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    Green Koans Case 43: Jōshū’s “Mu” Paid Member

    CASE #43:    Jōshū’s “Mu”A monk asked Jōshū, “Has a dog the Buddha Nature?”Jōshū answered, “Mu.”BACKGROUND:Jōshū     (Ch. Zhàozhōu) lived from 778 to 897 C.E. and is often said to be the greatest Ch’an master of the Tang Dynasty. Over 10% of the cases in the classic koan collections Blue Cliff Record and Gateless Gate concern him, the most famous being the current case. Jōshū studied with Nansen as a young monk and later traveled throughout China, visiting famous Ch’an masters in order to polish his understanding. At age 80 he settled down at Kuan-yin Temple in northern China, where he taught a small group of monks until his death 40 years later. More »
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    Train Your Mind: This time, practice the main points Paid Member

    By Judy Lief
    51. This time, practice the main points.This time…Every so often, opportunities to practice the dharma come up.  How many times have you let those opportunities pass you by? I think of this slogan as the mañana slogan. It is the idea that there will always be time to practice later, but right now there are just too many other things going on. The split between times you can practice and times you cannot goes against the grain of the whole lojong approach, which is that every situation is an opportunity for practice. In lojong, there are no excuses and there is no right or wrong time. Basically “this time” is the only time we have, so why not infuse it with mind training?"Practice the main points" More »
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    Train Your Mind: Don’t be swayed by external circumstances. Paid Member

    By Judy Lief
    50. Don’t be swayed by external circumstances.The good thing about mind training is that it can be practiced in all kinds of situations. You do not have to wait for the right conditions to arrive or make special arrangements in order to work with mind training. The only rearrangement that needs to be made is to your own attitude. According to this slogan, you should take the view that whatever takes place in your life will have something to teach you. It does not matter if your external conditions are favorable or unfavorable, good or bad, for no matter what the circumstances, you can always practice mind training. So you should make use of everything you do and every situation you encounter, no matter how small and insignificant, large and overwhelming, as an opportunity to let go of aggression and cultivate loving-kindness. More »
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    Train Your Mind: Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment. Paid Member

    By Judt Lief
    49. Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment. More »
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    The Big Awakening Paid Member

    By Andrew Cooper
    Nearly thirty years ago, Tricycle’s features editor, Andrew Cooper, wrote a fine piece of Buddhist humor that made the rounds in various Buddhist publications. It is an imagined Buddhist sutra told in the voice of a hard-boiled detective of the Sam Spade style—a sutra noir, if you will. It first appeared in the Zen Center of Los Angeles journal The Ten Directions, and a revised version was published about six years back in Inquiring Mind, and more recently in the anthology The Best of Inquiring Mind. We figured the time had come to post it here for members of the Tricycle community.The Big Awakening More »