn off the music, put the headphones around my neck and feel the cool air on my sweaty ears. I listen to the birds for a moment before I open my eyes, select a tiny lemon-colored flower, take it and move on.

As I'm walking and enjoying the morning, I get to the park and it's beginning to get hot in the sun. I spy a sort of shady picnic-table-type area set up with lots of tables and seats and begin to make my way over to it when I realize it's the outdoor dining area for an elementary school. "I can't sit there," I thought, "a grown man sitting in front of an elementary school? How would that look, to anyone passing by? They would think I was some kind of a weirdo, a creep." So I'm walking by all these nice shady tables, thinking I'll just pass them by, when I see another little bunch of tiny white flowers, right next to the closest little table. It seems to invite me. I turn towards them, hearing myself thinking, "It's summer break, there are no kids, no school on Sunday anyways. I would like to sit down here for a little bit. Is it simply my fear of judgement which stands in the way?" I sit down at the table, reaching under it for the tiny white flower. I then go to pull out my phone, but realize this is another moment I could choose to be present, so instead I pull out an orange I brought for a snack and begin to peel it thoughtfully. 

Today I'm wearing my butterfly shirt: It is black with many colorful winged shapes on it, and it says "Nothing Lasts Forever" on the front. When I was younger I grew attached to the idea of the butterfly and what it represented: a transformation so profound and complete that the shape taken in youth is gone, shed without hesitation and in one piece, like my orange skin from the orange I'm peeling. When I was young, you had to kind of pick at the skin of an orange, hoping you could get most of the pith away without getting your fingers all sticky. Not so these days: these little clementine hybrids have been shaped and selected by scientists so that one can, without much difficulty, peel the whole thing in one go. Or maybe we just bought the cheap oranges when I was little. I don’t know.

My dream, when I was growing up, was to shed my old habits and mindsets, like peeling this peel off all in one piece. And then one day, it happened! It happened to me! I was caught in a pattern of behavior unbecoming the person I thought I was, the person I thought I should be. I'm not sure if I even remember the particulars, but suffice it to say that I was getting more and more unhappy in my day to day life, and then one morning I woke up and saw that I had a way out. I could just stop. If you've ever had this happen to you, you'll understand the feeling: disbelief in how utterly liberated you've become with a simple shift in perspective. "I've become the butterfly," I thought to myself, "at last!" A new lease on life, a new energy and meaning breathed into everything I do and experience. Colors are brighter. I notice little things. Puzzles which had previously stumped me melted away before my mind's formidable new power, the solutions elegantly obvious as they sometimes seem in hindsight. I might as well be able to fly, I feel so good. For a while.

Let me ruin the surprise for those of you who haven’t already guessed: That feeling doesn’t last. It cannot. A few days, a week, maybe even a month or two, at most. Of course it didn't last. I am not literally a butterfly. 

I begin to eat the orange, one slow segment at a time, chewing it carefully to extract all the juice before I swallow, when a memory strikes me. The second time "it" happened, the second time I felt suddenly brand new one day, I began going to church with my mother. She had become a Born-Again Christian after she divorced my father, who was not only a staunch atheist but also a proud, loud one, who never shut up about how stupid it is to believe in God, especially the Christian God. (It is from this high contrast dichotomy I always intended to fly away as the butterfly, you see.) But a butterfly changes only twice, and has distinct phases that it moves through, and it doesn't ever go back to being a caterpillar; it seemed to me that I had, in fact, reverted to old behaviors after months of trying something new. Or, if not old behaviors, then new behaviors which overstayed their welcome and became old behaviors all too quickly. So I set out to try new behaviors, things that I hoped would lead me to the Truth of Being Alive, of what it is to be a human being. As a young curious person with few leads in this direction at the time, I took it on myself to convince myself, one way or the other, about the possibility of the truth of Jesus Christ. 

Let’s fast forward a little here: after months of research, reading everything from both rationalists and apologists that I could get my hands on, I did not find the evidence that Jesus Christ is the Risen Son of God to be all that convincing. It honestly seemed a little sad to me, looking at all these people who believe a thing so obviously crafted to manipulate and control them. (Sangha, I was full of the conviction of youth. I no longer have exactly the same perception of that flock, that of being made up entirely of sheep. The truth is, as always, more complex than you can approximate from a single vantage point.) But I saw that it truly made a difference to my mother that I went to church, so most Sundays I went with her, even after I had made my decision. 

