Genjōkōan
10
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 10 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Genjōkōan".
Oct 24, 2026
Rafe MartinHOST
In losing ourselves, we find ourselves.
Rafe MartinHOST
As Dogen says in the Genjo Koan section of Shobo Genzo, to study the buddha way is to study the self.
Rafe MartinHOST
To study the self is to forget the self.
Rafe MartinHOST
To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things When actualized by the myriad things your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drops away, no trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.
AshtonGUEST
In this ninth picture, there's no ox herder and there's no picture, there's just the house.
AshtonGUEST
There's this line, Dogen, the 12th century ancestor of ours, wrote in a text called the Genjo Koan, to study the Buddha way is to study the self, and to study the self is to forget the self.
AshtonGUEST
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas.
AshtonGUEST
To forget the self is to be enlightened by everything.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
But there's always something else out there.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
And that was kind of part of the reason why I had selected the bit from the Genjo Koan is you're out in the middle of the ocean and it looks like a big round shape, but it's neither round nor square nor any other shape.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
We're just sort of doing what we do and whatever solutions we celebrate are just solutions for that moment, but we don't know that we did the thing right in some absolute sense.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
Thinking about this in terms of relationships as well, of course, the role that we play in relationships, My partners, every one of them, I think, at some point has told me that I don't want you to love your ideal of me.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
And there's something that, whether it's in a relationship or whatever role, you know, that reality will come and sort of, poke through your bubble of your ideal and poke you and prod you and chatting with Medo a little bit about this yesterday and thought you had a good point that, so often we're closed off to that and that pain that comes through and pokes us, whether it's in a relationship or my students will just never understand this concept and that's why they did bad on the exam or whatever.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
It's so easy to bristle and react against that and blame and do whatever.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
What's much harder is to course feel that pain and let it sort of direct you in some way and grow with that and through that so I don't know I have this weird like image in my head of living in this bubble but every once in a while something like pokes through and you realize but you can't really get outside the bubble it's just something something tells you that it's incomplete and that there's there's change to be made I think that I'll avail myself of the text from the Genjo Koan.
Ronin Max JensenUNKNOWN
There was a line in here that was like, yeah, that's the point, part of what's being made here.
Ryushin Andrea ThachUNKNOWN
We say, what was your original face? Or what was your face before your parents were born? Maybe alive or dead.
Ryushin Andrea ThachUNKNOWN
And we summarize it in Genjo Koan by saying, when you find yourself right where you are, you actualize the fundamental point.
Ryushin Andrea ThachUNKNOWN
I think you can touch it by surveying your experience with a question like, when have I felt most alive? Or when have I felt most like myself? Did you ever ask yourself that question? I'll give you an example.
Ryushin Andrea ThachUNKNOWN
I have so many examples from beautiful people I have known, but I'll give you one of my own.
Hiro IkushimaGUEST
And more importantly, how our Zen practice can help us meet our lives more fully without always trying to rearrange everything to suit our preferences.
Hiro IkushimaGUEST
And Dogen's saying in his famous, uh, text called the Genjokoan, which means, um, actualizing reality.
Hiro IkushimaGUEST
He says, "Yet in attachment blossoms fall and in aversion weeds spread." And there's a different translation.
Hiro IkushimaGUEST
It says, "Flowers fall even though we love them, and weeds grow even though we dislike them." I find this line both beautiful and a little funny.
Michael GelfondGUEST
Uh, Steve's a, uh, Dharma brother of Norman's, uh, a disciple of Sojin Mel Weitzman and a good friend of many of us.
Michael GelfondGUEST
Um, so tonight, uh, I'm, I'm, as advertised, I'm gonna try to talk to some of the words of Dogen in Genjokoan.
Michael GelfondGUEST
Uh, but before getting into those words, I just wanted to say one thing about our school of Soto Zen.
Michael GelfondGUEST
Our school of Soto Zen Buddhism is what's called, uh, the School of Sudden Enlightenment as opposed to other schools, which are the schools, school or Schools of Gradual Enlightenment.
Michael GelfondGUEST
Uh, that's our practice.
Michael GelfondGUEST
And, uh, and we try to express that enlightenment in how we live and our intention toward other people and all beings and all being.
Michael GelfondGUEST
So recently, for the last few weeks, I've been thinking about these lines from the Genjokoan.
Michael GelfondGUEST
These lines come from about a third of the way in to Genjokoan, and, uh, they go, uh, this is Kaz Tanahashi's translation with Robert Aitken, "When you first seek Dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs.