Empty Gate Zen Center » Zen Master Bon Soeng

Will It Work Out?

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:55:46 +0000

The advise that Master Wu Kwang gave is “Pay your rent on the 1st, pay your taxes on the 15th of April, and everything will work out.” He didn’t say HOW they will work out. We all think “work out” means, “Oh everything will work out well for me.” That’s what goes in my head, and I imagine most everybody thinks that way. But, everybody gets sick at some point in time, everybody gets old, everybody dies. Anything and everything that is born into this world passes from this world. So, that’s how it all works out.

What are we going to do along the way? That’s the realm of practice. Do we keep sticking our feet into the realm of suffering? Or do we connect with our practice center, really wonder about who we are and how to live in this world and find a way. ”Enlightenment” is a beautiful word. Buddhism loves to throw it around, and nobody knows what it means. We all have some idea of what it would be if we were enlightened, but that’s just our idea. Anything we think about it makes it too small, too limited, and too much just a creation of our human mind. Return to the practice, come back to this moment. What am I doing right now? And how is it possible to help the situation?

Zen is Not Self Improvement

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:24:33 +0000

Mind makes everything. If we don’t get underneath that, it’s all playing with the branches and the leaves. We can have a better life, but not really getting to the base of it. Our teaching is keep a Great Question. And the great question in Zen practice is “What Am I?”. “What Am I?”, you could say, is “What Is Mind?” And then bring that doubt to this very moment.

We often say Zen is not really about self improvement. What is the self that you want to improve? Who are you really? That’s the fundamental point. And until we really deal with that question, we are not really getting to the base of practice. Because our desires, our beliefs, and our opinions drag us around. Until we doubt them, investigate them, and use the moment as an investigatory tool, we’re just playing around.

Moment to moment to moment to moment, we’re being reflected and we always have an opportunity to ask the question and observe what is. As we are lost in our mind, in our thinking, our desire, our fears, our confusion, we don’t see anything. It’s all colored. It’s all mirrors. So our teaching is to pierce through the mirror and come back to the moment.

Great Faith

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:49:49 +0000

Faith is a tricky word. For me, I have to bring Great Question to the word faith, because it’s not, traditionally in Western religion when we think of faith, like faith in God, faith in some supernatural thing or experience outside of ourselves.

Faith in Buddhism has nothing to do with anything outside of ourselves. It does not necessarily have to do with something supernatural or esoteric. In a sense, it’s faith in our own true nature. It’s faith in a sense that if I can be willing to let go of that certainty. And if I am willing to have the courage to meet the moment, something authentic, real and natural can emerge. Something that I may not understand. Something that may look nothing like I may expect. But there’s a faith that if I just continue on, true nature will reveal itself. It’s already present in all things. In the sense, you can say it’s faith that using great question and great courage is enough. Not needing the certainty of an answer, but trusting the question.

Falling Asleep

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:21:39 +0000

When you fall asleep, your conditioning runs the show. You just play things out the way conditioning would play it out. It’s only through being alive, aware and awake in the moment that we are in, that there’s a possibility to change that. In Buddhist terminology, we say if you fall asleep then your karma, your conditioning, runs the show. But the only time you can change your conditioning is now. In your thoughts about the past, or even your hopes for the future, cannot change a thing. But right in this moment, you can choose. We’re always choosing what we do. So if you’re awake in this moment, it’s possible to change. So the present is the only time we have to change things. Otherwise we just run through the old story over and over again.

What Is Correct?

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:31:43 +0000

Correct is not conventionally correct, because it’s not about right versus wrong. The Buddha talked about Clear Seeing, being able to perceive the moment as it is. When we talk about correct situation, we’re talking about perceiving the moment as it is, without adding to it our own particular view or our own particular idea. Just seeing clearly. We call that correct.

When we talk about correct relationship, we talk about what is actually the relationships present in the moment, not colored by my desire, not colored by my particular slant on things; but what actually is it? We all add something. So this “correct” we’re talking about takes away this taint of “I”. And just see, what is it? That’s the point the Buddha said when he talked about clear seeing.