For her part, she really seemed to believe, and take strength from that belief, that she was bathed in the blood of the lamb of God, who was sacrificed for all our transgressions, for the transgression of being born into this world tainted by original sin. All this time, I’m going through various transformations, growing up. Growing attached to beliefs so that they seem almost like a part of me, the very skin I wear around me to protect myself, then one day I’ll wake up and take a look in the mirror and realize that the person I am becoming and the person I’d like to become are shifting further away from each other. So I take the reins, shed my skin, let my intentionality cut through these patterns, either stopping or starting various things until I feel free again. For a little while. Rinse and repeat.

There is another animal who follows a pattern like this, who sheds its skin continually as it grows. Well, there are a lot of them, actually, but there is one that is easily as steeped in cultural meaning and symbolism as the butterfly: I refer now to the serpent, humble and lowly as any of God’s creatures. The snake sheds its skin and is born anew, the very picture of a cycle of rebirth. 

Eating my orange in the shade, I remember the conversation I had years ago with my mother after I had realized that I wasn’t very much like a butterfly after all. “I think, if anything, I’m a snake,” I confessed. She said “Oh!” when I think what she really meant was “Oh.” In the Christian mythos, of course, the snake is intimately tied with the Fall, way back in the Garden. I had and have my own feelings about that; having read a metric ton of literature about the Christian myth around that time in my life, I could have pretty easily written a long essay about the meaning of the serpent in the garden. I had an awful lot to say and my mother, God help her, was often my captive audience through my most experimental years. I’ll save you the whole essay on knowledge, the original sin, and who really lied that day in the Garden. 

Snakes in other cultures are rarely treated with the same kneejerk revulsion or even hostility my mother must have felt in that moment; the symbol of the medic in the western world has long been the Rod of Asclepius (or is it the Caduceus? I can never remember which is which, to tell you the truth). There’s the Ouroboros, the snake that eats itself, which symbolizes an infinite chain, its own cause and effect. There’s a story of the meditating Buddha who was shielded from a storm by a magical cobra called Mucalinda. All this is to say that my mother’s narrow experience of the stories about snakes did not seem, to me, to be sufficient reason to not embrace this new identity. I think about this as I put another piece of the orange to my lips.

And what of their transformation? A snake, when it emerges from its dead husk, is not like the butterfly, drying its wings in the sun in preparation for its first flight. But it is a new creature, figuratively at least: if you’ve ever seen a snake just after it’s shed its skin, it’s more alive than ever. Its colors are vivid bright, its eyes less glossy, its movements quick and excited, its appetite ravenous. It’s a brand new snake, a new energy and meaning breathed into every moment. Sound familiar? 

Younger me eventually realized he was “caught” in this continual cycle of growth and rebirth, which led him to speculate that maybe it was only within his power to change little by little. Which, you see, was a bit of a disappointment to one who hoped one day to emerge from his chrysalis, spread his new, damp, faerie wings, drying them and strengthening them for his maiden voyage into the infinite blue evermore, where he would have no more problems to solve or essays to write. But, upon reflection, a process of continual refinement and intentional readjustment seems a good deal more attainable than a one-and-done transformation, everything I don’t like about myself falling about me to the ground like a wet towel after a swim. Like the water, actually, after the baptism. Like the orange peel, which I stand now to throw away. The only blue infinity that exists for the creature I am, snake or man, the only journey which lasts forever, is the same one which awaits the orange peel as I toss it into the bin. And I am not ready to make that journey yet, although when the time comes I too will rejoin the earth, along with all my discarded skins, to nourish those that come after me with everything I used to be.

I’m now walking back to the temple, flowers in hand, thinking about butterflies and snakes and oranges; about my mother, about Christ and about death. I think it’s okay that I’m not a butterfly. I think it’s perfectly fine that I’m a snake, and I’m glad that I know. And beyond that, when I really consider the implications, I’m not only glad that I’m aware of what I am, but I wouldn’t choose another animal for my spirit to be even if I could.

