Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Greetings Friends,I am returning from 10 days of monastic practice at my former home, Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to celebrate my teacher Chozen Bays Roshi’s 80th birthday, to practice and lead the annual outdoor sesshin that we call Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin and to facilitate a precepts ceremony. I love monastic practice. I love merging with the great activity of awakening. I love the depth of practice that opens up when we sustain the gaze on our true nature and allow the bodhisattva vow to flow through us. I love being in this process of liberation and love with others. Many of us are asking:* How to live in a world on fire?* What is an appropriate response?* What should I do with my life?The heart of practice awakening seems to turn these questions on their head, and ask instead what do you call the world?And, who are you?And what is your life?Many great thinkers have posited that we can’t solve problems with the same mind that created them. What happens when we dare to step out of the problem-solving mind all together? What happens when we look directly into the assumptions we make about ourselves and the world? What happens when we gaze into the nature of life/death?When we are willing to even begin to entertain these questions, and know ourselves beyond thought and label—another world opens up. Someone said recently “it’s like I’m inhabiting a different body.”The body of this world, is our body. The body of mountain, space, silence is also our body.The Zen Buddhist tradition is alive with teachings from practitioners, contemplatives, and mystics who were engaged in this kind of inquiry. Who sustained the gaze on the great matter, and invited us to realize this great body of awakening.During sesshin we were chanting and practicing with Dogen Zenji’s Mountains and Waters Sutra. In this sutra, Dogen Zenji invokes Mountains as a metaphor for the nature of our mind. Mountain presence points us to the ever-abiding presence, spaciousness and silence of our own awake awareness.Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the Mountains and Waters Sutra.Mountains and rivers right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha way. Both mountains and rivers abide in their true form and actualize true virtue. Mountains and rivers transcend time and are alive in the eternal present. They are the original self and they are emancipation-realization. Mountains are high and wide. The movement of clouds and the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains.We can re-write this paragraph replacing Mountains with “we” or “our true nature”. Below is an example.We–right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha Way. We abide in our true form and actualize true virtue. We transcend time and are alive in the eternal present. This is our original self—emancipation-realization. Our awareness is high and wide, the movement of thought and the inconceivable power of awakened activity comes freely from Mind’s nature.Really this is an invitation to embody Mountain. To give over your body and life to the body and life of Mountain. Once when we were practicing with this sutra during a summer practice period my teacher said:If you practice with Mountain everyday for the next 60 days, it will change you.Let yourself be a Mountain, and in that realize how you already are still, silent, spacious, safely rooted—lacking nothing.The video above is a guided meditation on Being a Mountain. In my experience Mountain practice opens up an essential aspect of zazen. I invite you to try it out. And don’t be shy, let your wild Mountain body-mind rest in its fundamental space.You have always belonged to this great body of awakening.You have never been separate.I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.I currently have a few openings in my Spiritual Counseling practice for the Fall. I offer a four-session intro package for $250. Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.This coming week we will be exploring case 25 & case 33 (Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn and Bodhidharma’s flesh)Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKIn-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Being FlowerOn Monday night during meditation we sat together as a community of flowers. Sun flower, daisy, rose, violet, marigold, milkweed, celosia, echinacea, blue vervain, poppy, queen anne’s lace, crocosmia, zinnia.We were studying the koan Case 19 from the Hidden Lamp, Flowers in the Buddha Hall.The nuns of Tokeiji were famous for their beautiful elaborate flower decorations on Buddha’s Birthday. Zen Teacher Yodo, the abbess wrote a verse for the occasion:Decorate the heart of the beholder,for the Buddha of the flower hallin nowhere else.Her attendants also wrote verse. Ika wrote:Throw away into the street the years of the past.What is born now on the flower dais—let it raise its newborn cry.Why sit as a flower? It might seem foolish or arrogant. Maybe it is.But its part of the invitation of the koans. To be inhabited by them. To practice seeing through the face of a sunflower—breathing in light—deeply connected to earth and sky. Opening petal by petal into this troubled and mysterious world.Some call the wide-eyed flower jasmine.Some call the wide-eyed flower thorn.The wide-eyed flower doesn’t care what you call it.I bow to such freedom. —RumiWe’ve spent our lives practicing our human conditioning. Telling ourselves things that aren’t true about our worth, our lacks. Reinforcing a sense of separation, loneliness, fear.What happens when you take-up the practice of being a flower?How does a flower respond to you human thoughts and worries?What does a flower think of your so called problems?We find flowers throughout the buddhist teachings and koans. The Buddha gave a whole sermon—holding up a flower. There are recorded stories of practitioners having awakening experiences upon seeing a flower. flowers are silentsilence is silentthe mind is a silent flowerthe silent flower of the world open—IkkyuRememberingIn this koan the nuns of Tokeiji are re-enacting the story of the Buddha’s birth where flowers rained from the heavens. The story is ancient and the