Buddhist Temple of Toledo Podcast

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008."This principle is originally present in everyone. All the Buddhas and bodhisattvas may be called people pointing out a jewel. Fundamentally, it is not a thing - you don't need to know or understand it, you don't need to affirm or deny it. Just cut off dualism; cut off the supposition 'it exists' and the supposition 'it does not exist.' Cut off the supposition 'it is nonexistent' and the supposition 'it is not nonexistent.' When traces do not appear on either side, then neither lack nor sufficiency, neither profane nor holy, not light or dark. This is not having knowledge, yet not lacking knowledge, not bondage, not liberation. It is not any name or category at all. Why is this not true speech? How can you carve and polish emptiness to make an image of Buddha? How can you say that emptiness is blue, yellow, red or white?"For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008."In the teaching hall, the master said, 'The spiritual light shines alone, far transcending the senses and their fields. The essential substance is exposed, real and eternal. It is not contained in written words. The nature of mind has no defilement; it is basically perfect and complete in itself. Just get rid of delusive attachments and merge with the realization of thusness.'"For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on November 16, 2008."Somehow, a process started to happen where things went from [being very freeform] to being very much sectarian. Things started to close down, people started to need to self-identify their group as distinct from other groups, and it's in the midst of that transition that this character Pai Chang finds himself."For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 12, 2008. "A man sitting in a mountain pass -- robed in clouds, tricked out in sunset's rose. In his fingers a fragrant flower, to pass along, but the road's so long and hard to climb! In his mind: disappointment and doubt; old as he is, he's accomplished nothing. People laugh at him, call him a cripple, yet he stands alone -- constant, untouched." - Han ShanFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on November 5, 2008. "I wanted to go off to the eastern cliff-- how many years now I've planned the trip? Yesterday, I pulled myself up by the vines, but wind and fog forced me to stop halfway. The path was narrow, and my clothes kept catching, the moss so spongy I couldn't move my feet, So I stopped under this red cinnamon tree. I guess I'll lay my head on a cloud and sleep." - Han Shan

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 29, 2008."I think of all the places I've been, chasing from one famous spot to another. Delighting in mountains, I scaled the mile-high peaks; loving the water, I sailed a thousand rivers. I held farewell parties with my friends in Lute Valley; I brought my zither and played on Parrot Shoals. Who would guess I'd end up under a pine tree, clasping my knees in the whispering cold?" - Han ShanFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 22, 2008."Now I have a single robe, not made of gauze or of figured silk. Do you ask what color it is? Not crimson, nor purple either. Summer days I wear it as a cloak, in winter it serves for a quilt. Summer and winter in turn I use it; year after year, only this." - Han ShanFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

First Steps: An Introduction to Zen Practice Weekend with Rinsen and the Toledo Zen Center Sangha, August 21, 22, 23, 2009. For more information or to register see toledozen.org or send an email to [email protected].

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 15, 2008.On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Rinsen talks about Atonement and the Zen way of working with it.For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on October 8, 2008. When Ch'an Master Wu-yeh of Fen-chou went to see the Ancestor (Ma-Tsu), the Ancestor noticed that his appearance was extraordinary and that his voice was like (the sound of) a bell. He said, "Such an imposing Buddha hall, but no Buddha in it."We-yeh respectfully kneeled down, and said, "I have studied the texts that contain the teachings of the Three Vehicles and have been able to roughly understand their meaning. I have also often heard about the teaching of the Ch'an school that mind is Buddha: this is something I have not yet been able to understand."The Ancestor said, "This very mind that does not understand is it. There is no other thing."- The Teachings of Ma-Tsu. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on September 24, 2008."A Layman asked: 'I'm grateful for your teaching of the unborn, but I find that thoughts easily come up as a result of my ingrained bad habits, and when I'm distracted by them, I can't wholeheartedly realize the unborn. How can I put my faith totally in the unborn Buddha Mind?' "The Master said: 'When you try to stop your rising thoughts, you create a duality between the mind that does the stopping and the mind that's being stopped, so you'll never have peace of mind. Just have faith that thoughts don't originally exist, but only arise and cease temporarily in response to what you see and hear without any actual substance of their own.'" - From Master Bankei's Hogo Instructions: Duality.For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on September 17, 2008."Well, the interesting thing is, that where that difficulty is, when you're honest, is the edge of our practice. That's where the edge is for you." - RinsenFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on September 3, 2008."Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from. Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction, bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk, innocent." - Shih-TouFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on August 20, 2008."I've built a grass roof hut, where there's nothing of value. After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds. The person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between." -Shih-Tou "When you can get past the 'It's not OK' about 'It's not OK,' and just be OK with 'It's not OK,' then, OK!" -RinsenFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on August 17, 2008, this afternoon workshop discussion explores the teachings of Shih-T'ou with Rinsen. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on August 17, 2008, this afternoon workshop discussion explores the teachings of Shih-T'ou with Rinsen. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on August 6, 2008. "All of the senses and all of the things sensed - they interact without interacting. Interacting, they permeate each other, yet each remains in its own place. By nature, forms differ in shape and appearance. By nature, sounds bring pleasure or pain. In darkness, the fine and mediocre accord; brightness makes clear and murky distinct."- Shih-T'ou, Identity of Relative and Absolute For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on July 30, 2008. "The mind of the great sage of India was intimately conveyed from West to East. Among human beings are wise ones and fools, but in the Way there is no northern or southern patriarch."- Shih-T'ou, Identity of Relative and Absolute For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Rinsen's talk from the Toledo Zen Center community retreat, December 14, 2008.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on July 27, 2008. "I've built a grass roof hut, where there's nothing of value. After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in - covered by weeds. The person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between."-- Shih-T'ou For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Rinsen's Zazenkai talk on December 14th, 2008.