Clear seeing is the first of The Eightfold Path. It’s been said that if you can attain clear seeing, you’ve already got all the rest of the Eightfold Path. Because it’s that stuckness in “I” that we get lost in.

Inspiration to Practice

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:28:16 +0000

Keep your direction clear. There is something that moves you to practice, that points you in the direction. Then find your “try mind”. Inspiration is wonderful, but if we just rely on inspiration, it fizzles out. And then we’re lost. So it’s not about inspiration or not inspiration. We say in Zen something very direct: “Just do it.”

Like or dislike is what creates a prison that we live in. So if you only practice when you want to practice and then don’t practice when you don’t want to practice, that’s a fundamental problem. You are following the winds of your desire, and that’s what leads to suffering. The Buddha’s teaching is very simple. We suffer because of our desire, our anger, and our ignorance. So if our practice is based on desire, all it does is lead us to more suffering.

So what I will suggest for you is look at your life realistically and see what you can do. And then set your sights and your direction on doing that. Likes and dislikes – that’s what you will meet when you sit down. Just do it! And then, don’t be too concerned about success or failure. Your direction says do it, well… I don’t feel like it, so I didn’t do it tonight. Then tomorrow night is a new night, just do it. Just do it! Don’t get stuck in thinking, well if I didn’t do it tonight, then I am done.

Moment to moment, be fresh and alive. Just do what you set out to do. Not just for one week, not for one month, not for one year, not even for one decade. Day after day after day… moment to momenet to moment…

10,000 Years Is Right Now

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:23:39 +0000

The teaching is so prevalent. The guiding wisdom is all around us. All we have to do is listen. Zen Master Sueng Sahn used to say “try, try, try for 10,000 years non-stop.”

10,000 years non-stop means forever. Forever means right now. 10,000 years is too long. But right now, it’s possible.

Right now, what more do you need?

Attaching To Preferences

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:21:36 +0000

Our preference is always for the good feeling. And if we have the good feeling, we feel like things are right. But if we have the bad feeling, we think things are wrong and we need to somehow fix it so it will be right. But the problem with that is we are attached to one particular result. And in the process, we amplify our suffering.

Because we want something, we suffer. And, probably for all of us we hear that and think, well that’s a nice idea but that’s very difficult to live our lives without preferences. But, I think once we go there, we get stuck in an absolute “either/or” consciousness so we fall again back into duality.

The less we hold on to our preferences, the more freedom we have and the less we try to manipulate the world around us which really doesn’t work really well anyway. We can’t really control everything that happens to us. But if we have a preference and we attach strongly to that preference, we are constantly trying to control our world. So we’ve made ourselves, in a way, separate from the world and made the world something to manipulate.

But if we can loosen the grip of those attachments and allow things to be as they are, it’s then possible to change our stance and to, in a sense, merge with it. We say become one. Then we can find our place in it, and we can be in it rather than trying to make it something.

Why Be In This Moment?

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:04:37 +0000

The question always comes to, “Why do that?” So now we’re present, now what? Is it for our own enjoyment? That’s okay, that’s nice; we all want our own enjoyment. But that brings us back to suffering because we’re only happy as long as it brings us joy. As soon as that joy is gone, we’re not happy anymore, and then we leave the moment.

So why be in the moment?
What’s our intention?
What’s our direction?
What is it that we are after?

Just Hear The Bell

Zen Master Bon Soeng — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:42:19 +0000

When Marshall hit the bell during the Evening Bell Chant, some people thought… “Uhmm, wonderful… Oh, great!” Other people thought, “Not loud enough!” Other people said, “I wish he’d do it faster!” Somebody else said, “What’s he doing?” All that is commentary. Don’t-Know means let go of the commentary and just hear the bell. Simple as that. You and the bell become one. Where is the separation?

I believe I am here, and the bell is there. But that’s my idea. Where is the separation between you and the bell? Between you, (ZMBS picks up the stick and hits it on the floor) and that sound? Where do you start and the sound end? (Hits the floor again.) You may have some idea about it, but actually you don’t know. If you just let that don’t know be, then it’s already complete. It doesn’t need anything more.
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