Let me continue to write about our "monkey mind & horse will". In Book 5 of the Eihei Koroku Dogen Zenji said:"Do not control the monkey mind and horse will. Practice like a lotus in fire."In the same Book 5 we find him say:"To say 'this v…

I gave answers to three different questions about how to practice Zen on and off the meditation cushion. My main point was to "stop being mindful". This might sound surprising to some, as it is a common believe that practice consists exacl…

Does practice mean to accept reality "as it is", or do we practice precisely because we can not accept reality "as it is"? Do we try to change the world, do we try to change ourselves, or do we try to try nothing at all when we practice? I…

Second question:"2. Outside of zazen practice, in our daily life when we walk, talk, eat, sit, lay down or work, should we keep being mindful of, or following anything specific? For example, like the Rinzai students who keep the koans on t…

Let me continue with my answer to last month's question: How should we concentrate on the breath?I said that concentrating on the breath can be a way to calm us down during zazen. Now, there is no exact manual of zazen. We have to experime…

For the next couple of months, I want to concentrate on the practice of upright sitting. I want to start with my answers to three questions that were sent to me by e-mail quite some while ago. The questions basically are:1. What shall we d…

In the "Genjokoan", Dogen Zenji writes that "in aversion weeds spread". A good disciple has to be like a weed that grows even while being stepped upon by his angry master. Don't wait for anyone to cherish you or praise your practice.During…

Why are we so unsatisfied with our zazen practice? I tried to find some reasons by reading through the articles in the Antaiji yearbook from about ten years ago. Some of these articles were inquiring about the way we should or should not d…

A lot of people think that for zazen you first adjust your body, and after that you adjust your breath, and finally you come to adjusting your mind - and it is exactly this mind that those people are most concerned about. But this is a mis…

Shortly after arriving at Antaiji, one of my later Dharma brothers wrote in the Antaiji yearbook: "Antaiji is not a school. Even though people here may be given a task, it is still up to them to solve it. Each one of us has to search for h…

In Buddhism there are ten precepts called the "ten grave prohibitons". It is said that any monk who breaks any of these prohibitons will fall straight into hell. These ten precepts start with the precept of not killing, and they also inclu…

For the last three months I have been reflecting about the first impressions I got at Antaiji. I described how the image of "zen" that I had as an university student differed quite a lot from the life that I found in the Zen monastery. And…

The life that I found waiting for me at Antaiji was quite different from the "Zen practice" that I had imagined until then. Last month I wrote about my surprise to find the monks sleeping during Zazen, also about how hard the work was for …