ceremony seems to have roots prior to buddhism. We build a flower bower in the shape of a white elephant that came to Maya in a dream. We decorate the bower in the fresh flowers of spring, and bathe the awakened child who stands on Great Mother Earth, pointing to the sky with one hand and the ground with the other.There is something child-like and innocent about creating a flower dais and bathing the baby buddha in sweet tea. I don’t know the origins of the ritual, but it was something that we practiced when I lived at the monastery, and is part of the Japanese Zen tradition. When we prepare for and participate in the ceremony, we are practicing a kind of remembering. Remembering our own child-like innocence. Remembering how malleable and playful the heart-mind of a child is. Remembering a time in our life where our imagination was ripe. And we really were flowers. Or could become one at anytime. A time when hours could go by and we were perfectly content to sit and watch the daisies bob in the wind. Where we made crowns and wands and palaces out of flowers. A time when we could consult flowers for advice, and laugh with them in yellows, oranges, rubies and pinks.This remembering stretches back before childhood, before we were born.We are remembering who we are—before thought, before we got overly identified with this body. We are remembering our unborn buddha mind—our awakened nature.Yodo’s poem is a reminder that the baby buddha in the ceremony—is us. Our buddha nature, our awakened nature is only right here.Sometimes appearing as a flower, a face, anxiety, fear, aloneness, beauty, love.All appearances are inseparable from the spacious embrace of our buddha nature.Yet, we forget. So we practice remembering.The baby buddha ceremony is a practice of remembering. Seeing flowers can be a practice of remembering. Zazen, chanting, bowing, the precepts, IFS, yoga, dancing all can be practices of remembering. I recently was invited to give a teaching to the Pause Meditation Community on the theme of remembrance. As I was contemplating the theme, I rediscovered Joy Harjo’s poem Remember. And remembered the importance of poetry in our practice of remembering. What is important to remember? What do you want to remind yourself? How do you remember?Here’s a poem I wrote to help me Remember to RememberRemember breathHow it breathes you, even as you sleepAnd your mind drifts here and thereEven when you feel most aloneIts gentle rhythm soothes youAnd gives you your lifeLet yourself feel this ocean inside youRising and fallingLet yourself find your way back to yourselfThrough the sensations of breathRemember and you are awareYour senses open to a world of wonderHear, see, feel, taste, smellThis is your wild and precious lifeAll is connectedYou are part of this one lifeRemember that all is changingMysteriously experience unfoldsThese thoughts are just passing throughNothing is fixedNothing is finalHow you feel now will changeIs already changingFeel the river of your lifeDrink from itRemember silenceLet yourself hear belowThe murmur or yelling of thoughtBefore the music or the noiseSilenceThough it seems we are alwaysTrying to cover it overOr fill it upSilence remainsFeel your own inner silenceBefriend itListen to its wisdomLet it show you something about whoYou really areRemember the goodness that you areFeel the sincerity in your heartCan you let yourself feelThe kindnesses that shape youOpen to joyFor no reasonIts here, even in the heartbreakEven in the painEven when it feels farthest awayRemember this is your lifeIts a good lifeIts worth livingFeel its preciousnessRememberFor a deeper dive into this koan listen to the dharma talk where we explore more deeply some of the symbolism in the Buddha’s birth story, as well as Amala Roshi’s commentary to the koan found in the Hidden Lamp. Join Patrick Kennyo Dunn this coming Monday for Case 20: Shonin’s Shadeless Tree.I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKIn-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

This life is mysterious.I often marvel at how there is so much more that we don’t know then that we do. Walk into a forest or a city.Even if I knew every being in the forest by name.Will I ever be able to comprehend the relationships between them?The relationships between the cells in my own body?Even the mystery of what a tree is, this tree—the sycamore standingright here, at the entrance to the park.I can stand in her regal presence.I can feel together for a momentthe majesty of being rooted—And then my mind tumbles back into the mystery of being.Two bodies, appearing in the vastness of space.What is this wonder?I have been contemplating faith. More accurately I have been noticing faith. There is a certain unnamed faith we enact as we go on living on a planet spinning and hurling through space. In a sea of inter-relations that we can barely comprehend—cosmic, spiritual, geo-politcal, interspecies, elemental. What is happening here is much more mysterious then what our language allows us to express. What we are can not be named with conventional speech.What is faith?What do you have faith in?I find dharma practice to be an awakening of faith. Radical faith that allows us to peer into our assumptions about who and what we are. That allows us to open to the mystery of being. That allows us to rest in our true nature, the openness that we are.Who are we if we are not our thoughts about the world?If we aren’t our memories or feelings about the future?If we aren’t our theories or deeply held beliefs?What is experiencing this?Who are you really?This weeks dharma talk is an exploration of Case 15 from the Hidden Lamp: The Woman Let’s it Be. During the talk we explore faith, breakthrough koans and the simple and profound practice of “let it be.” On Monday you can join us live for meditation and a dharma talk. We will be exploring Hidden Lamp Case 19: Flowers of the Buddha Hall.Hope to see you there. Or sometime soon!I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKIn-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,Here we are in the heart of summer. I am writing this a week after the passing of beloved eco-dharma elder Joanna Macy. We are also in the middle of our summer read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. The