A talk by Rinsen at the Toledo Zen Center's community retreat. December 12, 2008. Part 1 of 4.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on July 27, 2008. "Shih-Tou's awakening happened as he read this passage from the teachings of the early scholar monk Seng-Chow: "'The Ultimate Self is empty and void. Though it lacks form, the myriad things are all of its making. One who understands the myriad things as the Self, isn't that a sage?' "That seeming dichotomy right there, the myriad things and the self, the form, the empty, the void, the relative and the absolute became the essential insight that Shih-Tou would plumb the depths of and elucidate in a way that hadn't happened before him, to such a degree that his 'Identity of Relative and Absolute' is a teaching that we chant to this day." Note: This talk also addresses what it means to "sit with" koans as a practice, and how it relates to concentration practices. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on July 16, 2008. "Mostly, our mind remains fixed in what's called a dualistic state...which means being trapped, unawaredly in a way of perceiving the universe such that everything is shattered, separate and distinct... In the practice of Zen, there is uncovered another way of perceiving, a way that's not bound by the traps of this and that, or the distinctions of high and low... You have to be willing to drop your images of what God is to be able to really see God's face. As long as you have an image in your mind, your mental construction of what you think that's supposed to be, there's a block. There's a stage at which having an image can be a useful thing. There's a stage at which it becomes a problem and needs to be transcended." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Visited by a local University World Religions class, Rinsen contextualizes Zen practice and awakening within religious Tradition. "Most religious traditions are founded with the experience or essential insight of an individual or group of individuals who have some unique way of perceiving themselves and the world that fits the society that they find themselves in, in a way that hadn't happened before." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on June 11, 2008. "Develop meditation that is like the earth, for when you develop meditation that is like the earth, agreeable and disagreeable contexts will not invade your mind and remain. Just as people throw clean things and dirty things, excrement, urine, spittle, pus and blood on the earth, and the earth is not horrified, humiliated or disgusted because of that." --Buddha For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on June 4, 2008. "One of the primary ways that we do great harm to ourselves and to those around us is by becoming attached to a particular view. 'Attached' here means a very specific thing: it means sort of an unexamined clinging that has almost a panting, desperate quality to it. The majority of these views, these opinions that we hold, are actually unknown to us, ironically enough. They're more or less unconscious." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 28, 2008. "Long seeking it through others, I was far from reaching it.Now I go by myself and I meet it everywhere.I now am not it, and just now, it is nothing but myself.Understanding this way, I can be as I am."-Master Dong-Shan For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 21, 2008. "In studying the teachings of the Buddhadharma, in studying reality, what we're actually studying is ourselves.... Ironically enough, the way of studying those teachings, the way of studying that Self, is that you have to get the Self out of the picture.... What that means, what that's pointing to, is the direct experience of your life. The direct experience of experience itself, free from the conditionings and the boundaries of the limited mind. What happens, then, is that you become awakened by everything. Everywhere you go, you encounter the teachings." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008. "Styling himself a latter-day Vimalakirti framed Wang Wei's dual life in the most positive terms. Not as a split or a straddle, one foot in the affairs in state, the other in monkhood, but as a unity; the best of both worlds. It states his understanding that fundamentally there are not two worlds, pure and impure, and that a true person of the Way may go anywhere unhindered." --The Roaring Stream For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008. "Mindful creativity - or Zen art, if you will - requires a certain kind of consciousness to be able to really call itself Zen art. There's a quality required, expressed in the body, of tranquillity; open, receptive, clear, awake presence. It's absolutely essential. In other words, not discriminating, not judgmental, not tangled up in ideas and concepts." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on May 18, 2008. Hidden on this mountain, many Buddhist monks Chant sutras, meditate together; Men on distant city walls gazing towards the peaks See only white, enshrouding clouds. -Wang Wei, A Poem to my Brothers and Sisters For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