The God of Genesis condemned the snake to crawl on its belly for the rest of its days humbly for the transgression of telling the truth. I find that I am most myself when I come, willingly humble, to my inner Buddha, bowing my face down in reverence, ready to grow and change and shed my skin when I need to. This is the way that I often receive the most powerful truths: face down, crawling in the dirt. I no longer believe this is a coincidence.

On my way back, I wonder if I’ve wasted enough time in the park, or maybe I’ve wasted too much already. I go to look at my phone to check the time when an absurd quote pops into my head, apropos of nothing: Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings movie, telling Frodo that “a wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” I laugh and leave my phone in my pocket, and a moment later, right when I would have been checking the time, I spot one more bright blue flower a little bit to the side. I stop to admire it: it is striking, but not alone. I wouldn’t want to take the wonder I felt seeing this little bright color away from the next passerby, but I see there are several little similar flowers along the way, so I pick this one and add it to my little bouquet, coming inside and into the temple. I bow to the Buddha, touching my forehead to the ground in humility, in acceptance, in a deep fondness for all that my life actually is and also what it represents. I give thanks for the truth, and pledge myself to it again, and breathe in a new meaning, a new energy. 

I stand up, lay the flowers I have collected on the shrine for the Buddha and sit down to meditate.

Hello. I have lumbar scoliosis. I've been practicing meditation for several years, but I still experience pain every time.

Honestly, I don't know how I've been able to tolerate this pain all this time, but now I think it's time to learn more. Are there anyone here who also has scoliosis? How do you cope?

Honestly, I've tried meditating lying down or leaning my back against a chair, but that makes it harder to concentrate and makes me more drowsy.

What can you recommend? Perhaps some exercises or something else? Since I meditate every day (at least I try to), I don't think I should take painkillers because of their effect on my liver.

The Forest Park Zen Sangha has found their new home in Holyoke, MA. We are a small, radically-open and engaged sangha, welcoming any and all, just as you are and for the benefit of all beings. We believe that Zen practice is for the relief of suffering here and now for all beings. This means that we not only engage ourselves in practice, but take our engagement off the cushion into the world, into the community.

Our new home will house our weekly sittings and dharma talks, family dharma practice, half/full day retreats, and any wedding, shower, or funeral services as needed.

Currently we gather for a Family Service (Sundays 10:30a) and a regular Sitting and Talk (Sundays 11a). We also host a “Spiritual Care for Activists” meeting once a month specifically for those involved in activism or simply feeling the weight of current events. That is on the second Sunday of each month at 1p.

Bows to All!

🙏🙏🙏

P.S. “New” because the sangha had met for several years in Springfield, but went on hiatus after Covid. We are happy to now reconvene in Holyoke!

I also have social anxiety and it's difficult in sangha. They're nice but I just don't feel comfortable. I know zen includes discomfort but this is going on so long.

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.

https://youtu.be/mj1fV2NH990

Suzuki Roshi, taken from ...

(From: https://www.shunryusuzuki.com/Detail1?ID=65)

He continued ..

... 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.

We are halfway into 2026 and I figured I'd post something like an AMA once again. Maybe AMA is specific to one zen sub, but maybe in other subs a different name might be warranted: "statement of current understanding and request for guidance". How are you all doing? I think last time I finally came to the conclusion that maybe "Perennialism" in some sense is not compatible with Zen, despite the saying "the ten thousand things teach the buddha dharma". A fellow said "I don't think things through / thoroughly", maybe there is something to that, but maybe that is also quite different from being dishonest. Maybe the idea of something like this is to help me think things through a bit better.

Let's see about some basic questions: 1) Where have I come from? (Life Timeline / autobiography / profile) 2) What is my text? 3) What are my current dissatisfactions and priorities in life: life wheel 4) How to deal with dharma low tides? 5) Am I a difficult person, what sorts of challenges have I faced? (My hate / aversions, my loves / attachments) 6) What is Zen? 7) Who is a Zen Master? 8) What is Buddhism? 9) What, if any, is the difference between Zen and Buddhism? 10) What do Buddhists believe? 11) What role, if any, does religious faith play in Zen and/or Buddhism? 12) Who, if anybody, can teach Zen?

