There are a million different types of meditation techniques and they’re all the same. Once, Zen Master Seung Sahn said, when sitting meditation “you can say Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola….doesn’t matter.”

When we teach meditation to someone new to our school, we teach them to breath-in and say to themselves “clear mind, clear mind, clear mind…don’t know.” The reason why we give this phrase is to reminds us of how to practice and why we practice. “Clear mind” points to how we keep our mind right now in this moment. What do you hear right now? What do you see right now? What do you perceive right now in this very moment? “Don’t know” points to the direction of our practice. Why do we practice? Is it for a good feeling? Do we want to get some kind of experience? Is it to return to our true self? What am I? Don’t know……..

Whatever technique we use, it is important to not fight our thinking. Meditation doesn’t mean just think about whatever we want. It also doesn’t mean cut off all of our thinking. Don’t push it away and don’t hold on to it. When you’re doing any kind of meditation technique, naturally thinking will appear. That’s fine, that’s correct. But when it appears, just perceive it and gently come back to your breath, to what you see, what you hear. Come back to just this very moment.

Senior Dharma Teacher Jason Quinn grew up in California and started practicing with the Dharma Sound Zen Center in Seattle in 1997. In 1999, he moved to Providence Zen Center, to do monastic training. After nine years at Providence Zen Center, Jason relocated to Empty Gate Zen Center, returned to lay life, and took on the position of abbot. Tonight Jason returns to PZC to serve as our Abbot. In this video, Jason shares some meditation techniques during a Foundations of Zen Workshop. This is similar to the meditation instruction you can expect when you visit any Kwan Um Zen Center.

Traditionally, in China and Korea, only monks did Zen practice. But Zen has come to the West and here lay people practice Zen besides monks and nuns. This has changed the character of Zen. Now our teaching is about Zen in everyday life. Sitting Zen all the time is not possible for lay people. Everyday-life Zen means learning mind-sitting. Mind-sitting means not-moving mind. How do you keep not-moving mind? Put down your opinion, condition and situation moment-to-moment. When you are doing something, just do it. This is everyday Zen. Sitting meditation is a particular kind of meditation, unique to Zen, that functions centrally as the very heart of the practice.

For lay people, the teaching of great love, great compassion and the Great Bodhisattva Way is very important. To attain that, it is necessary to keep a not-moving mind, then correct situation, correct function, and correct relationship appear by themselves in everyday life.

A Kyol Che (“coming together”) is a longer, intensive meditation retreat held in the winter and summer. Held at our Diamond Hill Zen Monastery, it is modeled after the traditional winter and summer retreats in the mountain temples of Korea. For more detailed information, download the Kyol Che Information Booklet (pdf format).

Please register for Kyol Che retreats at least one week in advance.

Entry and exits are Saturday and Wednesday mornings 8AM only.

Retreat fees are:

$455/week for non-members and associate members;

$315/week for students, clergy and school members;

$245/week for Dharma Teachers and Dharma Teachers in training in the Kwan Um School of Zen.

Half price for Eastern Europeans who are members in good standing of their home zen centers (does not apply to Eastern Europeans living in the U.S.).

SEE YOUR GUIDING TEACHER FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO OBTAIN A SCHOLARSHIP.

To register for your retreat online – fill out the retreat registration form.

• July 14,15 Zen Master Bon Haeng
• July 16-21 Zen Master Soeng Hyang
• July 21-28 Judy Roitman, JDPSN
• Break for Founders Day Weekend
• July 30-Aug. 4 Linc Rhodes, JDPSN
•  Aug. 4-10 Zen Master Bon Haeng

Click to download the 2012 Summer Kyol Che Flyer

I feel like I’m going crazy. I’m working for the Legal Aid Society, and the maximum caseload at any one time is supposed to be 75. I have more than 75 cases right now. Starting this Friday, one of the attorneys is going on vacation, which will mean even more new cases for each person (there are 3 other lawyers).

I am quite new to the job and feeling totally overwhelmed. As the number of cases increases, I can do less and less for each person. Weeks go by in which there is no time to devote to some of the cases I already have.

I am very worried about this because I’m forced to keep doing a more and more sloppy job. I want to help people, and I like to do a beautiful job. I fear what this will do to my health (pains, ulcers, etc.) I try to have a good attitude, but I am being completely overwhelmed by all this. I am feeling very desperate.

Hapjang with love,
Michael

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your letter. How are you? You are very busy and are helping many people–that is wonderful!

If your mind is busy then the whole world is busy. If your mind is complicated, thewhole world is complicated. If your mind is quiet, then the whole world is quiet.So, an eminent teacher said, “Everything is created by the mind.”

Do you know an elevator’s job? Many people can push the button wanting the elevator, but the elevator only comes when the proper floor and direction appears. When the elevator is going up, it only stops for up-buttons and coming down it only stops for down-buttons. The elevator understands its correct action sequence. That is only going straight. If you put your mind in order, then it works the same as a computer. Then you will understand your correct action sequence.That is correct opinion, correct condition, and correct situation–Zen mind. Also,that is great love and great compassion mind. If you want that mind you must make your “I, My, Me” disappear. If you don’t hold your opinion, your condition oryour situation, then your original high-class computer will work correctly. So, you must practice every day.

I ask you: What are you? If you don’t understand, only go straight don’t know.This don’t know broom will sweep your consciousness computer clear of I, my,me dust. Then clear moment-to-moment working is possible. That is the correct way and the great bodhisattva way.

I hope you only go straight don’t know, which is clear like space, don’t make complicated, don’t make busy, soon get Enlightenment and save all people from suffering.