koan story that we explored this week was Case 13: Chen’s Mountain Flowers and the commentary happens to be written by Joanna Macy. So I want to take the time in this post as well as the dharma talk audio to appreciate Joanna Macy’s life, work and practice through the lens of the koan.Chen’s Mountain Flowers: China 7th-9th CenturyChen was a laywoman who traveled far and wide, visiting famous masters. After she realized enlightenment, she composed the following verse.Up on the high slopes, I see only old woodcutters.Everyone has the spirit of the knife and the axe.How can they see the mountain flowersreflected in the water—glorious red?Joanna wrote about and lived her life with a wild love for the world. This was demonstrated in her activism, her translations of Rilke’s Book of the Hours, her work at building containers to help those engaged in the on-the-ground activism to connect with the emotional and spiritual side of their work and her own dharma practice. The koan Chen’s Flowers also speaks to a wild love for the world. One we are invited into through Chen’s simple poem.I want to share an excerpt from an interview with Joanna Macy where she is speaking about her love for this earth/world, being less afraid of her fears and belonging—we are already home, she says:It is so great a privilege to be here on Earth at this time. I have had the good fortune to drink from three great streams of thought—the buddhadharma, systems thinking, and deep ecology. Each gives me another way to know Gaia and to know myself. Each helps me be less afraid of my fears. I have had the joy of helping others experience this too, of seeing them take the Work That Reconnects further, building our collective capacities and our trust in reciprocity.Being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is—this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of Earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. We will find more ways to remember, celebrate, and affirm this deep knowing: we belong to each other, we belong to Earth. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever separate us from her. We are already home.Our belonging is rooted in the living body of Earth, woven of the flows of time and relationship that form our bodies, our communities, our climate. When we turn and open our heart–mind to Earth, she is always there. This is the great reciprocity at the heart of the universe. My gratitude to all. May we experience “sheer abundance of being,” as Rilke says, and know that we truly belong here.Here are some resources if you would like to connect more to Joanna Macy’s Life Work.On-being—An interview with Krista Tippett and Joanna Macy where several Rilke poems are sharedWork that reconnects—Joanna Macy’s website with lots of free resourcesLion’s roar interview—An interview with Joanna Macy about Buddhist practice and Eco-dharmaAs I turn over this koan and Joanna Macy’s teachings and legacy I find many invitations for practice. Below are three that I am working with this week.An Invitation to Study WantingChen talks about how the woodcutters know only knife and saw. Taking from the earth is their way. What are the knives and saws in our own life? How do we cultivate the courage and generosity to make space for our own wanting, our own desires? What is it like to pause and feel the sensations of wanting without pushing them away, and also without indulging? What else accompanies wanting? And can we make space for those emotions, sensations, beliefs or memories?I find when I make space for wanting, I often open to the gift of this life being experienced through my senses, it feels tender and quivering like a reflection in the water. But good, real. Gratitude follows quite naturally.The Color Red as a Mindfulness BellChen’s poem is short and simple, and yet the glorious red rings loudly. I found myself noticing red after reading this poem. So I took it up as a mindfulness practice. Allowing myself to really notice the shades of red in my life. To take time and linger with them, to feel the glory and boldness of ruby, cherry, vermillion, scarlet, crimson. Red also became a mindfulness bell, calling me to open my other senses—to really see, hear, smell, taste, feel. To let my awareness open and my thinking mind silence. Red awakened aliveness. I started to see how my neighbor’s overalls, the cardinal on the river trail, the summer rose, the stop sign and brake lights were all in cahoots—helping me to awaken to our shared buddha nature.Wild Love for the World PracticeWhat if your love for the world and your grief for the world could co-exist? What if you took them both for a walk? Where would you go? What would you see? What is your own poem to express this wild love?i meet my sorrow in the lazy river, who doesn’t mind my shy sadnessbut instead lets it float along with the gaggle of geese who seem to be deep in meditationi don’t try to pretend that i know anything when i walk along the riverits more like meeting godwho seems to shine out of each of us unhindereda light so honesti almost don’t lose myself in its playful lovingListen to the dharma talk for a more extensive dive into this koan and Joanna Macy’s legacy. May we each discover that we too are already at home, and live with a wild love for this life. Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts or your wild love for the world poem in the comments section. Next week we will be exploring Case 15 in the Hidden Lamp, The Woman Lets it Be. Summer Reading Schedule can be found here.I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,As we move through our Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women this week we focused on Case 10: Asan’s Rooster. The koan is one of devotion, deep listening and awakening to our true undivided nature.Here’s the case.Asan was a lay woman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morning sitting she heard the crow of the rooster and her mind suddenly opened. She spoke a verse in response:The fields, the mountains, the flowers, and my body too are the voice of the bird—what is left that can be said to hear?Master Tetsumon recognized her enlightenment.This koan describes an experience of reality, ordinary mind before identification with conditioned habits of separation.What