Phone: 510-845-8565
Email: hdt@emptygatezen.com

Saturday, 24th morning: Yes
Saturday, 24th evening: No
Sunday, 25th morning and evening: No
Monday, 26th morning: Yes
Monday, 26th 11am sitting: No
Monday, 26th evening: Yes

7:00 – 8:00pm Evening Practice
8:30pm – 11:00pm Refreshments & Movie (Bring some food to share, poem, music)
11:15pm – 12:30am Kido (Chanting)

As practice ends late, you are welcome to stay overnight in the dharma room. There will be no morning or evening practice Jan 1.

For questions and registration – Phone: 510-845-8565
Email: abbot@emptygatezen.com

Phone: 510-845-8565

Email: hdt@emptygatezen.com

To see the schedule and fee click here

We are coming to you asking for your financial support. We continue our self-sustaining program of monthly retreats and thirteen practice sessions each week. The support from last year has allowed us to maintain these programs and support our full-time abbot in building the activities of the Zen Center.

This year we have increased our efforts to bring Zen teaching to new students near and far. We continue web-streaming Sunday morning practice and monthly dharma talks given by Zen Master Bon Soeng. Our social media presence on Facebook and Twitter continues to help people locally and around the world. Our teaching videos posted on Youtube of talks by Zen Master Bon Soeng have received over 50,000 views. Jason Quinn, the abbot of Empty Gate Zen Center, has offered online practice consulting interviews through email and video chat. Here at the Center, we have seen increased participation in retreats and weekly Dharma Talks. Volunteer contributions have helped us make improvements to the building and grounds.  This year we also offered the first in a series of Foundations of Zen workshops.

Over the coming year, we plan to increase our outreach to Bay Area schools and organizations, update our website to feature more teaching and instruction, and look into the possibility of expanding our physical Zen Center space to make room for our growing needs.  This year we will be focusing on paying down the mortgage on our current space to increase our options for expanding in the near future.

Last year’s fundraising campaign was a huge success and we thank you for your support. Continuing this level of activity at our Zen Center will require regular annual financial support from all of you. Therefore, once again we ask that you give to the Empty Gate Annual Fund Campaign. We need to meet our fundraising goal of $18,000 for the coming year. An affordable and helpful way to contribute to Empty Gate Zen Center is to pledge a monthly contribution above your membership level. Some of our members are already donating between $20 and $60 per month. Another possibility, of course, is to give a one-time donation.

Please take a moment to consider what tax-deductible donation you can afford. You can send all donation checks to Empty Gate or donate online using a credit card or PayPal account.

Many thanks for your practice and your continued support of Empty Gate Zen Center.

Yours in the dharma,

Zen Master Bon Soeng       Jason Quinn       Leah Kenaga       Steve Watkins
Guiding Teacher               Abbot               Vice Abbot         Director

Donate online using credit card or Paypal account

Phone: 510-845-8565
Email: hdt@emptygatezen.com

Buddhism teaches us that everything is just “One Thing”. In fact, Zen means become one. However, our dualistic thinking has us conceiving of the world as a vast array of opposites: good/bad, us/them, win/lose, subject/object, life/death etc. This forms the basis of our ignorance—we think of ourselves and everything else as separate. This leads to our experience of alienation and suffering, and all of our misguided attempts to solve our problems through satisfying our desires. Buddha taught that our desires were the source of our suffering. As Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “Thinking is desire; desire leads to suffering.” So, if we can let go of our opposites thinking, its possible to return to our True Self and then help the world.

Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen and the founder of modern Zen, spent many years in hiding after he received transmission from the Fifth Patriarch. One day it came to him that he shouldn’t live a secluded life all the time; it was time for him to propagate the Dharma. So, he left the forest and traveled to the famous Dharma Nature Temple in the city of Gwang Chou, in southern China. At that time a Bhikkhu named Yen Chung, a Master of the Dharma, happened to be giving a series of lectures on the Maha Parinirvana Sutra. Hui Neng happened to overhear two monks who were arguing about a temple flag, blowing in the wind. One said the wind was moving, the other said the flag was moving. They argued back and forth futilely. “It’s not the wind or the flag that’s moving,” Hui Neng said, “its your minds that are moving.”

The whole assembly was awed by what Hui Neng said. The Bhikkhu Yen Chung then invited Hui Neng to take a seat of honor and questioned him about various difficult points in the Sutras. Seeing that his answers were precise and accurate and that they showed something more than book-knowledge, he said, “Lay Brother, you must be an extraordinary man. I was told long ago that the inheritor of the Fifth Patriarch’s robe and bowl, and the Dharma had come to the South, very likely you are that man.”

To this Hui Neng politely assented. The monk immediately bowed and asked Hui Neng to show the assembly the robe and bowl. He further asked what the Fifth Patriarch had taught him. “Apart from a discussion on the realization of True Nature,” Hui Neng replied, “he gave me no other instruction, nor did he refer to meditation or liberation.”

“Why not?” the monk asked.

“Because that would mean two ways,” Hui Neng replied. “Buddha Dharma does not have two ways.”

He asked, “What is the Buddhism without two ways?”

Hui Neng explained, “The Maha Parinirvana Sutra, which you expound, explains that Buddha-nature doesn’t have two ways. In the Sutra, King Ko Kwai Tak, a Bodhisattva, asked Buddha if those who carry out gross acts of misconduct, commit the five deadly sins, or spread heretical teaching would destroy their ‘element of goodness’ and their Buddha-nature. Buddha replied, ‘There are two kinds of ‘element of goodness’, the eternal and the non-eternal. Since Buddha-nature is neither eternal nor non-eternal, therefore their “element of goodness” is not eradicated.’ Now, Buddhism is known as not having two ways. There are good ways and evil ways, but since Buddha-nature is neither, Buddhism is known for not having two ways. From the point of view of ordinary people, the component parts of a personality (the skandhas) and factors of consciousness (the dhatus) are two separate things, but enlightened people understand that they are not dual in nature. Buddha-nature is non-dual.”

Around the time of Hui Neng, Chinese Buddhism began to develop a very interesting technique which allows us to directly experience this non-dual nature, the world of “One Thing”. This technique is the Kong-an. Here is a kong-an for you: A long time ago in China a monk asked Zen Master Kuei Shan, “What is the meaning of all the Sutras?”

Kuei Shan didn’t say anything, he just raised his fist. So, I ask you, if there is just One Thing, what was Kuei Shan’s meaning? Quick, tell me! Thinking isn’t going to help you.