<![CDATA[Soto Zen NA - Dharma for All]]>Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:34:44 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[​Kanzeon Before Me]]>Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:34:19 GMThttp://www.sotozenna.org/dharma-for-all/kanzeon-before-mePicture
by Eido Frances Carney

Living in the cold, windy city of San Francisco, as a single parent raising three teens, and working a full-time job that sucked the life out of me, threw me into a disheartening decline.  Every day I’d rise early and ride the bus from the fog belt to the financial district to spend the day in front of a computer screen.  By the time I trudged the six blocks from the bus stop to home in darkness through driving cold rain, my umbrella turning inside out, I’d be fully spent.  Yes, I had meditation, but I began to disbelieve its value.  Yes, I had notions of Kanzeon, but where was she?  What could I rely on?

Every day on the verge of tears over slight difficulties caused me to be distant with family and friends.  We were living together, but I began to withdraw.  I was quite aware of this condition in myself and found it unnervingly painful.  I needed to hold the family together.  Nevertheless, I couldn’t see my way clear to changing my attitude about my life.  Everything came to rock bottom, and I could not see the use of my life, nor any future that made sense.

One particular day, I felt unusually low.  I had to go out to the store and found
myself walking up the hill while thinking about where I could find solace.  Kanzeon
came to mind, but I thought about this being, or spirit, or phantom with a sense of near
contempt.  Was there anyone or anything I could trust or believe in?  I went to the core of
my being, feeling alone and wounded and I spoke clearly to myself, “All right, I’m sick
of this pain, this isolation, this drudgery.  If you are real at all, show yourself immediately
and give some proof, some help.”

At that very moment as I reached the top of the hill, a blind man came around the corner.  He heard my footsteps, and simply said, “Good evening!”  He said this in such an immediate, bright, confirming way, as he tapped his white cane along the street.  This man could only hear the world.  He could only listen to the sounds around him, and he spoke to what came toward him.  I replied “Good evening,” and then he stopped to talk.  “I
don’t know your voice,” he said.  “Who are you?  Do you live on this block?”

The light of Kanzeon coursed through me.  The sound observer, the one who observes the sounds of the world, the Gateway to Everywhere.

We chatted for a few moments and all the while, I knew Kanzeon had made an
appearance.  Kanzeon was not a remote idea but an embodiment of all life around us.  I
realized that we are all Kanzeon as we respond with compassion to life in each moment. 
Sometimes we don’t know we are being Kanzeon, as this man did not, but the timing, the
moment, the manifestation rushed through me.  A moment earlier I had demanded proof. 
Here was Kanzeon before me in the words of the Lotus Sutra, listening to the sounds of
the world, and my life changed at that moment; the perceived torments of everyday life
simply vanished.  I would be reminded of this every time I heard his cane ticking on the
sidewalk in the neighborhood as he recognized my footstep.  Every sound an opportunity
of healing, the gateway to realization.  Not a small miracle, but the actualization of
compassion in the visible life around us, gratitude for all life in all its manifestations.

Constant Mindfulness of Sound Observer, the delicate voiced one who observes the
sounds of the world, the one who responds well to all places in all directions.  The one
whose broad vows are as deep as the ocean, beyond reckoning or discussion.  There is no
field of activity where Kanzeon does not display her body.  Kanzeon, the one who can
extinguish the woes of existence, who is the manifestation of the gateway to everywhere.
Visible and alive for all of us in every moment, a truth we can call on and rely on!
]]><![CDATA[CULTIVATING FREEDOM“with” PAIN IN SITTING]]>Wed, 01 Jul 2026 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.sotozenna.org/dharma-for-all/cultivating-freedomwith-pain-in-sitting by Gigen Victoria Austin

 “Bleah.”

A resident of Beginner’s Mind Temple in San Francisco has lived with GI issues in long sittings since he moved in several months ago. When he sits more than two periods of zazen, his digestion slows down. His hiatal hernia, usually dormant, worsens to active gastritis. Even in a one day sitting, though he feels an urgent need for relief; his body cannot take care of itself.

