This Very Heart-Mind Is Buddha

The mind is an artist ceaselessly creating narrative with a need to skip out of experience into story. The Daoists encourage us to remain in the dance—not to make a plan is the Way: Remove the barriers to your life and exclude nothing! Your very heart mind is Buddha.

As we end sesshin, we go forth in the world and the treasure of sesshin is still here. You can’t lose what you entered into while in sesshin. In the midst of everything, you still have the silence. We can remain open to connection with the great matter.

The small self is always trying to hold off the world. But we are really a kind of flow. We feel the warm empathy at the bottom of all things. All things have Buddha nature. Not opposing reality is the beginning of all awakenings.

Michael Wilding offers his original musical response in the Meditation and Talk on January 31, 2021. Audio excerpt from the Sunday session, PZI Zen Online. 4 minutes.

On encouraging friendship with the world—koans, trees, people. How we interact with friends, from the heart. We listen to each other. We don’t have to make them anything other than what they are. Poems, stories, comments. Complete session as recorded Jan 24, 2021, PZI Zen Online.

Audio PZI Zen Online: Whatever mind you have right now in the middle of covid and civil unrest is it! Is Buddha. A great gift. We soak into koan practice and thoughts are part of the mix. They come and go and small mind perceives the vast mind. Who are we and what is this? As recorded July 13 2020.