Asan realized— is our natural state. There aren’t boundaries that separate the senses. Our seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking happen in the open field of awareness. There aren’t boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world. Everything we experience is part of the flow of our life. We are one body. There isn’t some distant “us” apart from the flow of experience.Why don’t we experience this wonder, freedom and intimacy? Well, we are. We do. We are never separate from reality.Its just that our attention gets hooked onto objects. Our habits of distraction, separation, disinterest and wanting things to be different— seem to obscure the open, inclusivity of our awakened nature. And so, we don’t see what is right here, closer then close.This mis-perception is why we practice, we practice to reacquaint ourselves with the oneness, belonging, connection, freedom and love that is our nature, our ordinary mind, our natural state.We practice and have moments of realization, moments of awakening where our fascination with our habits of mind drop away, and we wake-up to the reality of our one life. We wake up to the one body of mountains, buildings, flowers and our body too as the voice of the bird, or the sound of the subway or the ring of the alarm.We are one body. This life is one life. Open your senses and wake-up to our shared life. Feel the spacious presence of mind’s nature, clear, open, wake—all inclusive.In this dharma talk we explore the practice of listening as a dharma gate. This is a rich and deep practice that we can practice in meditation, in our relationships, with ourselves and as we move through the world. Listening invites intimacy, awakens spaciousness and presences. I invite you to practice listening with us this week. Here are some pith instructions for listening as a practice.What are you hearing? Open your senses. Let love guide your listening—as your sense of self opens beyond the limits of the physical body.The body of sound is vast and spacious. It includes the entire world.Listen closely, the sound is better.Be open to the pleasure and joy of listening.Drink it in.Try to listen without judgment, label or preference.Hear sounds as if you were listening to a strange, experimental piece of music.Feel the boundless quality to your listening—no inside, no outside, no in-between.Hear the cries of the world.Hear the joys.Let your listening include the waves of feeling moving through your own body.Compassion arises from this kind of listening.Can you hear the seemingly silent objects that surround you?Hear with your eyes, with your whole body, let all of your senses participate in your listening.Listen to the silence, the apparent source of sound.Is there anyone that can be said to hear?Who is that one?Rumi says: Listen, and feel the beauty of yourseparation, the unsayable absence.There's a moon inside every human being.Learn to be companions with it. Give more of your life to this listening.Give more of your life to this listening.As you reflect on this koan and the practice of listening, what resonates for you?* Have you ever had a taste or glimpse of awakening? What impact did it have on your life?* What is your experience with listening as a practice? * How is listening connected to compassion in your life?I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,I am just getting back from our Interdependence Sesshin— five-days of residential silent retreat practice in the hills of West Virginia with the Mud Lotus Sangha. It was moving for me to practice sesshin in a new environment with many people who it was their first longer retreat.Sesshin is healing, no matter what the theme, it transforms us to sit and live in silence together, to practice opening the senses and seeing into our nature. It’s a non-linear practice that awakens faith, vow, deep love and interconnection. As well as a confidence in the imperturbability of Mind itself.Returning from sesshin is its own practice. One that I am getting more familiar with outside of the monastery walls. Our lives are interdependent, so naturally sesshin flows into the structures and routines of our living. The heart-mind awake in the play of work, relationship, driving, eating—as the many hands and eyes of compassion express and manifest so seamlessly.What is this wonder? Alertly seeing through confusion is the way of silent illumination and the way of subtle radiance. —HongzhiOn Monday nights I lead an online drop-in meditation group through ZCO. We are currently doing a summer read of the Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. You are welcome to join, click the link for the schedule below.This past Monday we read Case 6: Bhadda Kundalakesa Cannot Answer. Here is a short version of the story.Bhadda is a wandering Jain ascetic very skilled in debate. Wherever she goes she throws down a rose apple branch signifying that she is challenging any who dare engage with her to debate. When she is seventy years old, Shariputra (the Buddha’s disciple) challenges Bhadda. Bhadda asks him several philosophical questions and he answers them all. Finally he says to her. I have one question for you. And proceeds to ask:“ One—what is that?”Bhadda can not answer.Shariputra then begins to teach her the dharma. Bhadda asks to take refuge and meets the Buddha who says to her.“One phrase that brings peace is better than a thousand words that have no use.”At these words Bhadda awakens. This koan feels particularly relevant in the charged political climate we find ourselves in. The nature of debate so often is a practice of proving ourselves, trying to convince the other how our perspective is the right one. We can feel self-righteous in our views, or morally superior or better then.When you debate or argue with someone, are you actually open to hearing what they have to say? How do we stay curious in the face of differences? What is it like to stay connected to your heart’s aspiration when engaging in speech?In the story, Shariputra asks a mind-stopping question to Bhadda.One—what is that?The question itself doesn’t really even make sense. As I repeat the phrase my mind has no where to go with it. It stops, opens, all that is left is space—quiet, wakefulness.I imagine this is what happened for Bhadda. Has anyone ever asked you a question that you could not answer? What did you do?This moment of not being able to answer left Bhadda open to the dharma—to the truth before words.Our words, our thoughts, our fears are often the source of division. We get so caught up in them, in being right or needing to defend ourselves or prove our position—that we forget that we are all made of the same stuff. That we all share the same nature, that quite literally and experientially our lives contain each other.If interdependence is our nature. How do we realize it?What is this One?This is the theme we explore in this dharma talk, feel free to listen and leave a comment. I’d love to hear your reflections on this koan as well.