Tag: Zen

• January 15, 2026

  And What Are You Willing To Give To The Path?

  Not long after my eldest sister died in 2014, my wife Alexandra wrote to a Zen teacher living in Kyoto to ask about various religious paths. Notably, she and I had crafted that email in such a way that it included criteria whose goal was to help her to determine what could be a suitable…
• June 30, 2025

  Huang Po’s Uncompromising Direct Pointing Teaching

  The Zen master Huang Po (d. 850 AD), whose teaching can be found in The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind, gives you no conceptual handles to hold onto. In this regard, his teaching resembles The Avadhuta Gita, which is a deconstructive wrecking ball also. Huang Po won’t, just won’t let…
• April 22, 2025

  Are The Three Pillars Of Zen Unique To Zen?

  The three pillars of Zen aren’t really the three pillars of Zen. They’re, rather, the three forces that motivate any serious sadhaka to realize atma svarupa. These pillars are: great determination, great trust or faith, and great doubt. If your spiritual temperament is marked by power or zeal, then you are to let great determination…
• November 16, 2015

  Excitement and Anti-intellectualism in Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen

  I cannot imagine a more bracing, dramatic, stern, and triumphant account of Zen practice than Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen. The very atmosphere of Zen is “lit up,” the mood is intense and alive and awesome, the figures very human while being supremely committed. I can see why the book, published in 1963, has had a…
• July 3, 2013

  ‘Inclining the ear of the heart…’

  ‘Listen carefully, my son, to the teachings of a master and incline the ear of your heart.’ So begins the Prologue of St. Benedict’s Rule. How carefully must one listen to incline the ear of the heart. To what? To the teachings. Of whom? Of the master whose words come from elsewhere, the teachings he imparts. But…