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
August 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 6
August 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk
July 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 5
July 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk
June 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 4
June 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 3
June 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk
May 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part 2
May 2015 Talk - Why Zen Folks Fail - Part I
May 2015 Zazenkai Dharma Talk
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: gratitude & Great Gratitude
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo - TO ALL SOLO PRACTITIONERS: Don't Be A Selfish Pratyeka-buddha
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: WHOLENESS
Original face, Dogen 's words
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: FINGER WAGGING at SOTO TEACHERS & STUDENTS
True color, mokuran
The Dharma is utterly useless
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Beautiful-Ugly-Buddha Eye
Sit-A-Long with Taigu: Unmasking
SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Even Buddhas Get the Blues
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