Latest writings

One day a lay practitioner came to visit a Zen master and asked him, "Do heaven and hell exist?" "Yes" "How about the Buddha, the teaching, and the monastic community, do they exist?" "Yes" He went on to ask many similar questions, and the master always answered with "Yes". Puzzled, the lay practitioners said, "Master, I am afraid you are wrong." "Have you met an enlightened teacher?" "Yes, I met master Jingshan." "What…

Student: Should we have all the relationship around us be…

The Mind is both the entry to life as well as the exit for all our problems. So to change our life and resolve out problems, we must start with the Mind--the source of all phenomena--by changing our thoughts.* Recently, I caught myself whining that my children were not using particularly nice table manners.…

You do something because a thought came to you. It came to you because you saw others do something. Since your thought is a product of another's thought and your action is a product of another's action, where is the real you in this picture? This is how we go to sleep to our true Self. We think and act unconsciously, like tennis balls bouncing off somebody else's racket and wall. The question is this: if you drop all thoughts,…

The mind is formless, but we allow it to become occupied by habitual thought patterns. So, how can we let go? I will show you. If I hold an apple in my hand but reach for…