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PODCAST

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud

Silent Thunder Order

A podcast of original teachings and music by Zenkai Taiun Michael Elliston Roshi, guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order.

religion & spirituality buddhism

All Episodes

00:16:47

70. Finding Your Way Trio 1: Dhyanayana I

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/12/22

Amongst the many,there is only one true Way:the natural Zen!* * *“Dhyanayana: a Practical Guide Among the Ways Of Zen,” the first chapter in “Mokurai,” our collection of Matsuoka Roshi’s later talks, is unusually long. I suspect it was given to a large audience, such as at a university or symposium, rather than as a weekly address at the temple, which typically ran to 15 or 20 minutes. Owing to its length and detail, we will devote three segments to touching on its highlights.It begins with the

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00:14:54

69. Matsuoka on Hakuin Duet 2

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/12/15

See the real dragon —but make sure you hear its roar —the meaning of Life!* * *In the last segment we covered the first half of Matsuoka Roshi’s commentary on Hakuin Zenji’s “Song of Zazen.” Now we will review the rest, where he shifts gears a bit. Where we left off, he touches on our tendency to overlook certain details of our life and Zen practice, thinking we are doing enough already. But he warns us, we assume from his own, personal experience:If there is error in our life, we cannot think it

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00:15:05

68. Matsuoka on Hakuin Duet 1

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/12/08

Sitting Zen takes time —but time is all that you have.Please spend it wisely.* * *Following on the last segment — my commentary on Hakuin Zenji’s “Song of Zazen” — we will look at my teacher’s comments on the same poem. This is excerpted from the first of Matsuoka Roshi’s collected talks in two volumes, The Kyosaku, a 400-page collection of 78 written talks on wide-ranging subjects that he had put together himself, from the early- to mid-1960s, a quite prolific period for his writing, ending about

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00:18:10

67. Song of Zazen

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/12/01

Who you gonna call?Where you gonna look for it?Look in the mirror!* * *Stepping out of the Soto Zen lineage, we want to pay our respects to one of the great masters of the Rinzai lineage, Master Hakuin Ekaku. His life bridged the 17th and 18th centuries, so he was active during the colonial period, dying a few years before the Revolutionary War. A prolific teacher, calligrapher, and no-nonsense practitioner of Zen, he was a big advocate of zazen for his students, and is credited with reviving Rinzai

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00:20:53

66. Keizan Quartet 4: Pure Meditation IV

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/11/24

All of the teachingsare met within this zazen:pure meditation!* * *In the last segment we ended with Keizan’s discussion of the Precepts, the true ones that go beyond mental characterization. These are the manifest Precepts, that do not depend upon our practice. They are natural, and universal. Such constructions as, “Do not kill,” “Do not steal,” and “Do not lie” become statements of the truth — that actually, the universe that gives us birth is that which actually ends life, and we cannot even own

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00:17:36

65. Keizan Quartet 3: Pure Meditation III

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/11/17

Contradictory —that is pure meditation:it is in your mind.* * *In the last segment we ended with Keizan’s “do not become involved in too many activities or too many studies,” weaving a complex web of contradictions in Zen practice, in particular those that inevitably arise when we attempt to share the Dharma with others. As Master Dogen says, “Thus the realm of self-awakening and awakening others invariably holds the mark of realization….” Without genuine insight, we are forever lost in the monkey

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00:25:44

64. Keizan Quartet 2: Pure Meditation II

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/11/10

Pure means nondual —like Original Nature:pure impurity.* * *In the last segment we ended with Master Keizan’s declaration that the one who meditates becomes the One who is the True Person. He waxes effusive as he describes what this is like:From the first, the wondrous, pure, bright Original Nature immediately appears before one’s eyes. One light continuing from the first ultimately becomes fully illuminating.So True Person and Original Nature, both in caps, are interchangeable labels for the true

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00:15:07

63. Keizan Quartet 1: Pure Meditation I

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/11/03

Pure meditation —how “pure” can it really be?Just sit and find out.* * *Before moving into more contemporary teachings, such as Hakuin Zenji, an 18th-century Rinzai master much admired by Soto Zen for his embrace of zazen, and a few selections from my root teacher, Matsuoka Roshi, we will examine one of the teachings of Keizan Jokin, who succeeded Dogen in the fourth generation after his death in 1253. Keizan was born 15 years later, and is sometimes referred to as the Great Patriarch, Dogen the

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00:13:55

62. Eihei Koroku

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/10/27

Extensive recordof Master Dogen’s Zen mindand still not enough* * *In the introduction to Dogen’s Extensive Record, Eihei Koroku, my copy a gift from Shohaku Okurmura, who collaborated in translating with the American Zen Priest Taigen Dan Leighton, Leighton reminds us that “…Dogen’s intent is not to present doctrines of philosophical positions, but to encourage deepening religious practice.” By which, of course Master Dogen means primarily zazen, but also to study these teachings from Buddhism

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00:22:03

61. Zuimonki: Being a Monk

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/10/20

Renunciationis not simply leaving home —it is homelessness!* * *Master Dogen was quite prolific as a writer, even by today’s standards. But we should remember that writing in those days, as well as publishing, was accomplished with rice paper, brushes and ink. Imagine what he might have done with a word processor. He apparently intended his master work, Shobogenzo, which tends to overshadow his other writings, to consist of 100 fascicles, or chapters, but he completed only 95 in his brief lifetime