* Who are you when you aren’t identified with your thoughts? When your mind is silent, open, awake? * Have you ever had the experience of not being able to answer? What happened next?* What is your experience of the Buddha’s teaching to Bhadda—one phrase that brings peace is better than a thousand words that have no use?Next week we will continue the theme of oneness and interconnection through the practice of listening. To follow along and join the conversation read Case 10: Asan’s Rooster in the Hidden Lamp. I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,We began the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women with the first koan—The Old Woman of Wutai, a story about the spiritual path, pilgrimage and life direction that features crone wisdom. If you are interested in joining the summer read, more information and reading schedule can be found here.In this email I would like to share the koan and some reflections about life as pilgrimage. I would also love to create space for your own reflections and engagement. First the koan.Hidden Lamp Case 1: The Old Woman of WutaiAN OLD WOMAN lived on the road to Mount Wutai. A monk on pilgrimage asked her, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?” The old woman said, “Right straight ahead.”The monk took a few steps, and she said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.” Monks came one after another; they’d ask the same question and receive the same answer.Later, a monk told Master Zhaozhou Congshen what had happened and Zhaozhou said, “I’ll go and investigate that old woman myself.”Next day Zhaozhou went to the old woman and asked, “Which is the way to Mount Wutai?”“Right straight ahead,” she replied.Zhaozhou took a few steps.The old woman said, “He’s a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others.”Zhaozhou returned to the monastery and told the monks, “I have checked out the old woman of Mount Wutai for you.”This story begins with a person on pilgrimage. Chozen Roshi defines pilgrimage in her book on Jizo Bodhisattva as, a long journey to a sacred place as an act of devotion.* Have you ever been on pilgrimage?* Where did you go? Who/what did you encounter?* What did you learn?The Practice of PilgrimageI find pilgrimage to be a very good metaphor for our life as spiritual practice, especially for those of us who don’t live at a monastery or temple. In our daily lives we move around, we walk, we journey to different places whether mentally or physically. We encounter strange, wise, ordinary and mysterious beings. Our seemingly mundane travels to the grocery store, to the gym, to the park, to work could be seen as journeys to sacred places. What makes something sacred? I think this is an important question to ponder. What in your daily life is sacred? What defines an encounter with the sacred?In the Buddhist tradition people make pilgrimage to see the places in the buddha’s life, where he taught, the bodhi tree where he was enlightened, where he was born and died. These travels of devotion can be inspiring and connect us to an ancient path of practice.So too, we are living buddhas. Where we walk, drive or bike is sacred land. When we are present, attentive, mindful, aware—we are actualizing a practice of devotion. In her book, Jizo Bodhisattva: Modern Healing & Traditional Buddhist Practice Chozen Roshi explores the relationship between pilgrimage and wandering, she says:There is a difference between a pilgrim and a wanderer. Buddhist teachings use “wanderer” to refer to someone who is lost in the rounds of suffering existence, transmigrating through the six worlds. As we move day by day, hour by hour, among states of ignorance and stupidity, irritation and anger, greediness, coveting and jealousy, pain and mental discomfort, we are like people wandering in a dense primal forest, unable to find a way out or even to climb above the trees to see if there is an edge to this tangling wilderness. We will do this until we realize, hear or are shown that there is a way out.What is the difference between a pilgrim and a wanderer? First, we must know that there is a path. If we get lost and can’t find our way out, the only choice is despair and/or a grim determination just to survive. What transforms despair and resignation to hope and joy is knowing there is a path.She then goes on to talk about the practice of pilgrimage and what we need for the journey.A pilgrim carries only the essentials. Jizo has a robe and bowl, a staff, and the Dharma jewel. Nothing extra. What do we need to step out on the path of practice? Just the equipment we were born with. A body and a mind. Actually, a body that is breathing.Body, breath and mind. That’s all that’s needed. The beauty of this is that it means you can practice anywhere, anytime. In line for the bank, in a traffic jam, rocking your child to sleep. Just align body, breath and mind and there you are…Students ask, “How do you find time for practice?” There are two answers. First, my life makes me practice. I could not do what I do without practice. Second, I turn my awareness around. Instead of looking for time to practice and trying to expand it, I look for time I am not practicing and try to shrink it.Meeting the Old WomanOn this journey in the koan, we encounter an old woman.This old woman embodies crone wisdom and is also a Jizo-like figure, living at a crossroads—offering direction.In the commentary to this koan Nancy Brown imagines that perhaps this woman lived on a crossroads point to Wu Tai her entire life. And perhaps when she was a