In honor of the first anniversary of the Drinking Gourd Podcast, Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives an interview at the Toledo Zen Center on October 22, 2008. "When I finally got to see a full-out Zen monastery, I was hooked. It really helped me by providing a specific way of working on this, and working with this whole contemplative intelligence, that I couldn't find in the Western approach." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 14, 2008. "To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many people, to want to help everyone and everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful." -Thomas Martin, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on May 7, 2008. "If with kindly generosity one merely has the wish to soothe the aching heads of other beings, such merit knows no bounds. No need to speak, then, if the wish to drive away the endless pain of each and every living being, bringing them unbounded virtues." -Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 30, 2008. "How do you take a spiritually awakened individual and how does that individual engage their life? What are the qualities of an awakened being in the world? ...One of the aspects that you'll find in any of the traditions is there's an embracing of this sort of luminal not-knowing." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a talk and discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 23, 2008. "Elements of the self come and go like clouds, without purpose. Greed, hate, and delusion appear and disappear like ocean foam. When you reach the heart of reality, you find neither self nor other, and even the worst kind of karma dissolves at once." -Yung-Chia For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008. "Let others criticise you. Let them condemn you. Trying to set the sky on fire, they'll just end up exhausted. I hear abusive words as though I were drinking ambrosia; everything melts, and suddenly I enter the inconceivable. When you understand the real value of abuse, your worst critic becomes a wise friend. If harsh words raise no waves of bitterness or pride, how better to show the persistence and compassion of the unborn?" -Yung-Chia For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008. "Seeing into the fundamental fact, you see into its expression as well." -Yung-Chia For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on April 20, 2008. "Haven't you met someone seasoned in the Way of Ease, a person with nothing to do and nothing to master, who neither rejects thought nor seeks truth? The real nature of ignorance is buddha-nature itself. The empty, illusory body is the very body of the Dharma. When the Dharma-body is realized, there's nothing at all. The original nature of all things is innately Buddha." —Yung-Chia For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 16, 2008. "Coming from a Judeo-Christian theistically-based approach, there's an unconscious assumption -- or teaching, basically -- that moral and ethical guidelines come from someplace outside... something outside saying, 'This is what I expect.' In the teachings of the Buddhadharma, the moral and ethical precepts do not come from any outside source.... The moral and ethical teachings are expressions of how a realized Buddha lives their life. They are the description of how an awakened being interacts with themself and with others and with society." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 9, 2008. "One of the things that people run smack into when they come to a place like this for the first time is, there's a bunch of ritual happening. What's that all about? What's the deal with all the bowing and the incense and all that kind of thing? These are moments of re-awakening, if they're used well. They're supposed to be moments of re-checking-in to the moment, to the now." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on April 2, 2008. "What does it mean to be mindful of the body? This is always the entry gate.... Breath is part of the body awareness, cultivating the practice of being awake to this one breath. In many, many lineages of Buddhist practice, not just Zen, the beginning thing you do is sit down and work with the breath. It's no small thing to be able to actually, completely embody that breath... to just completely, fully, be awake and aware and alive to that breath." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 26, 2008. "The pure nature exists in the midst of delusions. With correct practice alone, remove the obstacles. If people in this world practice the Way, there is nothing whatsoever to hinder them. If they always make clear the guilt within themselves, then they will accord with the Way." —Hui Neng For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik gives a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 19, 2008. "Within the dark home of the passions, the sun of wisdom must at all times shine. Erroneous thoughts come because of the passions; when correct thoughts come the passions are cast aside. Use neither the erroneous nor the correct, and with purity you will attain to complete nirvana." -Hui Neng For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008. "Successive thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present thoughts, and future thoughts follow one after the other without cessation. If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there will be no place for attachment to anything. If one instant of thought clings, then successive thoughts cling; this is known as being fettered. If in all things successive thoughts do not cling, then you are unfettered." -Hui-Neng For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008. "Good friends, how then are meditation and wisdom alike? They are like the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp, there is light; if there is no lamp, there is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the function of the lamp. Thus, although they have two names, in substance they are not two. Meditation and wisdom are also like this." — Hui-Neng For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Chikyo Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on March 16, 2008. "Oftentimes in spiritual teaching, there is a great attempt to deny any kind of shadow, or any kind of difficulty, and it's important to acknowledge it.... It makes the teachings more alive and full and complete and real, but also real honest and very direct. The historical context has a direct influence on what these teachings are, and that's important to know and to acknowledge and to understand." For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 12, 2008. "The tiny is the same as the large, once boundaries are forgotten." -Relying on Mind, Seng-ts'an This talk works with some of the differences between Taoist teachings and those of Zen. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.

Jay Rinsen Chikyo Weik presents a talk and leads a discussion at the Toledo Zen Center on March 5, 2008. "The wise have nothing to do, while the unwise tie themselves in knots." -Relying on Mind, Seng-ts'an This talk works with some of the similarities of Taoist teachings with those of Zen. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org. The Toledo Zen Center is a member of the Hermitage Heart Sangha, online at hermitageheart.org.