Category Archives: Koans

The Three Signs and Zazen (Audio)

“Zen is often talked about as the ‘religion before religion’… in Zen, we look into the very nature of Mind, the very nature of the whole thing, why we’re alive, what’s the point, why are we here? And what we discover is… that the whole thing is empty of any solidity.” Keizan Sensei looks at the Three Signs of Buddhism and the links to zazen… what’s it all about?!

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The Bell and the Seven-Fold Robe (audio)

This week’s post comes from a talk given at the Liverpool Dojo on 28th July by Keizan Sensei, on case 16 from the Mumonkan (Gateless Barrier), one of the major koan collections.

In a bit of an experiment, instead of a regular blog post, this post is an audio recording of that talk. Hopefully we’ll be able to do more of these in the future.

Click through to the rest of this post to listen to Sensei’s talk, and remember you can as ever leave comments for Sensei and the rest of us. Would also really like to get feedback on what you think about having more talks like this available.

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The fraud – Perils of koan practice

I’ve been stuck on a seemingly innocent koan for quite a few weeks now, even with weekly dokusan. I won’t go into details, I’m not looking for help on the koan, just an observation of the process, and perhaps a cry for understanding and begging not to be judged too harshly for either my fraud… or my self-pity!

(This is adapted from an old diary entry of mine – I’ve actually shared this online once before, but not here.)

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