Category Archives: Nirvana (windless: asankhata

Source of Limitless Life, Light, Liberation, and Love

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Rosan Daido

  Good morning!   Today is Mother’s Day, when we appreciate mothers’ grace. It’s said that a mother’s grace is deeper than the ocean; a father’s grace is higher than the mountain. Mothers bear, foster, and even sacrifice their lives … Continue reading →

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Practice Makes Perfect

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Rosan Daido

  Good morning!   Dogen said, “Even though this Dharma is abundantly endowed, it never develops without cultivation, it can never be attained without verification.” His Recommendation for the Right Zazen recommends that all cultivate and attain this Dharma, Buddha … Continue reading →

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Limitless Light, Liberation, Likeness, Love, and Life

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Rosan Daido

    Good morning!   We have a calm clear Sunday morning after sittings and service. We are in sesshin, which means touching the heart (接心) and embracing it (摂心). The heart expresses an integral psycho-physical system and function, which … Continue reading →

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Living Awakened Life

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Rosan Daido

  Good morning!   We have a calm and cool Sunday morning after sittings and service. The Buddha called sitting meditation the “come and see way, good in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end.” He was said … Continue reading →

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Posted on June 13, 2016 by Rosan Daido

Good morning!   We have a nice peaceful Sunday morning with our sittings and service. Yesterday I watched a program on Cinderella on the Discovery channel. It contained the portion of her stepmother cutting her daughter’s toes to fit into … Continue reading →

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Wakeful Way World

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Rosan Daido

      Good morning!   Earlier this morning we had a very thick fog and it was difficult and dangerous to drive. Now with dawning the fog is dispelled and we can see dew on branches and daffodils on … Continue reading →

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Unsurpassed Awakening in Unconditioned Peace

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Rosan Daido

      Good morning!   We have a bright sunlit spring Sunday with our nice sittings and service. All springs up. Recently I received my paper on Zen and Science, edited with comments. I found that the unique Zen/Buddhist … Continue reading →

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Nirvana-Bodhi

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Rosan Daido

    Good morning!   We have a cool and calm morning with sittings and service on a bright Sunday morning with snow. Heavy snow storms are raging over the East Coast states, Japan, Korea, and Europe, breaking century records. Our social and individual lives are in a similar situation. On the way here we could see the bright, beautiful, full moon. The full moon represents the Buddha heart, with its round, clear, calm, perfect light illuminating the whole world.   Buddhism is the Buddha’s teaching and the teaching to become Buddha. The Buddhist goals are nirvana and Bodhi (awakening), like both sides of a mirror to reflect. The Buddhist ways are viewing and cultivating the way, like both wings to fly. These are child of five may know it,” Rev. Bird’s Nest said, “Even an old man cannot do it,” with regard to the common precepts of all Buddhas:”   Doing all the good, Avoiding all evils, Purifying one’s own mind, Is the teaching of all Buddhas.   All Buddhists cultivate the Triple Learning of morality (sīla), concentration (samādhi), and prognosis (prajňā). Zen (jhāna), stilling (bodily, verbal, and mental) karma, leads to Samādhi and nirvana, which include all of these things. Prognosis or awakening knows the Buddhist principles of the Four Holy Truths, Twelve Dependent Origination, and such Buddhist practices as the Triple Learning, Four Limitlessness, Six Perfections, Eightfold Holy Way, etc.   All Buddhists are Bodhisattvas (Awakening-beings), the title originally given to Gotama while striving for awakening, aspiring in the Four Universal Vows of saving all, severing all defilements, learning all Dharma gates, and achieving the Awakened Way. Aspiring and activating, seeing and cultivating, makes achieving, just like walking makes advancing. Stilling karma is seeing Dharma, cultivation is verification, sitting is witnessing nirvana and awakening here now.   1/24/16   Note 1. A mirror needs both sides – one side to let light go through and the other side to stop and reflect it for a viewer to reflect and see the image, in cooperation with it.  It is not a case of a two-sided mirror.  It is the case of two sides of a brain coordinating, … Continue reading →