younger woman she would give the pilgrims physical directions, “yes, turn right here and then follow the path until you get to the larger oak tree…” but as she entered elder-hood her directions became more of a spiritual nature that she expressed as—go straight ahead! There is another koan in our lineage that invites: go straight on a mountain road with 99 curves.Crone wisdom like koan wisdom is about stepping out of logical, rational, either/or dualistic ways of being—and awakening to a more-than-rational awareness.The people we meet on our journeys can be teachers. Sometimes a line from a chant catches us when we are practicing chanting. Similarly in the pilgrimage of our lives, sometimes an encounter with a stranger at the grocery store, a scene from a show, words on our instagram feed can be teachings—touching our hearts before words.I was recently reading the fairly tale the Maiden King, in it the young hero has an encounter with Baba Yaga, the crone figure who lives in the depths of the forest. In the tale she asks the hero,Did you come here of your own free will, or by compulsion?This pilgrimage, this healing journey, this spiritual quest, this life path you are on—how did you get here?Are you wandering or are you a pilgrim?In the fairy tale the hero answers, I came mostly of my own free will, and twice as much by compulsion.Mostly I was following my aspiration, and twice as much my wanderings.This is the way of things, we meet our lives as best we can through our vows, our intention. So much of what happens is beyond our control. Sometimes we wander and find ourselves in strange, challenging, habitual or unfamiliar terrain.The Way of Not-Knowing, The Way of IntimacyOne of my teachers invited us to practice aimless wandering. We would consciously disrupt direction oriented walking with a touch of chaos, moving not from the head but from some other source of direction.The practice was an invitation to embrace uncertainty as a practice—as something that we can embrace or be in relationship with. It also turns the duality of wandering and pilgrim around. Perhaps wandering too is the way—is part of this mysterious path.There is another koan about pilgrimage, here a pilgrim is asked where they are going on pilgrimage, and they answer honestly—”I don’t know.” The teacher responds: “Not-knowing is most intimate.”I find when working with koans, that the phrases or images offered can become practice reminders. Which phrases or images feel alive for you? Carry them around and see how they open.I am practicing with the old woman’s phrase—right, straight ahead. To voice this phrase internally as I notice mind-wandering into garden plans or song lyrics or stories about the people in my life—I say, “Kisei, right straight ahead.” And usually it wakes me up to the mystery of this place—the sounds of my hands typing, tree limbs dancing in the summer breeze, openness-unconditioned, belly-breath, an abiding tenderness towards life itself.Nancy Brown in her commentary shares that her teacher Zen Master Seung Sahn would end every retreat and every letter with the phrase:Only go straight, don’t know; try, try, try for ten-thousand years nonstop; soon get enlightenment and save all beings from suffering.She continues:How do we go “straight-ahead-don’t-know”? This question—any sincere question in the moment of asking it—returns us to a mind that is before thinking. In this moment of asking we and this universe are not split apart. How is it just now? What is the job of this moment? What a simple and portable practice!The Hidden Lamp ends each case with a couple of questions. I leave them here for you to reflect on and digest. I would love to hear your reflections.* What is the point of spiritual seeking, and what do you hope to find there?* Have you ever overlooked the wise person right in front of you, clothed in a seemingly ordinary form?* What from the koan or commentary has stayed with you? How are you practicing with it?* Has a question ever led you to the mind before thinking?I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. This is where the Summer Read is happening if you want to join the discussion and practice live. Schedule here.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaWeekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and ThursdayRetreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Happy Summer Solstice!I feel deep gratitude to be on this path of friendship, communion and inquiry with you. The path of dharma is a path of truth, of getting closer to the actuality of our lives—to the heart of what is right here.In this journey of the heart there are so many encounters, so many opportunities for reflection, so many relationships, learnings, emotions, sensations. Fear is a natural part of the human experience. It is often connected to a sense of not feeling safe or a-getting-closer-to-what-is unfamiliar, unknown, uncertain.And fear can be quite ephemeral—leaving in its wake anger, anxious thoughts, panic, doom—as we attempt to distract ourselves, numb out or push it away.In the Buddhist tradition we have a lot of different practices for meeting fear and meeting our reactions to feeling fear. All of these practices are grounded in the four immeasureables: loving kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity.In the audio dharma talk I share some of the practices I have learned for practicing with fear, including metta, insight, working with Jizo Bodhisattva and tonglen. At the end of the recording I lead a guided tonglen practice for meeting fear/anxiety in ourselves and the world, opening to spaciousness and offering love. May we meet our fears with understanding and compassion, as we cultivate the courage to welcome everything that comes our way! …Summer Read—The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women (First Session Monday 6/23)This Summer I will be offering teachings and open discussion on 15 selected koans and stories from The Hidden Lamp. I am inviting you to join in this Summer read.The Hidden Lamp offers stories from the Women Ancestors in the Buddhist tradition. These stories are raw, humble, playful and speak of this very human path of awakening. Each story is accompanied with commentary from a contemporary Buddhist teacher.The koans are stories that tell of the awakened life. They invite us with their metaphors and images to recognize our own awakened life.I will host a meditation, dharma talk and discussion weekly on each koan and provide brief commentary and inquiry questions here. You are invited to attend the meditation/discussion, share your comments here, read along or engage in whatever way feels good for you.the light of the dharma is shining through every experience of our lives. sometimes it appears hidden. this offering is an invitation to recognize the light of awakening in the midst of our living this summer.We will start this coming Monday June 23rd with the first Koan story: The Old Woman of Mount Wu Tai.I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring supportive practice forms for engaging the dharma in life outside of retreat.