The following is an audio recording of an essay by Treeleaf founder and guiding teacher, Jundo Cohen.
Here's the "elephant in the room" of Shikantaza Zazen: What does it mean to "think-non-thinking?" In ordinary life, our daily minds resemble a mad circus, maybe a chaotic jungle. We react to the elephants passing through our awareness, jumping on, leaping from one to the next, pulling their tails, prodding them with a stick, often tangled in their trunks. Sometimes we chase them to catch them, sometimes we run away in fear, sometimes we get trampled underfoot. What is more, all our meddling seemingly summons ever more elephants of thought and emotion into the crowded room. The jumbled circus of "thought jumbos" and "emotion mastodons" never ends, and we taunt them and stir them up more. But in Zazen, the elephants are tamed.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:
The Elephant in the Zazen Room
November 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Dogen's Hokyoki - Part II)
October 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Offering Metta to Violent People)
October 2017 SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Sailing, Shikantaza
September 2017 SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Enter in Spring, Exit in Fall
September 2017 SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: CHANGING HEART, CHANGING TIRES
September 2017 Zazenkai Talk (A SPECIAL TALK to COMMENCE 'ANGO' SEASON)
September 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Dogen's Hokyoki)
July 2017 Zazenkai Talk ("Practice-Enlightenment" for Practical People)
June 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Dogen's Instructions to the Ino)
May 2017 SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: The Treeleaf LEND-A-HAND ('LAH') Project ... WE NEED YOU!
May 2017 Zazenkai Talk (May 5th-6th, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI!)
April 2017 Guest Zazenkai Talk (David Loy and A New Buddhist Path)
April 2017 Zazenkai Talk (The Heart of the Heart of the Heart Sutra)
March 2017 Zazenkai Talk (The zen poems of Ryokan Taigu)
February 2017 SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Sit Down & Speak Up
February 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Our SPECIAL "NEHAN-E" 4-hour ZAZENKAI)
January 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Reflections on Jukai)
December 2016 Sit-a-Long with Jundo: My Uplifting, Inspiring, Hopeful, Optimistic New Years Message
November 2016 Zazenkai Talk (Namaste India)
October 2016 Zazenkai Talk (Cases from the Book of Serenity for Ango & Jukai)
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