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Filed in Zen (Chan)

Being Intimate with Demons

What is the Emotional Life of a Buddha?Jane Hirshfield

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In Soto Zen, though there is no formal course of koan practice, students are often encouraged to practice with a question of their own. "What is the emotional life of a buddha?" is a question that poet Jane Hirshfield, a Consulting Editor to Tricycle, has been working with for many years, and she suggested that it be used as the basis for a special section, out of curiosity, to see how it might be addressed more widely.

Courtesy Crown PublishersAt Tassajara, the Soto Zen monastery inland from Big Sur, where I lived for three years in the mid-seventies, a stone Buddha of great beauty and concentration sits on an altar. From his lotus throne he radiates both serenity and acceptance, the traditional half-smile on his face greeting whatever is brought into the room. In many ways, I found such a reminder of one’s own Buddha-nature quite helpful. Without such equanimity, how could one sit without moving amid the many hours of thoughts, feelings, memories, physical pain, or even the joys, that are an inevitable part of Zen practice?

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