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaInterdependence Sesshin: A Five Day Residential Retreat Wednesday July 2 - Sunday July 6 in Montrose, WV at Saranam Retreat Center (Mud Lotus is hosting its first Sesshin!) Currently full, contact me to be added to the waitlist.Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

I have been reflecting on the nature of practice-awakening. In the Buddhist tradition this refers to the process (both sudden and gradual) of realizing our fundamental wellbeing. This is a transformational practice. This is a healing practice. And it is mysterious. It doesn’t happen in the way that we expect.Insights happen, and then are forgotten. Love is awakened and then seemingly covered over. Only to be rediscovered again. We can read the same teaching years later and feel like it opens a new level of depth, or is actually just what we needed to hear in that moment.The ancients spoke of stabilizing our insights, of familiarizing ourselves with the love, peace and understanding that we are.I am reading a book by Carol Gilligan called The Birth of Pleasure. In it Gilligan is using the myth of Psyche and Eros, to talk about the development of the psyche in women. She is also writing about relationship and the maturing of love. As I was reading I encountered a short paragraph where she introduced research between mothers and infants that revealed the relational attunement present at this early stage of our development. She spoke of how the research challenged assumptions of separation.Their research was challenging an orthodoxy of separation (we are born alone, we die alone) by revealing a reality of relationship. Finding and losing and finding again. This is the rhythm of relationship, played over and over again in the games that delight babies and young children. It is the rhythm of love.—Carol Gilligan, Birth of PleasureWhen I read this, I heard dharma practice instructions. That is the thing about immersing in the dharma, we hear it, we see it—everywhere.How many of us have this orthodoxy of separation ingrained in us? Who think thoughts or hold beliefs that—we are alone? We are separate from the rest of the world? That no one understands us? That we are unloveable or exiled in some way?The dharma challenges this orthodoxy, by revealing a reality of relationship. We can wake-up to the reality of interconnection, of non-separation. Practice is that finding and losing and finding again. Its the rhythm of love that delighted us as children. Its something we know deeply.We are never apart from it, but we get lost, as humans do. And then get found.A coin that is lost in the river, is found in the river.—Zen KoanWe are that coin. Our true nature is that coin. And actually we are the river too, where nothing is ever lost. Its always right here.In the Tibetan tradition you do practices a one-hundred-thousand times as part of the preliminary practices, called ngondro, this includes prayers, refuge practices, bows, atonement and offerings practices. I have a little taste of this from the studies I did at Tara Mandala. You keep a practice log, and you actually count.Part of the theory being that once you do it thousands of times, its in you. Faith, determination and trust are born through the practice of return. We actualize the rhythm of love that we delighted in as children.Isn’t it delightful to rediscover the refuge of our breath, to reconnect with the stability and openness of our original heart?In the Zen tradition we have our own expression of this. Throughout the course of a retreat or a residential period, you will do 100s or 1000s of bows and hours of meditation. You will chant the same chants, participate in the same ceremonies, over and over again. Hogen used to say if you train at Great Vow Zen Monastery for at least 7 years—the dharma is in your bones. Ten or more years of dedicated lay practice that includes sesshin has a similar kind of embodied resonance.Part of the point here is the repetition. If we lose and find ourselves one-hundred-thousand times, we will start to trust the practice—we start to trust those periods of feeling lost, afraid or anxious as part of the rhythm of love—part of the rhythm of being. We will start to have a kind of experiential faith that love is us. That we are never apart from openness. That the peace we seek is really right here.one-hundred-thousand returns to loving kindness and kindness becomes more the ground from which we liveThe recognition, the experience of love, of ease, of understanding, takes an instant. But the true developing of the refuge takes time— perhaps one-hundred-thousand times or more.And we still get angry, we still get anxious—but our response is closer to the actual experience. We can feel the anxiety with kindness and openness, with curiosity and humility—and that changes everything.Sometimes we think, it must not be working if i still have to practice, if there is still this much anger. But this is the human realm, we live in a world with anger, with hatred, with loss and pain. Practice is an orientation of the heart, it’s learning more and more to dwell with life as it actually is.Over the past year we have been reciting Ken McLeod’s version of the Four Immeasureables prayer at Mud Lotus Sangha. I share it here, may you chant it 100k times until every cell in your body knows the truth behind these words.Four ImmeasurablesEquanimityMay I be free from preference and prejudice.May I know things just as they are.May I experience the world knowing me just as I am.May I see into whatever arises.Loving kindnessMay I be happy, well, and at peace.May I open to things just as they are.May I experience the world opening to me just as I am.May I welcome whatever arises.CompassionMay I be free of suffering, harm, and disturbance.May I accept things just as they are.May I experience the world accepting me just as I am.May I serve whatever arises.JoyMay I enjoy the activities of life itself.May I enjoy things just as they are.May I experience the world taking joy in all that I do.May I know what to do, whatever arises.