REGISTER

The storehouse of treasures opens of itself.
You may take them and use them any way you wish.

—Dogen’s Extensive Record, Fukanzazengi

In our recent three-day PZI sesshin, we rapidly entered deep waters; koans speaking with other koans. 

Sixteen bodhisattvas enter the bath.
We are searching, searching for the coin lost in the river.
We come and go by daylight, but suddenly it’s midnight and there’s no sun, no moon, no lamp.
How will we get hold of something? 

Some notes follow:

—We are fortunate. Fortunate. Fortunate to breathe this air. Fortunate for this day. This is your day.

—Just as you enter the bath, the bath enters you. Where I live, we have had plenty of rain lately, and the frogs are out, singing. The  clouds cleared for a time, the full moon rose, and the coyotes yipped. The frogs are drinking in the coyotes, who are drinking in the moon, and the moon is drinking in the sun.

—One description of awakening is water poured onto water. What was your way of entering the bath with the sixteen bodhisattvas?

—The coin lost in the river—what are we seeking in the coin? Practice is about making ourselves findable. If we stay around in the river long enough, we may be surprised. We may find something we had that was never lost.

And did you find what you wanted from this life,
even so?
I did.
And what did you find?
That I could call myself beloved,
and find myself beloved on this earth.

—Raymond Carter, Late Fragment (amended)

COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation.
Register to participate. All are welcome.

Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community