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Just recently I came across this great Zen site. It reads more like Dzogchen and Mahamudra. It is worth a visit. The Zennist Asanga

The idea of 'wu' or no in Chinese Zen means more than plain 'no'. To say no mind (wuxin), for example, can mean 'true mind', 'unborn mind' or 'unobjectifiable mind', all of which are mind other than related to our thoughts. Such a mind does not arise (birth) nor does it depart (death). We may...

There are many answers to "what is Zen?" which range from the definition of Zen to its history. Originally the school of Zen was not about Zen at all, it was about Buddha mind. See what the Buddha saw was its maxim. Blessings, Asanga

Your point is well taken. Mystics tend to arrive at the same place. The Buddhism found in the Pali canon, I would say, tends to go for the apophatic methodology. For example, our self is not the five holding aggregates of form, sensation, imagination, experience, and sensory consciousness...

How do you teach Dharma in the West if it is about detaching from thought phenomena (which includes our emotions), external phenomena of all kinds until there is nothing left, and then you detach from that? Blessings, Asanga

If as the Buddha says each being is heir to their karma, then imagine the consequences of collective bad karma. External structures, by and large, have proven inadequate. What good are Constitutions if "We the People" are corrupt and precept breakers? How can the results of good karma...

The minute I read your words I remembered this passage from the Avatansaka Sutra: Indeed, as you suggest the world we see is really a manifestation of paths to enlightenment (samyaksambuddha). It is not even a world, as such, of karmic doom but one of the mind trying to find itself...

Buddhism can easily become a smorgasbord. When it is treated this way we often miss the golden thread of the teaching that runs through all the various and ennobling traditions which individually represent skillful means. This is to suggest, therefore, that we might be evolving a therapy...

I think you have summed up my concerns accurately. As we both know, boiling it all down, the Buddha taught essentially two groups, viz., prthagjana (the worldly) and arya-sravaka (the transcenders), the latter of which made up the trisarana sangha. The first group revolves in samsara trying to...

We can find self-help ideas in Buddhism. This is certainly true. But that Buddhism's end is self-improvement (or the same, self-help) rather than liberation from samsara is hard to prove. Take for instance "aikido". Some forms of Buddhist meditation will help the student develop better...

It has been my experience that many in the west who seem interested in Buddhism believe that it will meet certain psychological needs they have. I am not sure this attitude will work because there is so much more to Buddhism. This is especially true of those who do a lot of Zen sitting. I...

Thanks Pathless. Here is a real Asanga (4th century C.E.) passage: One should understand that only the sphere of cognitive activity which is completely freed of discursive thought is the domain of knowledge of the supreme essential nature (paramarthikah savbhavah) of all dharmas. —...

The Way is comprehended in the mind; how can a sitting in meditation be concerned with the Way? — Zen Master Hui-neng (from the Ching-te ch’uan teng lu) The term 'mind' in Buddhism is complicated. In the old canon the teachers said it was two, defiled and radiant. The first, hides the...

"To train yourself in sitting meditation [za-zen] is to train yourself to be a sitting Buddha. If you train yourself in za-zen (you should know that) Zen is neither sitting nor lying. If your train yourself to be a sitting Buddha, (you should know that) the Buddha is not a fixed form. Since...

The Buddha did give us a path or a way. It was a unique way. As best as I can translate for you, it is the way of the medium. When we deeply introspect within ourselves (on a vertical axis) we come to a most mysterious medium. We can call it the 'life-force' 'tathata' (thatness)...