by Mushin Crisman | Feb 6, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
In the latter 20th century, as yoga meditation and East Asian iconography emerged in the mind of Western popular culture, the word mudra entered the Western lexicon. Images of yogis seated in cross-legged postures, hands on knees, palms up with the first (or second,...
by Mushin Crisman | Jan 30, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
Provisionally speaking, Zen is all about contents and context. 21 century physicists, examining the fabric of our universe, pose the question “does anything really exist?” One school of quantum theorists state explicitly that nothing, or rather no thing, exists. This...
by Mushin Crisman | Jan 24, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
In a previous essay space was considered as a factor in “place”, the impermanent now-here. This essay provisionally presents space as the Dharma-gate to another core Zen tenet…emptiness. Early Buddhism categorized all ‘things’ into two categories: compounded and...
by Mushin Crisman | Jan 16, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
Sometimes the big questions are just too big. Things like, “why am I here”, “what’s the meaning of life”, “who am I”, seem so big that finding a beginning, an entry, is impossible. So let us step back from the really big questions, and consider less big questions,...
by Mushin Crisman | Jan 9, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
The word ‘thing’ holds a special place in Zen practice. What is ‘thing’? Whether it is something (some-thing) or nothing (no-thing) it conveys the sense of, well, of “thingness”. When we say “please pick up that thing” to someone, they see where we are pointing, they...
by Mushin Crisman | Jan 2, 2023 | Dharma Discourse
Discussing Zen Buddhism, it is easy to take a reductionist stance: “Zen is all about this”, “that is not at all Zen”. These mental postures do have their place, but as with all Buddhist teachings, they are provisional. Provisionally speaking, Zen practice is all about...
