Words on
the way of Zen
Reflections on practice, tradition, and the everyday path of Zen.
Practices of Male Sexual Cultivation for Attaining the No-Leak State
The entire history of traditional cultivation is almost the history of male cultivation. The major traditions and schools of practice have all been built primarily upon the rise and fall of male cultivation experience, and this is especi...
ReadGuidance on Alchemical Cultivation: Once the Master's True Oral Teachings Were Received, the Way Holds No Other Pursuit Than Stillness of Spirit in Quiet Illumination
The Fifth Patriarch of the Southern School, the Perfected Bai Yuchan, said: "Long ago I received my master's true oral transmission, and it taught me nothing more than to concentrate the spirit into the qi cavity." This lays bare the hea...
ReadThe Secret Taoist Method of Cultivating Qi
Posture is also called body regulation, body method, and similar terms. For anyone new to static or dynamic gongfu practice, mastering proper posture is absolutely essential.
ReadDragon-Subduing Post: Training the Meridians and Fascia (Spirit Snake Startles Awake, Spiral Surge of Whole-Body Energy!)
The name Dragon-Subduing Post (降龙桩) is taken from the Xìngmìng Guīzhǐ Quánshū (《性命圭旨全书》, The Complete Book of Life and Destiny), specifically the section "Discourse on Subduing the Dragon" (《降龙说》):
ReadThe Practice and Enlightenment of Guanyin Bodhisattva
Shen Jiazhen, lay Buddhist practitioner
ReadVenerable Gangxiao: The Threefold Measure Doctrine in the *Zongjing Lu*
Buddhist epistemology speaks of three measures. In common usage, these are direct perception (xiànliàng), inferential reasoning (bǐliàng), and sacred teaching (shèngyánliàng). The sacred teaching measure goes by several other names as we...
ReadProfessor Lin Chongan: Heavenly Awakening and the Origins of the Buddhist Dharma
(Dharma Light Magazine, Issue 234, 2009)
ReadMaster Chushi Fanqi and His West Studio Pure Land Poems
In the history of our Pure Land tradition, there is one ancestral master we would do well to remember. Though he is not formally counted among the Pure Land patriarchs, he was a Chan master with a deep karmic affinity for Pure Land pract...
ReadEmptiness Teaches Transcending All Phenomenal Marks; Non-Emptiness Teaches Being One With All Dharmas
The Middle Truth (中谛) is what the Tiantai school calls the perfectly sudden Middle Path First Principle Truth—the ultimate reality of the middle way. It clarifies that the wondrously luminous mind-nature of the Tathāgatagarbha is never f...
ReadAs soon as the eighth consciousness of those who recite the Buddha’s name departs the body, they immediately arrive at the lotus dais
First, let's discuss why we ordinary beings artificially separate what is inherently undivided between the two lands [the defiled Saha world of samsara and the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss]. What's the root cause of this self-created divi...
ReadAll Ten Directions Have Pure Lands—Why Is Only the Western Pure Land Singled Out for Praise?
The Pure Land path is a teaching that is extraordinarily difficult to believe. When sentient beings first encounter this Dharma gate, all kinds of doubts arise for them. For generations, patriarchs and revered masters of the Pure Land tr...
ReadA Brief Explanation of the Universal Gate Chapter of Guanyin Bodhisattva
Of all bodhisattvas, Guanyin has the deepest karmic connection with the people of our land. That's why so many households here enshrine her image. In Taiwan especially, nearly every family that offers incense and worship has a portrait o...
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