Yours in the Dharma,
Zen Master Seung Sahn

“No, I don’t know myself,” Socrates replied. “But I understand this ‘don’t know.’” This is very interesting teaching. Buddhist practice points at the same experience, because most human beings pass through their lives without the slightest sense of what they are.

We understand many things about this world, but we don’t understand ourselves. So why do human beings come into this world? Why do we live in this world? For love? For money? For respect or fame? Do you live for your wife, husband, or children? Why do you live in this world? If someone asked you these question, you might very well answer, “I live for my children. I live to earn enough money for them, or maybe just to have a good life.” Most people think like this. They live only for their family, for some fleeting social respectability, perhaps to enjoy art or to get some powerful position. Everyone wants to have a good situation for themselves. If you look at this world very closely, it is easy to see that most people eat and sleep and live merely for their own personal happiness. Yet these things are not the real purpose of human beings’ life. They are just temporary means for living in the world. If human beings cannot find who they are, how can they ever be truly happy?

From the Comapss of Zen

Retreat Center Programs

• One Day Retreats - One day retreats consist of sitting and walking meditation from 9:30am to 3:30pm
• Yong Maeng Jong Jin - Yong Maeng Jong Jin retreats are two, three or seven days long and are held in silence.
• Kido chanting retreats - Kido chanting retreats consist primarily of chanting from 9:00am to 3:00pm.
• Kyol Che retreats – Kyol Che retreats are held twice a year for 90 days in the winter (typically January through March) and 27 days in the summer (July or August).
• Solo Retreats can also be arranged on the property - for one to one hundred days using a schedule set by your guiding teacher.
• Christian – Buddhist retreats - Christians and Buddhists can use very similar techniques of contemplative prayer and meditation to help make their spiritual teachings a living part of their daily existence. These retreats emphasize sitting and walking meditation, and include talks and discussion.

Unless specified, retreats costs are as follows:

• $65/day for non-members and associate members;
• $45/day for students, clergy and school members;
• $35/day for Dharma Teachers and Dharma Teachers in training in the Kwan Um School of Zen.

Retreat participants can also stay at the zen center for one night (either before or after the retreat) at no additional charge.

Participants should register at least 48 hours in advance (one week for kyol che retreats). Beginners are very welcome. Please contact the Zen Center for more information.

To register for your retreat online - fill out the retreat registration form.

The second man grabbed an ear and said, “No, the elephant is like the leaf of a banana sapling.”

The third man was holding the trunk and said, “Wrong. The elephant is very much like a huge snake.”

The fourth man had his arms around one of the elephant’s legs. “What nonsense are you talking!” he exclaimed. “It is definitely like a pillar.”

“Wrong,” cried out the fifth blind man, clinging to a tusk. “You are all misled. The elephant is certainly like the branch from a magnolia tree.”

The sixth man, rubbing the elephant’s belly, said, “Can’t any of you see? It’s obvious the elephant is like a sack of grains.”

Soon a quarrel erupted between them. While they were on the ground punching and tearing each other’s hair, they rolled right into the water vessel. All the water spilled out onto the ground while the elephant stood by looking on with an expression of pity.

Last Friday we finished our annual three month Winter Kyol Che retreat and entered into the Hae Jae period. Kyol Che is the intensive meditation retreat period and Hae Jae is the looser, less formally scheduled period in the spring and autumn. The Hae Jae period provides more of an opportunity to practice in everyday life situations. During this time, monks and nuns traditionally travel from temple to temple to visit other great masters at or meet with their Doban (Dharma friends).

To celebrate, here is a video of Zen Master Seung Sahn giving the Hae Jae talk at the end of Winter Kyol Che 2004 in Korea. This is probably one of the last recordings that capture his Dharma and it’s wonderful to see so many of his senior students practicing together in the same room. Enjoy!

Our world is supported by three columns: time, space and cause and effect. But, where do time and space come from? Also, who makes cause and effect? Time, space and cause and effect are made by thinking. Our thinking makes everything. So the three columns that support our world are created by our mind.

But if our mind disappears, then thinking disappears. If thinking disappears then time, space and cause and effect disappear; then empty world appears. Empty … completely empty. Another name for “empty world” is Substance. This is the Substance of the whole universe: human being’s substance, dog’s substance, everything’s substance.

Ten thousand dharmas return to one. This one comes from where? During interviews everybody hits the floor: BOOM! Everything becomes one point: no name, no form, no space, no cause and effect., no time … nothing at all. The name for this is the Absolute. If you open your mouth about the Absolute then you’vetruth already made a mistake. Only action.

If you keep that point for a long time, then you see clearly, hear clearly, smell clearly, taste clearly, touch clearly, think clearly, and act clearly. Which means the sky is blue; trees are green; the dog is barking – woof, woof; sugar is sweet. Then, when you see, when you hear, when you smell, everything, just as it is, is the truth. Truth is beyond time and space, cause and effect. There are no opposites. This is the Absolute. If you attain this point, you attain the truth.

How can this point function correctly? Most important in our practice is a clear direction; then a correct life is possible. This world has a lot of suffering. How can we help all beings? The name for that is bodhisattva action. If you wake up moment to moment and keep a clear mind, then correct direction and truth and correct life are always in front of you. Then your action, your life, and you are never separate.

However, if this moment is not clear, then time and space, cause and effect will control you. That means your mind makes subject/object world. If your mind is clear, then subject and object disappear. This is the Absolute. Then everything is clear in front of you, and helping this world is possible.