by Steve Rojin Genyo Lefever 🪷 Opening Koans “Not knowing is most intimate.”Zen Master Dizang “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.”Miles Davis “True entrusting is living fully in the here and now.”Rev. Koyo Kubose 🎺 Who Was Miles Davis? Miles Davis (1926–1991) was one of the most influential jazz…
Tag: mindfulness
Not knowing is the most intimate.
 Not Knowing – I would like to start today’s Dharma talk with one of the most famous of the Zen Koans – Attention! Master ​Dizang asks ​Fayan,“Where have you come from?”​Fayan replies, “I pilgrimage aimlessly,”“What is the purpose of your pilgrimage?” asks ​Dizang.“I don’t know,” replies ​Fayan.“Not knowing is the most intimate,” remarked ​Dizang.At…
Kintsugi: The Beauty of Imperfection
For Today’s dharma talk, I want to share some ideas and feelings about the beauty of imperfection. To do this, I want to use a metaphor from Japanese material arts, Kintsugi. Metaphor helps us learn by adding a deeper, more emotive dimension. Metaphor tends to be the language of the heart. For me, kintsugi is…
The Voice of the Buddha: Finding Dharma in Everything
Dharma Talk by Chris Kakuyo Leibow Today I want to explore a profound line from the Tan Butsu Ge, a poem found in the preamble of the ancient Buddhist scripture known as the Larger Sutra of Boundless Life. This particular verse speaks of how “the voice of the Buddha’s enlightenment reverberates through everything”—a concept that…
We Call Upon Ourselves as Kwan Yin: On Mass Shootings in America.
by Christopher Kakuyo Sensei What can one say? I find myself at a loss for words again. Another mass shooting. Here is a vain attempt to share what I am feeling. Any words I could say to the families of the murdered or to their community would feel hollow, self-serving, so I could say my…
Everyday Nembutsu 