Usually at the end of our monthly five day sesshin I say something like: "Sesshin isn't over now. The real sesshin starts the moment you think it is over, so take good care!"Sitting for fifteens hours a day facing the wall isn't easy. Keep…

"Skinship" is a word widely used in Japan. According to the Japanese Wikipedia article on "skinship", it means physical intimacy or closeness between mother and child and was first used by an American at a WHO conference in 1953. The word …

In April I asked two questions regarding crossing the legs during zazen:First, should we really have the tips of the toes in line with the outer edge of the thighs, or isn't it so important after all? And second, is it really necessary to …

I mentioned the fact that Buddhist monks and priests in Japan today usually marry as one reason for the degeneration of present day Japanese Buddhism. Before I will explain why it is a problem for Japanese Buddhism as a whole as well as fo…

Original edition of Sawaki's"Zendan" 1st edition of Uchiyama's"Opening the hand of thought" New edition of Uchiyama's"Opening the hand of thought" Exactly one year has passed since I wrote about how to sit in zazen for the last time in thi…

Twelve years have passed now since the Sarin attack in the Tokyo subway. I have mentioned repeatedly that the degeneration of Japanese buddhism is one factor that led to the rise of the Aum cult and the poison attack. The reason for this c…

When I encountered zazen at age 16, it was like a first discovery of my physical existence. I realized that I not only have a body, but rather that this body is me. There were around 15 members in the Zen circle that I participated in. We …

With 16, I entered a Christian boarding school. One of the teachers there had a Zen meditation circle. He had originally studied philosophy, later became a Catholic priest, lived in a Theravada monastery in Thailand for a year and finally …