Myoju

Our practise is based on simple routines, like the routine activities we do every day, and if our routine can include meditation practice as part of it, that is wonderful. Our practice is not to get something out of it. You just do it. That is actually the essence of our practice.

Just see the entire body of the ocean rising and falling, purely able to see that part, self forming that way, rising and falling, coming and going, not affected by peripheral things, starting to become more subtle, starting clearly to perceive how those shapes rise, fall – that moment.

If your body and mind are harmonised – you are ready to speak. You don’t need to worry about whether you make a mistake or not. Your capacity is great, whichever way it goes. But often times, the body and mind are separate and crunched in by thoughts and ideas. If you try to push too much it does not produce the best result

During the settling period, I notice that each retreat has its own nature. On this retreat there is a feeling, from the beginning, that the retreat has been entered. The practice space is quite still and the energy is good.

The only time monks get excited is at tea time or evening meal time—not so much oryoki type meal—when some treat or some sweet comes in!

In early Chinese Buddhist tradition there was no lay ordination as such. When Buddhism became established in Japan that changed and the Soto Zen School recognised both monastic and lay ordination. So we are talking about lay ordination and a lay context.

The Buddha’s first Noble Truth was the truth of suffering. Most of our problems, if not all of them, really boil down to the issue of happiness and unhappiness. What do we usually do when, for some reason or another, we feel unhappy? What we don’t usually do is ask ourselves why we feel unhappy.

The core of our practice is sitting and everything grows or evolves out of this. Each one of us can be likened to a bud or seed of a tree, full of potential and beginning to sprout. As we begin to grow taller our roots become established and grow deeper.

One of the most difficult things on retreat is feeling that you’ve had enough sleep. This is especially so on the first, second and third days because the pattern of the day has changed.

If there is a cause, there is a consequence. If we talk about karma in terms of cause and effect, anything we do, even moving an object from here to here, has a consequence. That understanding is the entrance to the Buddhist Way.

Thank you very much for coming to sit in this group, in this format. Each person’s presence is a support to one another— each person. This is the nature of Zen practice, this format: without thinking about it, being here and practising, making an effort to settle down and, together with everybody else, naturally supporting and supported; and that is the beautiful part of Zen practice.

Often the metaphor that is used to express clarity in the practice of body and mind is water. Water has the full range. Water is not frozen (laughs). If water is frozen like ice, it has only one quality. Water is fluid.

Holding the cosmic mudra symbolizes all in one, all in one. Your hands lightly touch your own body so you have a sense of connectedness. The mudra just touches your body with the thumb-tips lightly touching.

I found the warmth, kindness and generosity of the monks overwhelming. This made a deep impact on me – the kind of intimacy one rarely encounters.

Ekai Osho describes the practice as a ‘body based practice’ which ‘gives us experience through action’. Working as part of a ryo provides a wonderful opportunity to live out the practice dynamically, to learn to just do rather than to over-think things, and to reduce the separation between the practice and ‘ordinary life’.

This edition considers what deepening practice is, and what it actually involves. Reflecting upon Ekai Osho’s talks and our interview together, the common thread that emerges is that deepening practice involves returning: returning to silence, returning to the self. So what happens when you actually engage in this process?

So why is pain such a built-in part of Zen practice, and why then do people continue with the practice? In the interview with Ekai Osho, he says that ‘the most important part that zazen plays, is that it forces us to face reality… In reality there is no such thing as a world without pain’.

Nothing can prepare you for India. You just have to experience it!” Those were the words of Ekai Sensei to me when I tried to prepare myself for our trip.

Many monks and teachers have brought Zen teachings and practices to Australia before, but Ekai Osho is the first Zen monk to come and stay, and to teach purely in the Soto tradition. Jikishoan is the beginning of an Australian branch on the Soto tree, a branch that is deeply nourished by the solid trunk and ancients roots of teachings and practices of the Buddhas and Patriarchs in this lineage, but a branch that is also already developing its own characteristic shape and perf