As we discussed his zazen practice, several other issues came up. First, he is tight around the hips from the prolonged standing that is part of his daily schedule. Second, in zazen his arm hurts. Third, because he cooks breakfast once a week and has two other zendo positions, he gets to sit in his regular place about twice a week. The change makes it difficult for him to settle.

In our review, though, because GI issues came up again and again, we decided to focus our attention there. He had already repeatedly tried to solve the problem with endurance, thinking he might be able to free himself “from” the pain. However, this approach had not worked. GI issues are physiological and hernias most commonly do not heal on their own. So we asked ourselves, “How about freedom ‘with’ the pain? How can a person with GI issues relieve the pain, develop stability and ease, and take care of the body so that body and mind could settle in peace and harmony?

How to read this article: This is a record of how one practitioner deepened his stability and ease by accepting and responding to somatic messages that might otherwise have gone unheeded. It is not intended as a prescription for people with GI issues. I offer this for us as colleagues on the teaching path to explore freedom “with” rather than “from” physical pain.

Process: During our half hour session, we explored three steps and stages:
  • Relieve the pain
  • Discern several postures of stability and ease, to empower the practitioner with alternative ways of doing zazen
  • Spread the benefit to the whole body and mind
Relieving the pain:

First we explored how the posture and the pain interacted in the posture the practitioner had been using: Burmese (Siddhasana) on a zafu with knees down. I observed the distance between his hips and his ribs, and developed a couple of hypotheses:
  • In Burmese posture (Siddhasana), due to the wide position of the legs, the posture is very stable side to side. However, it is relatively unstable front to back, and there is downward pressure in the lower body due to the sides of the body becoming stable and short. Could these factors be creating pressure in this practitioner’s gut, leading to pain and physiological impacts in long sitting? What if he were to sit in ways that give height to the trunk?
  • The GI issue is the main problem we are studying today. What if we simply propped the other problem areas so as not to create pain? Then we could focus on our main theme.

Stability and ease: 

“Yeah !”

We had identified the width of the leg position in Siddhasana as a likely major factor in this practitioner’s pain during sesshin. Our next task was to develop a toolbox of noble postures to use in future sittings. I was suggesting that he might be on the lookout for levels of fatigue in sesshin that made his side body get shorter, and alternate postures in which his side body remains tall. That could help him build a sense of nourishment, stability and ease in his sesshin practice.  Here is what we discovered:

Spreading the benefit:

Now that we had figured out several ways for this practitioner to find stability and ease in seated meditation, we could discuss what might happen next in meditation. Most importantly, if the GI system had stability and space in sitting, it could work better. This is one way to support internal peace and harmony without denial or forcing.

The GI system nourishes us and eliminates waste. When it is working well, we have a sense of ease. In addition, it functions as a physiological brain and support for our emotional stability. That is why our practice emphasizes the hara.

The Buddha taught four noble postures: standing, walking, sitting, and lying down. This is how we studied postures in which this practitioner nourish and support GI-friendly posture and breathing, giving contemplative benefit to his hara throughout the day:

In the Fukanzazengi, Dōgen taught, “The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain.”

In the West, how do we serve and cultivate practitioners from all walks of life, with all their different body types, conditions, and needs? How do we acknowledge and support people who may not come to us physically or physiologically prepared to practice freedom “from” — but must practice freedom “with” — the conditions they live with every day?

