Thomas Cleary

Then we're moving on to some other writings.

The writing we're going to discuss next is Instant Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary.

Before we talk about our story today, which is one of my favorites, Flight from the Shadow from page 155 in Merton's book, we talk about a resource and story.

A Synchronistic Moment.

thank you

it's good for us to pick up seven pounds go ahead and pass it around seven pounds astonishing don't you think? I also wonder like that you know all the koans all the koan collections say seven pounds it's not like some say kilometers and some say pounds it's not they some say whatever the Chinese measurement of the time was it always says seven pounds so I'm thinking Well, you know, some maybe, I mean, Thomas Cleary is very, very careful and articulate in his research.

And so something about the seven pounds has come to us.

And so it's not like I exactly believe it, but I think, oh, there's no other variation here in the translation.

The Tay Show is selected and interpreted by Ilana, scribe for Daily Zen.

The title of this Tay Show is Avoiding Foxes and Dogs, excerpted from Teachings of Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary.

The Tay Show The basic essential nature inherent in all people is clearly evident when you constantly perceive it within yourself.

If you pursue external objects, then it becomes obscured.

We're finishing up the Chawantza now.

We're going to go to a book titled Instant Zen, Waking Up in the Present, translated by Thomas Cleary, one of my favorite translators.

We're going to see how far we get there.

It's a more modern book.

That's his translation of the character's Kensho.

Thomas Cleary's version.

Communication by speech and communication by mind are like the sun in the sky, only transmitting the teachers, the teaching of seeing essential nature emerging in the world to destroy false doctrines.

So that's a, you know, more straightforward...

The Tay Show is selected and interpreted by Ilana, scribe for Daily Zen.

The title of this Tay Show is The Living Method of Turning the Light Around, excerpted from The Secret of the Golden Flower, translated by Thomas Cleary.

As you go along practicing turning the light around, you need not give up your normal occupation.

An ancient said, When matters come up, one should respond.

Also included will be links to any books, material, teachers, or organizations that are discussed within each episode.

Today, I'll be sharing information from a book titled Teachings of Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary in nineteen ninety-eight.

Since its inception in fifth century China, Zen Buddhism has exercised a powerful influence in both the Eastern and the Western worlds.

A highly spiritual philosophy, Zen posits that all that exists is comprehensible through the mind.

Um, in, uh...

Thomas Cleary, writing a book on meditating with koans, he says, "The answer to a koan is not a sentence or gesture, but the change in the learner's mental state brought about by working with the koan." So this koan itself is not about finding a true answer, but something shifts in us.

Something shifts in our perception and our ability to hold paradox and contradiction that actually maybe opens up, uh, our space, makes us more capacious internally.

It doesn't even matter if we ever get back to that, that paradox, that koan.