Latest writings

Before you have this thought, you already are. After this thought goes away, you still are. No thought can add or subtract anything from your true nature. Before encountering this situation, you already are. After it is over, you still are. No situation can actually trapped you because your essence is free and transcends past, present, and future. The question is: can you live without past, present, and future? Who are…

The new book, just use this mind, written by Zen Master Miao Tsan (Jian Liao) has the answer for you. "Every stressful experience in our lives emerges from a mental door that we unconsciously but repeatedly open. Our habitual thinking opens mental doors -- modes of…

You inevitably make your own suffering. No one can make you suffer. A little bit of erroneous thinking leads to a little bit of suffering. Too much thinking leads to too much suffering. When will it ever end? Perhaps when…

Who or what ties you down? Only your attachments do. No one else forces you to feel the way you have. Only your habitual thought pattern does. We present ourselves through our habitual thought patterns. The thoughts and actions of all our moments arise from those habitual thought patterns. So, in order to be free you must get rid of your prejudicial, fixed thought patterns. ~ by Zen Master Miao Tsan

Just completed this morning Zen-Seven Retreat at the monastery and over lunch, a few fellow practitioners and I came up with a question: "How do you know if a thought is a habitual thought or a wondering thought instead of a pure thought?" Our answer is: "You must know from where the thought arise. If you do, then it is a pure thought. If you don't, then it is habitual thought." What is your answer?