I offer my observations to the community and invite your reflection and response. Thanks for your willingness to read this record, and together to consider how we can spread the message that our practice is a universal gate.
Thanks to Juan Carlos Chotocruz for your willingness to share your practice, and to Parsa Nowruzi for your joy and participation.  Thanks to Monica Miller for photos
Siddhasana, knees down
Picture
Wide legged posture stabilizes and shortens the side trunk between hips and lower ribs.
Chair sitting, zafu under buttocks to raise hips slightly above knees.
Picture
Narrow-legged position and sitting bone support lengthens side trunk to give more room in the hara.
His happiness inspired a friend.
Picture
A second practitioners saw the first practitioner’s relief, tried chair sitting with support, and understood.
Another approach: supporting the arms
Picture
Supporting the arms gave enough leverage that his side trunk became taller, even with legs wide in Siddhasana.
Simple cross-legged pose with leg support
Picture
A slightly narrower position with support between ankles and shins increased the height and openness of his hara. The sensitive balance from placing buttock bones on the diagonal edges of a support cushion freed his breath and gave him a sense of freedom.
Seiza with support for shins and hands
Picture
The greatest GI relief came when we adaptively propped Seiza for ankle stiffness and hand pain, putting his weight on the whole shinbone rather than the knees, and using the weight of the palms to help his thigh bones to descend.
Walking practice
Picture
Step by step, maintaining height and ease between hips and ribs.
Standing practice
Picture
To practice finding room in the hara in standing, he balanced on footprints and fingertips, lightly pulling the wall downwards to build inner uplift and ease.
Kinhin, adaptive arm position
Picture
To keep the main focus on uprightness and ease in the hara, we removed the distraction of numbness in the arms by using a walking meditation variation taught by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Standing meditation
Picture
The noble posture of standing zazen, with support and inner balance from light contact between the fingertips and a hip-height chair back.
Deepening silence in kinhin
Picture
In kinhin, many people anticipate forward motion with eyes, head or feet. When the hara is stable and comfortable, we have room to deepen our inner silence by allowing the hara to lead.
]]><![CDATA[The dharma reaches everywhere]]>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 21:21:12 GMThttp://www.sotozenna.org/dharma-for-all/the-dharma-reaches-everywherePictureThe zendo fire raging
by Shinshu Roberts

​On March 27th , Tassajara residents were awakened to the sight of the zendo engulfed in
an inferno of flames.  As a former resident of Tassajara, I have memories accumulated from several practice periods and three months as Shuso, and I am part of a larger Tassajara sangha of present and former residents, summer guests, and workers.  Each of us carry memories of this building: oryoki meals, service, zazen, laughter, pain, Dharma talks, tangaryo, cleaning, and ceremony.
Picture
Residents during an ango may recall fondly, as I do, standing on the engawa at dusk on each “8” day preparing for nenju, a ceremony to recall and renew our faith and effort in practice.  This was a sweet time at the end of the day, as we lined up outside on the zendo porch.  Standing barefoot, we felt the smooth undulations of the wooden planks under our feet, boards that we had cleaned daily with a damp rag and that reflected the effort of generations of students since the zendo was built.

The zendo’s high perch looked out over Tassajara’s cabins and during nenju we gazed across Cabarga creek below the zendo, seeing Suzuki Roshi’s garden, the Kaisandō building and the abbot’s cabin.  The ceremony began with hans echoing a call and response through the valley announcing the abbot’s procession as they offered incense at various temple altars.  We listened to the abbot’s footsteps fading into the distance and returning, then the deep resonance of the densho as the procession reached the zendo.  We felt the air and calm of the sacred silence of evening passing.  Earnestly, the Ino recites:
Carefully listen everyone.  Twenty-five centuries, seventy-three years ago the great Tathāgata entered nirvana.  When this day is gone, your life also decreases.  Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here?  We are to practice constantly, as if to save our heads on fire!  Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care.  Throughout Zenshinji the Dharma safely resides, bringing peace to all.  Everyone in the ten direction knows an increase in joy and growth in wisdom.  Thankfully we recite the names of Buddha.

