Sokukoji Buddhist Temple Monastery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQB_8KTzhU

Anytime you come to any conclusion, whether it’s just causes and conditions that arise and you suddenly see something a certain way, or you see something and you cover it up with a conclusion, it takes a lot if awareness training to see the difference between those. This is the beginning of discriminating awareness wisdom. It’s not about picking and choosing. It’s about seeing the fundamental difference between the clarity of the mind and the continuous pile of rubble that is created by the self-centered grasping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIm08-eduvk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNKkCR3tJWU

Something arises and we abandon that. We abstract ourselves away into what it is about and what it means. We tend to analyze our life and our state of mind based on conceptualizing. It may have relative accuracy, but when it starts to take priority, it reinforces the attachment we have to who we think we are. Sokuzan refers to Dogen Zenji's teaching ”Drop off body and mind” to explore the area that is not deceptive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzca1L79TCQ

Belief is not helpful to the spiritual path. It is certainly helpful in making the self-centeredness feel secure so you don’t have to investigate. Don’t believe, but don’t disbelieve either, and don’t look away, the most difficult of the three. How do you train yourself to not look away? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbWb5een8Qg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_mAE3shVVU

Sokuzan gives a dharma talk inspired by a line from Hokkyo Zanmai or “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi” by Tozan Ryokai, a ninth century Zen patriarch: “It is like facing a jewel mirror; form and image behold each other.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiZldxZXayQ

Anytime anything arises or goes away and you have a comment on it, that’s meddling. Anytime you decide to not do anything about it, that’s meddling. Any position is meddling. How do we not meddle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heJNFzu4Ww0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1toy3rLiaX8

Consciousness has so many different levels. There are deeper, hidden or camouflaged areas of consciousness that most of us don’t even see. When we do sitting meditation, sometimes there are different kinds of experiences that show up in the mind that are unexplainable. How do we work with this?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uokadsJfjo

There’s a very, very subtle production of the thinking process. It has such a low frequency that we can’t actually see we’re continually reaffirming a self, the narcissistic mind. The difficulty is when we grasp onto what arises in that domain and think it is substantial, that it is real. These hidden thoughts get hold of you and take your very buddha nature, your incredibly, enlightened, radiant, receptive, fundamental nature and twist it up into knots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwnKiVD2mhY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuHeSBP7cLk

Block sitting meditation is a powerful tool that will help you see more clearly what’s happening with your mind and with the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-yxrl8a1aw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CzyjqZH8U0&t=1s

In order for there to be equanimity or “upeksha” in Sanskrit, sometimes described as “balance”, you have to look at the imbalance. You begin to see deeply that the very people creating commotion and distress, you see that this is dependent arising happening and you give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t try to modify anyone’s karma. You’re not going to help people by interfering with them. To meet people in their confusion, you have to meet yourself without some kind of an agenda about improving or being this special awakened person. You have to look at the suffering without grasping or rejecting. No comment! Then all of your children come into the room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7x6e_FuEb0

There are different kinds of friendship. There are those friendships you have an affinity for with people who understand you well and care about you even with your neuroses. Then there are the kinds of friendship that you are forced into, like with your family. And then there’s the “kalayanamitra” or spiritual friend who may show up as someone in the sangha or as the teacher. That person is so concerned with your welfare that they will not buy into your self-deception, to put it politely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2U6SUFB0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUgL_jW5Qk

What is a teacher? It’s an interesting situation when we meet someone who is going to teach us something. When it comes to the spiritual path the teacher can show up in so many different ways. Here Sokuzan responds to questions about the student-teacher relationship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXXvlSe0Oy0

Prajñāpāramitā - the last of the Six Paramitas - means "the Perfection of Wisdom," and refers to a perfected way of seeing the nature of reality: the causes and conditions of what is arising and what we see as relative truth that appears before us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gadW3Dlwsg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Domf0mxPyWg&t=1760s