First, there is an interesting discussion that is connected to the topic of this and past articles over at the Zen Forum International: KNOCKING DOWN MONASTERY WALLS. During the past articles of this “What does it take…”-series, I tried to…

Peter Barakan visited Antaiji in October 2011 and talked with abbot Muho about zazen, life in the monastery and the relation between teacher and student. This is the original English version, a dubbed Japanese version can be found here (Ja…

Sometimes people ask me: “What believes do I have to commit to if a become a Buddhist monk at Antaiji? What sutras or prayers do I have to remember to qualify?” An interesting question. Or maybe I should rather say: Interesting that someon…

First of all, my friend in Ofunato is alive. The area where his house stood has been completely destroyed, but he managed to escape together with his 80year old mother. He left his cell phone in the house though, and it was not until April…

I know it is still March, not May, but let me use the opportunity to write one little article in advance, because once the heavy work starts, I find it difficult to make an update every two months. Viewing the pictures of houses and cars b…

A Zenmaster wakes up one winter morning, and when his assitant opens the paper screens of the windows, he exclaims:“Master, we have snow, lots of snow!”The master asks:“How much snow?”“I have no idea how deep it is, but horizontally, it ex…

Last year I started with this series on the nitty-gritty of studying Zen in the Japanese Soto school. The question I am dealing with has two parts: “What does it take to become a full-fledged Soto-shu priest?” and “Is it really worth the w…