This is still so: Throughout Zenshinji (Zen Heart/Mind Temple) the Dharma safely resides.  ​
PictureThe Buddha statue, whose head is resting in the ashes and burnt wood of the recent fire.
 he zendo that burned was not the original zendo, nor was it the first major building to be destroyed by flames at Tassajara.  Originally, Tassajara was a resort with a hotel that was located on the same spot as the zendo that just burned down.  That hotel caught fire in September of 1949.  In 1978, the original Tassajara zendo, located off the current kitchen, was destroyed when a fire started in the chiden area during a ceremony.  As in the current fire, the seated stone Buddha was almost destroyed.  Experts at the de Young Museum in San Francisco restored the Buddha and it was later installed in the new (now gone) zendo at Tassajara.  Produced in the Gandhara region of Pakistan, it was probably made around the 3rd or 4th century C.E.  

The place of our memories is now gone.  We will never forget or return.  Yet, even if we had entered the doors of the old zendo innumerable times, each time was new and would not be replicated.  Such was true of the hotel and the first zendo.  Still, for me, they are stories.  Everything is different and we cannot mourn what we did not experience, except as a thought, wish or fantasy.  

The old zendo burned down, the old hotel is gone, and now “my” zendo is gone; it is just a memory but, at a future time, another building will be there, or the garden will be bigger, or some new use will arise.  The future guests, students, priests and abbots at Tassajara will make new memories and sit in a new space and call that place their zendo.  Perhaps in the future, I will stand on the ground of the old zendo and send a fond blessing to my memories, but I will not be “a fish in muddy water” asking “what pleasure is there here?” because there is just this place, this time, this life of practice where we stand right now.  It is still our lineage of warm-hand-to-warm-hand.  There is joy and wisdom still to arise from these ashes.
PictureThe aftermath of the zendo fire
 As Dōgen so poignantly wrote about practice, “Yet, in attachment blossoms fall.”  Tenzen David Zimmerman, San Francisco Zen Center’s Central Abbot, who is currently leading the practice period at Tassajara, wrote after the fire: “Good morning.  Tassajara practice continues uninterrupted.  The Sangha is resilient; monks sit zazen in the Retreat Hall.  Canyon wrens sing on the Kaisandō roof in the morning.  Frogs chant along Cabarga Creek at night.  Gratitude to the Buddhas and Ancestors, the mountains and waters, for this liberating Way of life.”

And so it is.  Our practice is impermanence.  This is just another way to say inter-being,
co-dependent arising, intimate life, lineage, Buddhas, ancestors, and foolish human beings, frogs chanting and a wren’s song.  No one was hurt; practice persists.  The Dharma reaches everywhere.
]]><![CDATA[The Presence of Buddha]]>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:53:32 GMThttp://www.sotozenna.org/dharma-for-all/the-presence-of-buddhaby Tonen O'Connor

Our first encounters with the word "Buddha" can be somewhat confusing. Are we speaking of Siddartha Gautama? What about the way Dogen refers to his teacher, Rujing, as "the old buddha," or all those "buddhas and ancestors?" What about Buddha as the Mind that is the ground of all things as they are? How are we to perceive the presence of Buddha in our lives?

From the earliest days, the Buddha insisted that he and his teachings were synonymous, as we can see from this exchange found in the Khandasamyutta chapter of the Samyutta Nikaya:
"For a long time, venerable sir, I have wanted to come to see the Blessed One. but I haven't been fit enough to do so."

"Enough Vakkali! Why do you want to see this foul body? One who sees the Dhamma sees me; one who sees me sees the Dhamma. For in seeing the Dhamma, Vakkali, one sees me; and in seeing me, one sees the Dhamma."1

Over time, the concept of Buddha expanded from Shakyamuni, "the awakened one," to a view of Buddha as the truth of the Dharma as it manifests within the impermanent and interdependent life of all things. Buddha became the name of universal truth.

Within the Mahayana tradition that includes Soto Zen, it is customary to view Buddha from three perspectives known in Sanskrit as the Trikaya or Three Bodies of Buddha. These are the Dharmakaya or Truth Body, the Sambhogakaya or Enjoyment Body, and finally the Nirmanakaya or Emanation Body. It is important to understand that we are not viewing three separate bodies, but rather three aspects of the entity to which we give the name Buddha. As we come to understand these aspects of Buddha, we begin to more clearly perceive the ways in which Buddha is present within our lives.