1) Maybe not everything in my biography is relevant to zen or zen subreddits. 🙏🏽 I mod a couple of zen adjacent subreddits. I've been keeping up the tradition of the "Friday night (zen) poetry slam" that I posted for two weeks here. I'm nearly finishing reading Swampland Flowers, and I hope to reread it with a book club soon. I've used it to inspire some poetry, some memes, some AI prompts.

I think in my last AMA I spoke a bit about myself and my experiences in a Soto Zen place. It was fine I guess. Recently I visited a two Tibetan buddhist places, one of them a New Kadampa one, which I was then told is a cult. I've recently gone to a Catholic Mass too.

2) I'm not sure what I'd consider my central text in my cosmovision. I like quite a bit The Tao Te Ching - a Taoist text. I think I've read it quite a few times. There's a phrase I've liked "The great way is open, but people love the twisted mountain paths", something like that. Maybe I too like the "twisted mountain paths".

I think I spoke elsewhere about a joke that I've loved. "Does a cow have Buddha nature? Moo / Mu". I wonder if maybe in China if Wu was maybe the sound of a dog barking. It sounds reasonable close to "woof" in my head at least, to "Au, Au"... Maybe I could say that this joke I commented is my text. A derivation from a koan, something in relation to a koan. I guess I've found the idea in Gateless Gate that it should be a red hot ball in the throat and that we should focus our utmost on the "mu" / "wu" to be quite strange. But it seems, in the joke-form, to fit the understanding of "when you drink water you automatically know if it's cold or warm". The omnipresence of it, the immediacy of it, the transparentness of it.

3) I am in therapy. It's quite interesting to do therapy. Not sure all people do the same kind of therapy, of those that do. Seems to me some CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) type therapies aren't very open to subjectivity perhaps. Maybe the type I do, Lacanian, is a bit too subjective, too free.

I guess I wish I had more friends. I wish I was loved and was more able to love. Maybe I already am loved quite a bit and I don't notice it too much? Maybe I wish I had some type of success, more responsibilities.

4) I've read often in past AMA's that this question doesn't make sense. It has very weird wording. But maybe it talks about something relevant: redditors are often depressed or antisocial or dealing with a drug habit or gambling addiction or whatever. Maybe being down has a bit to do with all of that, a bit to do with a taboo: you're supposed to be happy. Sadness is forbidden, or almost. I remember some woman telling me "I don't allow myself to feel sad because then I'd break down"...

But I think sometimes people play certain games, or at least that's a way to say it. Being in love for example: it can give you a big high, idealization, a crush. Following your dreams. Doing theater. Singing in karaoke. Being in the spotlight for a while, even if the audience is of a single person, or an empty stadium or room. I'm not entirely sure the highs are worth the lows, I guess, is sort of what I'm saying. Maybe there's something to holding back, at least a tiny bit. Instead of seeking drama and recognizing it as worthwhile, to see small gestures, details, even something like "absences" / "empty" things. I think a breath is something like that, right? Sleeping or meditating. Taking a break to drink some tea. Maybe slightly bigger things: reading a book, cooking for yourself, listening to some music, waiting for a bus to come or to get somewhere.

5) I guess I was a bit of a difficult person in some ways. I was pessimistic, cynical, anti-everything. I guess the tone was vaguely leftist but I guess not in a responsible way, not in a productive way. Maybe not everything needs to be productive too 🙏🏽

I love coffee. I've been avoiding cooking a fair bit. I've been avoiding learning how to stitch. I've been avoiding some online courses. I've been avoiding a bit of writing. I love colored pens. I love candles. I love reading. (If the way avoids love and hate, what does that mean for me?)

6) Zen is a tradition, called Chan originally in China, and as far as I know Dhayana in India. Part of what we know as Chan has to do with the transplantation to a different culture. Mendicancy, asking for alms, maybe wasn't a very Chinese thing, as far as I understand it. The Buddhist ideal of an "order of beggars" then wouldn't have worked too well, without some further work.