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00:13:29

60. Lancet of Zazen: Zazenshin

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/10/13

What is it, really—this so-called upright sitting?It’s your everything.* * *Possibly the briefest of all of Master Dogen’s written teachings, Zazenshin is his rewrite of a poem he found in China, as was his initial tract on the principles of seated meditation, Fukanzazengi. The title means something like “Acupuncture Needle for Zazen,” or the shorter “Lancet of Zazen” I have chosen. Something sharp, in other words, that can cut or penetrate to the heart of the matter. In this case, the “Great

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00:15:13

59. Dogen’s Vow: To Hear the True Dharma

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/10/06

So, what is the point?No — the point of life, itself?Hearing the Dharma?* * *This segment and the next will each take up one of Master Dogen’s briefer teachings, this one known as Dogen’s Vow, the other as Zazenshin, variously translated as an “acupuncture needle” or “lancet” for zazen. These are often chanted together in service, probably owing to their relative brevity. But they also bookend the master’s teaching, so to speak. The vow paints a broad-brush picture of why we pursue this practice, as

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00:13:37

58. Self-Fulfilling Samadhi Duet 2: Jijuyuzammai II

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/09/29

What are we doing?Buddha’s great activity!So is everything…* * *As we concluded in the last segment, following Master Dogen’s over-the-top, effusive description of what Zen’s awakening is like, he launches into some caveats and cautions about misinterpretation:All this, however, does not appear within perception, because it is unconstructedness in stillness; it is immediate realization.Importantly, this realization is not an object of perception. But it completely transforms our perception, along

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00:18:24

57. Self-Fulfilling Samadhi Duet 1: Jijuyuzammai I

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/09/22

Oh, self-fulfilling!What samadhi is that, now?It is the real one.* * *Master Dogen’s written record is so extensive that it is difficult to select representative teachings, but also impossible to cover them all. The two we have reviewed so far, Fukanzazengi and Genjokoan, are recognized as basic to his message. I feel that this segment’s focus, Jijuyuzammai (Self-fulfilling Samadhi), is as well. Both terms in the title, “self-fulfilling,” and “samadhi,” require some explanation. I interpret the

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00:20:17

56. Actualizing the Fundamental Point Duet 2:...

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/09/15

Is enlightenmentdewdrops reflecting the moon —or is it your mind?* * *Following upon Master Dogen’s stunning simile of firewood and ash, and his pointed comments on birth and death, we turn to his famous “moon in a dewdrop” stanzas on enlightenment itself:Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water: the moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.The whole moon, and the entire sky, are reflected in

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00:18:45

55. Actualizing the Fundamental Point Duet 1:...

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/09/08

All things do exist.On the other hand, they don’t.Truth is in-between.* * *This is the fascicle Master Dogen reputedly designated as the first for his master work, Shobogenzo, which I understand is a common term, meaning something like “true eye of the Dharma treasury,” used in China for collections of Dharma teachings. Bendowa, which means something like a “talk concerning the Way,” from which this section recited in liturgy is excerpted, titled Genjokoan, roughly meaning the “actualization of the

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00:16:51

54. Principles of Zazen Duet 2: Upright Seated...

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/09/01

For your heart’s content,all you have to do is sit —still, and long enough.* * *Picking up from where we left off in the last segment, Master Dogen has introduced the practical, stripped-down approach to method that is unique to Zen, our upright seated meditation, zazen. After reviewing his reference to nonthinking as the natural state of mind, and his declaration that it, along with the natural sitting posture and natural breath, form the very basis for zazen, we continue:Zazen is not “step-by-step

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00:17:02

53. Principles of Zazen Duet 1: Source of the Way

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/08/25

Though not far away,you have to enter the gatefound on your cushion.* * *We have touched on some of the seminal teachings of Zen from the transmission of buddhadharma in India, its migration to China via the mission of Bodhidharma, and three of the teaching poems of Ch’an Buddhism selected for chanting in Soto Zen liturgy. No survey of Soto Zen would be complete without including Japan, and its foremost exponent and founder, Eihei Dogen, Zenji. In spite of his dying at the relatively young age of

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00:26:03

52. Trusting Mind Quartet 4: Precious Mirror Samadhi

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/08/18

What is so preciousAbout the mirror of Mind?You cannot break it!* * *Finally we come to the third and last of the series, the middle-length liturgical poem from Ch’an Buddhism, Hokyo Zammai — Precious Mirror Samadhi by Tozan Ryokai, the founder of Soto Zen in China. Twice as long as Sandokai but only two-thirds of Hsinhsinming, we will have to compact our comments to squeeze it into a reasonably brief segment. So, jumping right in:The Dharma of thusness is intimately transmitted by buddhas and

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00:20:15

51. Trusting Mind Quartet 3: Harmony of Difference...

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2021/08/11

Harmony is great!But must include everything —It’s the same diff’rence!* * *The second of the three main Soto Zen liturgical recitations from Ch’an Buddhism, Sekito Kisen’s Sandokai — variously translated as “Identity of Relative & Absolute,” “Merging of Difference and Unity” or “Harmony of Difference and Sameness” — is mercifully brief, especially compared to Kanchi Sosan’s Hsinhsinming — Trust in Mind. And while the three great masters do not simply repeat the same ideas in different terms,

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