…I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Summer Read— The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened WomenJoin me starting on the Summer Solstice, Friday June 20th for a summer read of the Hidden Lamp. I hand selected 15 stories from the book that we will explore over the course of the summer.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring supportive practice forms for engaging the dharma in life outside of retreat.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaInterdependence Sesshin: A Five Day Residential Retreat Wednesday July 2 - Sunday July 6 in Montrose, WV at Saranam Retreat Center (Mud Lotus is hosting its first Sesshin!) Currently full, contact me to be added to the waitlist.Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

One can, the other cannotBoth are freeA god mask, a demon maskThe failure is wonderful indeed —Mumon’s poemIf I reflect back on my life, it is possible to see a series of failures, mistakes, broken dreams and incomplete projects. Relationships that I probably should have left before they ended, others that I probably shouldn’t have even pursued, still others that I could have worked harder to repair.One Zen teacher said at the end of their life—one continuous mistake.Ever feel this way?From one perspective failure is the feeling that we most want to avoid….From another, shame can be a kind of addiction, overwhelming us with feelings of self-pity and self-doubt so much so that we feel unable to take the next step.If I zoom out a bit from the failure finding mind, I see that there is another way to view the series of events I call my life. It is possible to see each seeming mishap, embarrassing moment, failed relationship, broken dream, emotional scar as the terrain my soul needed to journey to arrive here.In each of the scenarios my mind calls failures, I can see that I was doing the best I could given the thoughts, perspectives, emotional reactions and insight I had available to me in the moment.Our lives also have a kind of mythos. If we continue to zoom out and see the totality of our lives, we can begin to catch wind of the mythic dimension to our living.I recently encountered the fairytale The Maiden King. In this story, the main character reaches a kind of crisis point, he can no longer abide in the old way of being. He has left behind the false comfort of fractured relationships and beliefs he had about himself and the world. Stumbling around in the dark of the wood, feeling perhaps like a failure, an imposter, not quite up to the task, he comes to the house of Baba Yaga who asks him:Did you come here of your own free will, or by compulsion?I love this question. It rings like a koan.Did you come here of your own free will, or by compulsion?Here right here.In the catastrophe of your life.In the mystery of this embodiment.How did you arrive?What brought you here?The hero responds, I came mostly by free will and twice as much from compulsion.Ah, the truth of it.Where we stand, where we sit, in the heart of our lives—can we really say how we got here? A dream, a desire, a heartbreak, a crisis, a response—is it anyone’s fault? What is free will when so much of life, the circumstances we encounter, the people we meet, the thoughts and sensations that arise in our experience are out of our control?Sometimes the inner critic wants to blame us for the circumstances of our lives. In a desperate attempt at clawing at some semblance of certainty in this ever-changing field of existence we call the world—the critic says, it’s your fault, you failed, you’re not good enough, you did something wrong.But life is often more mysterious than that. Our lives twist and turn and intersect with the lives of hundreds of thousands of millions of beings. Our life is part of this great web of interconnected life.And yet, it seems that we can orient our hearts in a particular direction. As we meet the circumstances, the people, the events, the inner landscape of our living we can orient the heart-mind towards kindness, openness, generosity, understanding.We call this orientation vow.We call this orientation practice.Practicing with failure invites us to feel our lives.To feel our fears.To awaken a compassion that can companion any emotion or feeling.It invites us to take responsibility for our lives—by meeting ourselves right where we are.—in the dynamic non-dual truth of this— mostly free will, twice as much compulsion existence.—in this— the failure is wonderful indeed— embrace.There is no better life.This life is our one life.Could it really be—wonderful indeed?…I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Summer Read— The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened WomenJoin me starting on the Summer Solstice, Friday June 20th for a summer read of the Hidden Lamp. I hand selected 15 stories from the book that we will explore over the course of the summer.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring supportive practice forms for engaging the dharma in life outside of retreat.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKZen Practice opportunities through ZCOGrasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin—August 11 - 17, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery (this retreat is held outdoors, camping is encouraged but indoor dorm spaces are available)In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaInterdependence Sesshin: A Five Day Residential Retreat Wednesday July 2 - Sunday July 6 in Montrose, WV at Saranam Retreat Center (Mud Lotus is hosting its first Sesshin!)Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe