Teaching Blog

How To Trust Your Experience teaching Sep 25, 2020

Student: We like to say “Don’t Know”, as was mentioned in the meditation instruction today. Is there anything that we do know? Is there anything that we’re allowed to know? (laughter)

Zen Master Bon Soeng: Do you see this robe?

Student: Yes

ZMBS: What color is it?

...

3 Day Online Retreat September 18th - 19th news Sep 11, 2020

Retreat is a time to look inside and investigate our life. It is an opportunity to clear our mind of habitual thinking and access our wisdom and compassion.

Empty Gate Zen Center has closed and canceled all public practices due to the COVID-19 situation. Retreats will be held online until further...

Accepting Your Life teaching Sep 05, 2020

You have to accept your life. Accept does not mean "like", accept does not mean it's a good idea or a good thing. Accept means that's the truth. One of the important things that the Buddha talked about was that what we perceive and what we think is not necessarily the truth. Because the truth...

Clear View jason quinn jdpsn teaching Aug 28, 2020

If we have some idea of what we are or who we are, we usually have some view of the world. It may be a religious view, political view, a man or woman view, monastic or layperson, even a Zen view. All of these views have their place, but if we are attached to any view, we can no longer see the...

Everything is Changing teaching Jul 24, 2020

Everything is always changing. That’s the truth of our human world. The earth is spinning on its axis. That moves the wind, that moves time, that moves space and it creates change. We either like what we have and don’t want to lose it so we fight the change. Or we think our life...

Clear Intention teaching Jul 03, 2020

If we are not clear on our intention, then our life is haphazard and we just increase the suffering in the world. But if our intention is clear, it is possible in the moment of action, correct function can appear. Maybe in that moment, we put down our I, mine, me......our desire, anger, and...

Purpose of Zen teaching Jun 26, 2020

That's Zen mind. It's not being perfect. It's not being able to do everything right, and do it in such a way that somebody will tell this wonderful story about you that a thousand years from now people will still be talking about. It's simply paying attention, meeting the moment, and helping. Our...

Wisdom, Love, and Compassion jason quinn jdpsn teaching Jun 19, 2020

A little over 2500 years ago, the Buddha realized his enlightenment. Since that time, Buddhism has spread all over the world. There are now many styles of Buddhism across the globe. There is Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, Zen Buddhism. Then there is...

Clear Seeing, Clear Action teaching Jun 12, 2020

The Buddha talked about clear seeing. In order to clearly see, we have to let go of what's clouding our vision. What clouds our vision is this concept of "I". The concept of "I" fixes the world in a certain way. Let go of the concept of "I" and we can perceive the moment clearly. When we can...

1 Day Online Retreat June 20th news Jun 05, 2020

Retreat is a time to look inside and investigate our life. It is an opportunity to clear our mind of habitual thinking and access our wisdom and compassion.

Empty Gate Zen Center has closed and canceled all public practices due to the COVID-19 situation. Retreats will be held online until further...

What Is Enough Mind? teaching Jun 05, 2020

"Enough mind" means you’ve got enough. You don’t need anything else. The First Noble Truth states that life is suffering. Sometimes we say life is unsatisfactory. Why is it unsatisfactory? It always needs to be a little bit different. But if life doesn’t need to be any different...

Why Be In This Moment? teaching May 29, 2020

The question always comes to, “Why do that?” So now we’re present, now what? Is it for our own enjoyment? That’s okay, that’s nice; we all want our own enjoyment. But that brings us back to suffering because we’re only happy as long as it brings us joy. As soon...

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