Mar 3, 2009
Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on July 27, 2008.
"Shih-Tou's awakening happened as he read this passage from the
teachings of the early scholar monk Seng-Chow:
"'The Ultimate Self is empty and void. Though it lacks form,
the myriad things are all of its making. One who understands
the myriad things as the Self, isn't that a sage?'
"That seeming dichotomy right there, the myriad things and the
self, the form, the empty, the void, the relative and the absolute
became the essential insight that Shih-Tou would plumb the depths
of and elucidate in a way that hadn't happened before him, to such
a degree that his 'Identity of Relative and Absolute' is a teaching
that we chant to this day."
Note: This talk also addresses what it means to "sit with" koans as
a practice, and how it relates to concentration practices.
For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.