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Looking Into Zen: Inmo Joe LaBrecque

Writer's picture: Unshin SangakuUnshin Sangaku

This Tuesday March 29, 2022, Inmo Joe LaBrecque, a long time member of the Falmouth Soto Zen Sangha, will talk with us about approaching, and entering into discourse on Zen. Inmo-san has offered book reviews for us in the past, but this time he looks at ”Looking into itself..”


“When we can sit immovably like the encompassing sky, we can view and experience storms like pain and sorrow without being overwhelmed. Zazen is precisely the posture of sitting in the sphere of absolute peace of mind that is like the big sky in which the many clouds of thoughts come and go. No matter how much zazen we do, poor people do not become wealthy, and poverty does not become something easy to endure. No matter how sincerely we practice, hardship is hardship. But simultaneously, we are in absolute comfort like the unperturbed sky and we do not need to think of our life in terms of difficulty and ease."

Opening the Hand of Thought : Kosho Uchiyama


It's understandable, when engaging with this practice and Buddhism in general, to think of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in a linear way (suffering proceeding to the end of suffering), but a truth is something that's always true -- so how do we deal or conceive of the end of suffering when the First Noble Truth remains true? Hardship remains hardship -- but with the end of suffering, what has changed, how has it changed, or has it changed at all?


Also, Shohaku Okumura in Realizing Genjokoan similarly deals with re-conceiving the linear way we might understand Dogen. How can we do this?


Please join us in a meaningful conversation and experience...


108 Bows,

Sangaku



 
 
 

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