Author Archives: Keizan Roshi

Roshi – A Diary, Zen Mountain Center August 2005

As part of a series of posts about sesshin gathered for the StoneWater Zen newsletter, here Roshi shares a very condensed diary of three weeks spent at Zen Mountain Center, California, August 4th, leave Manchester Airport 12 noon. Arrive Ontario airport, Los Angeles, 8pm, eight hours behind UK time. Tenshin meets me. Drive through desert […]

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Shikantaza

There are several techniques that we use in our meditation practice, including counting breaths or being with the breath, and koan practice. And a very important practice used in the Soto school is Shikantaza. Here, Keizan Sensei describes Shikantaza and it is is also worth listening to his talk given on 15 November 2017 in […]

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Jokai Sensei – A Very, Very Short History

At the end of September Keizan Sensei went to Yokoji Zen Mountain Centre to attend the Shiho (transmission) ceremony for David Jokai Blackwell (above right).  Here is a piece that Keizan wrote for the Yokoji Newsletter which describes how Jokai began his training in Liverpool. In 1997 I lived in Liverpool, UK, as I still […]

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On becoming a monk 1.

On becoming a monk… The Easter retreat at Crosby will see three new monks being ordained.  Suzanne Tsuko Adey, Keith Shingo Parr and Sue Eido King will all receive Shukke Tokudo from Sensei on Thursday 16 April. In the blog pieces that follow I have asked the three new monks to say a little more […]

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Here, There, Everywhere and Nowhere. That’s where it’s at (or not….)

Sometimes in my talks I emphasise the no-self especially because most of us are more stuck in the concept of a solid, separate self than vice versa.  However, the idea of no self can be easily misconstrued.  Shakyamuni Buddha himself commented on this and he described two broad areas of possible misunderstanding.  On the one hand there are folk […]

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Stepping Out of Self Deception

Dear Fellow Practitioners, Our natural direction is towards unity and harmony with ourselves and the Great Life, however, for many of us our sense of self resists and holds us in familar patterns and restrictions that create a feeling of separation. This practice is about seeing/examining  the limitations of our fabricated sense of ‘self’ and […]

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