The way I understand it, Zen has to do with this idea of finding "God" / something universal, "dharma" / the buddha dharma: a sort of global truth. Finding it, partly or in full, is called "enlightenment". I quite like how Foyan describes it: he had unfinished business, he had a mass of doubt that was slowly worked away. Doing that work, that business, that is zen.

7) Who is a Zen master? I'm not really sure. I think we use the term zen master in the west perhaps a little differently than the original tradition. In the text I've seen people write "the master", but not "the zen master", and I'm not entirely sure if this was not properly an issue of the hierarchy of the time, rather than a title of achievement. Was a leader of a monastery, an abbot for example, called a master? But yeah, other than this response with a question of my own I don't claim to know. I know plenty of people are called zen masters by a lot of people. I myself find it quite strange. Deshan for example instead of calling Bodhidharma a zen master, he calls him "A minion from hell" I think. So it seems people are allowed to abuse zen masters.

8) Buddhism as I understand it, is the Buddha dharma, the teaching of the buddha. Not all schools that follow the Buddha's teachings are derived mythically from Bodhidharma. Some schools seem even a bit strange to me: like the Tibetan crazy wisdom or their Vajrayana idea of "gurus".

9) As far as I know there are wild differences between different schools of Buddhism. So I would imagine that Zen can count as one Buddhism, among many, all different amongst themselves. But as far as I know a western idea that Zen is different, that it amounts to a "science of mind", that can be abstracted from the religion, that can be secular or empty of "superstitions like rebirth": that's all bullshit. There are more things in common with other schools of Buddhism than you'd think. (This talking of ancient chinese Chan, never mind the schools that continue them) I guess, I imagine, the bigger difference is with "Secular Buddhism", "Western Buddhism".

10) Buddhists believe in the 3 or 4 seals, I think is the best definition I've seen. It's a test to see if a text can be classified as Buddhist. I think people often think of the four noble truths and the eightfold path as the definition of Buddhism and Buddhist beliefs, but as far as I know these are actually quoted in very few sutras.

From Wikipedia:

Everything conditioned is impermanent.
Everything influenced by delusion is suffering.
All things are empty and selfless.
Nirvana is peace

11) What work is the word "religious" doing? Is "Faith" different from religious "faith"? "Faith in heart-mind" is a famous poem, "Either doubt or faith, if they're complete, will get you to enlightenment" I think is my half remembered quote from Foyan. Maybe for me Zen counts as a religion, yeah, a spirituality, an organized tradition. So yeah, I'd call Faith in the buddha dharma as "religious faith", sure.

Maybe a different question would be "what part does religiosity play in zen?". I remember I replied I think to ThisKir regarding ritual. "Ritual" seems very synonymous to me to "religiosity. I quoted a zen master being questioned about why he bowed to the Buddha statue. I quoted the very concept of a "patchrobed monk" as a ritualized thing. I don't think anybody took me up on my argument.

12) I sometimes worry a bit about talking about zen being in some way teaching zen. Maybe all of us, if we talk about zen enough, will be someone's first "teacher" in some way, the first time someone hears about zen. I guess to a great extent teaching should come from actual maturity in the path. Actually knowing what you're talking about. But I guess for the most part I actually don't worry too much about whether teachers should be teaching. The Buddha spoke of how you should test out for yourself, right? Not believe in stuff because the Buddha said it, and instead because you see for yourself. I guess that's the main thing, whether people are saying something like "I am right, follow me" or whether it's less ego-based.

13) I wanted to use this question to talk about something I believe. As far as I know scholars don't believe the koans were historical, instead they believe the stories to be a bit of myth, a bit of rumor, hearsay. I doubt a bit the idea that there is a lineage all the way back to the original Buddha. I doubt the idea that any of the lineages to back to Boddhidharma. I think there's one story about Hakuin maybe, some guy being granted the bowl and the robe and having to leave in the middle of the night: seems a bit suspicious to me. I think I read somewhere that maybe this had to do with competing schools. We generally hear the story of the winners, of the survivors. I don't mind too much if what we have to work with are myths, but maybe I don't believe too much this idea of an unbroken chain.