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Wholly Wholesome Way World

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Rosan Daido

    Good morning!   We have a warm winter now with a window opened. Yesterday it was over 70. This is part of global warming. The COP21 had some success in tackling this. Paris had this meeting and a terror attack, so the French president said that these are the two biggest problems in the world. More imminent and devastating would be the nuclear holocaust and radiation disasters that could accompany natural or human disasters, like terrorism. A news report yesterday said that West Lake, the nuclear waste site in St. Louis, may become a Fukushima with its underground fire 1,000 feet away.１     Malala Yousafiai, the youngest Nobel prize winner, said, “With guns, you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” We could say, “With meditation you can terminate terror.” All the problems and sufferings we have now with the sixth man- made mass extinction as well as the inevitable eternal/universal sufferings of birth, sickness, aging, death, loss, separation, meeting with the hated – in short, the rampant raging of the five aggregates – come from the triple poisons of desire, divisiveness, and the delusion of ego, which ultimately come from karmas.     So, the Buddha at around this time of year, twenty five centuries ago, for the first time in the history, found that all living beings are karma-heirs, -owners, -machines, -refuged, and provided us with the practical way to still karmas in sitting, settling in unconditioned peace (nirvana, lit. no-wind of karmas), and attaining unsurpassed awakening (bodhi) of the Dharma of dependent co-origination/cessation. We can witness nirvana or the supra-mundane (loka-uttara), and bodhi by constant cultivation of sitting and seeing the Dharma (Norm) of all dharmas (forms), not by walking, as the Buddha said.     The holy (wholly wholesome) truth, justice, and way must come from nirvana and bodhi, beyond sinful (separate sick) truth, justice, and way – thus the Four Holy Truths (cattāri-ariya-saccāni) and the Eightfold Holy Ways (aṭṭhaṅgika-ariya-magga). Selfish truth, justice, and way are not “wholly wholesome.” Right view, thinking, speaking, acting, livelihood, mindfulness, striving, and concentration must be truthful (sacca, satya)2 and holy, based on nirvana and bodhi. So, the Buddha said, “Enmity is never appeased by enmity,” and “Conquer one-self not thousands in wars.”3   … Continue reading →

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Peace Is the Way, Not War

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Rosan Daido

  Good morning!   We are at the autumnal equinox, equal in day and night, heat and chill, or rather neither heat nor chill. So, in Buddhist countries, we celebrate it as Higan (彼岸), Yonder Shore, with two days before and after it. Yonder Shore means nirvana, which is the shore beyond the rough sea of suffering in the karma world. Nirvana, unconditioned peace, and anuttara samyak- sambodhi, unsurpassed right complete awakening – both sides of one thing – are the goals of Buddhists. Though the equinox is only twice a year, anyone at any time, anywhere, can attain them with cultivation and verification.   The Buddha was awakened to the fact that all living beings are karma-heirs, karma- owners, karma-machines, and karma-refuged. He provided us with the most direct, practical, and effective way to attain equanimity or nirvana, no-wind of karma, and to be awakened to the Dharma (Truth) of all dharmas (phenomena): Dependent Co- origination. It is Zazen, sitting meditation, stilling karmas and seeing the Dharma and dharmas. Dogen recommended the Practice Way Cycle (gyōji-dōkan) of aspiration, cultivation, awakening, and unconditioned peace, assuring us that anyone can attain nirvana-bodhi.   On the first day of the equinox, the Abe administration upset the Japanese Peace Constitution with laws that allow collective self-defense, prohibited even by the ruling LDP for seventy years after WWII. The Peace Constitution is in the Buddhist tradition of peace without weapons and wars: The Buddha prescribed the triple learning of morality, concentration, and prognosis, seeing his own kin terminated in the war for empire. King Ashoka erected the Dharma edicts, sending envoys after his Kalinga campaign. Prince Regent Shotoku set the Seventeen Article Constitution after the clan wars.   The first article of Shotoku’s constitution says that harmony is precious, and the second requests respect of the triple treasures of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha (Community), because we are all ordinary people to counsel among them (in the Awakened Way) as described in the sixth article. The Abe administration, with 62% of the seats in the last lower house election and only 17% at proportional representation due to the single-member district voting system, passed the laws despite a poll result of 80% insufficient explanation, 60% against them, and insufficient debate. It is a big blow to the Awakened Way also. … Continue reading →

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