The broadest understanding of Buddha is as an ultimate, over-arching Truth that is the well spring of all that exists. It is this Truth that is represented by the Dharmakaya. As defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, it is "primordially existent, transcending all perceptual forms and hence not possible to perceive". Yet, among its qualities is listed "the intrinsic ability to perform all activities." This suggests that we can know the dharmakaya only through what it does.


We cannot directly perceive the Dharmakaya because it is neither a place nor a thing, but rather the home of a set of truths that are the basis for all existence: the nature of all things as empty of own being, existing interdependently, and subject to continuous change. I think it may be helpful to also add one more truth that may not come as readily to mind, that of Possibility. The Dharmakaya is unknowable because it is a vast realm of as-yet-unrealized Possibilities, a deep well spring of infinite possibility activated by causes and conditions as they come together, making manifest our world.

It is the Dharmkaya performing all activities that provides an answer to a koan found as Case 100 in Dogen's Shinji Shobogenzo:
One day a monk asked Master Unmon: What is the Ascending Dharma Body?
The Master said: To explain Ascending to you would not be difficult, but what do you think the meaning of Dharma Body is?
The monk said: Please master, find the meaning yourself.
The Master said: Setting aside the meaning for a while, what do you think the Dharma Body means?
The monk said: It means that everything is just as it is.
The master said: That answer is simply what you learned on the long floor of the Zazen Hall. I ask you, does the Dharma Body eat meals?
The monk could not reply. 2

If he had realized that as he ate his rice it was the Dharmakaya performing an activity, the monk could have said, "Yes, the Dharmakaya eats meals."

The Sambhogakaya or Enjoyment Body refers to that aspect of Buddha available to bodhisattvas, great enlightening beings. It is sometimes also known as the Reward Body, because it is known to those feeling the joy of understanding the Truth of Buddha's compassion. Their grasp of the Truth of the Dharma enables them to enjoy the presence of great Buddhas such as Amitabha and Vairocana as they communicate the Dharma through their glory and their teachings. However, this aspect of Buddha is not limited to fully realized bodhisattvas. You and I can get a glimpse of the enjoyment of the Sambhogakaya as we arouse the aspiration for enlightenment, begin our journey on the bodhisattva path and our understanding and joy increase. We can find the realms of Amitabha and Vairocana in the sutras we study and sense the joy of the Sambhogakaya within our zazen.

It is said that out of great compassion for the suffering of human beings, those enjoying the radiant delight of the Sambhogakaya create the Nirmanakaya, a human emissary of the Dharmakaya who comes to teach the Truth that will alleviate suffering. In our world this was Siddartha Gautama, known as Shakyamuni Buddha. Out of his deep grasp of the causes of suffering, Shakyamuni devoted a life of compassion to teaching the Dharma, the Truth that helps us see things as they are and lessens our suffering. He lived, of course, over 2,500 years ago, but Dogen has a wonderful suggestion in the fascicle of Shobogenzo titled Sokushin zebutsu (Mind Itself is Buddha):
All buddhas in the past, present and future, when they become buddha, unfailingly they become Shakyamuni Buddha. 3

To become Shakyamuni Buddha is to do as he did. It means to become a sharer of the Teachings, a person devoted to offering the Dharma in order to reduce the suffering of others. It means to act with the deep compassion of a buddha. This is to practice and study the Way.

All three aspects of Buddha, the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya are how the Mahayana illustrates the ways in which Buddha is present in our lives. As contemporary followers of the Way, it is now up to us to share widely the teachings and compassion of Shakyamuni so that we, too, become Buddha's Nirmanakaya.

Notes:
1. Samyutta Nikaya, trans. Bikkhu Bodhi, Chapter 22 ,
2. Master Dogen's Shinji Shobogenzo, trans,Gudo Nishijima, Book One, Case 100
3. Sokushin zebutsu, unpublished trans. Shohaku Okumura]]>