Buddhist Temple of Toledo Podcast

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on March 18th 2009, this talk and discussion about how the spiritual path begins and explores the Zen teaching of Huang Po with Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozencenter.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on March 11th 2009, this talk and discussion explores the history of the religious practice of making offerings and the Zen teaching of Huang Po with Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on March 4th, 2009, after a brief initial discussion of the practice of chanting and liturgy in Zen training, this talk and discussion explores the teachings of Huang Po with Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on February 25th 2009, this talk and discussion explores the Zen teaching of Huang Po with Reverend Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on February 22nd, 2009, this is the third of three podcasts from an afternoon workshop exploring the life and teachings of Huang Po (D. 850) with Reverend Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on February 22nd, 2009, this is the second of three podcasts from an afternoon workshop exploring the life and teachings of Huang Po (D. 850) with Reverend Jay Rinsen Weik. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on February 22nd, 2009, this is the first of three podcasts from an afternoon workshop exploring the life and teachings of Huang Po (D. 850) with Reverend Jay Rinsen Weik. 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 February 18, 2009. Walking is Chan, and sitting is Chan.Speaking or silent, moving or still,The essence is at peace.Even under threat of sword and spear,It's undisturbed.Even a cup of poison won't destroy this serenity.--Yung Chia, "Song of Realizing the Way" 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 February 11, 2009. This single perfect nature pervades all natures;The sole universal dharma encompasses all dharmas.One moon shines in the water everywhereAnd all the reflected moons are just that one moon.--Yung Chia, Song of Realizing the Way 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 February 4, 2009.A genuine follower of the mahayana bodhisattva path is neither attached to the world nor attached to liberation from it; neither filled with desire nor filled with aversion. She or he will not cling to or run away from anything.--Chan Master Sheng-yenFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 25, 2009.On the fifth day after the rise of spring,Everywhere the season's gracious attitudes!The white sun gradually lengthening its course;The blue-gray clouds hanging as though they would fall.The last icicle breaking into splinters of jade;The new stems marshalling red sprouts.The things I meet are full of gladness:It is not only I who love the spring.To welcome the flowers, I stand in the back garden;To enjoy the sunlight, I sit under the front eaves.Yet still in my heart, there lingers one regret:Soon I shall part with the flame of my red stove!--Po Chu'iFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 25, 2009."For restful thoughts, one does not need space;The room where I lie is 10 foot square.By the western eaves, above the bamboo twigs,From my couch, I can see the white mountain rise.But the clouds that hover on its far distant peakBring shame to a face that is buried in the world's dust."--Po Chu'iFor more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik leads a retreat workshop at the Toledo Zen Center on January 25, 2009."It's said that [Po Chu'i] would read every one of his poems to an uneducated person... but he would make sure that it made sense to people, that at least it was comprehensible in some way. He held to a Confucian ideal that said that poetry is, at some level or other, to educate... not simply just for idle entertainment." 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 January 14, 2008. All evil karma committed by me since of oldBecause of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignoranceBorn of my body, mouth, and thoughtNow I atone for it all. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit toledozen.org.

Jay Rinsen Weik gives a talk at a Zazenkai with the Toledo Zen Center, held at Lourdes College on December 13, 2008."I talked in the opening comments about meticulous clarity, meticulous effort, precise practice. This is a very, very important part of our training, of our Way. There's a kind of precision that's being asked for, that's being pointed to.... It takes a while to actually find yourself and to be able to sit clearly. And it matters."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 December 10, 2008. "There is no self and no person; how, then, kinfolk and stranger? I beg you, cease going from lecture to lecture. It is better to seek the truth directly."-- Layman PangFor 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 December 3, 2008. "The Supreme Way is not difficult; it just precludes picking and choosing. Without yearning or loathing, The Way is perfectly apparent, while even a hair's breadth difference separates heaven and earth. To see The Way with your own eyes, quit agreeing and disagreeing. The battle of likes and dislikes is the disease of the mind."--Seng-ts'an, "Relying on Mind"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 26, 2008. "The teachings of the Three Vehicles all cure diseases such as greed and hatred. Right now, thought after thought, if you have such sickness as greed or hatred, you should first cure them. Don't seek intellectual understanding of meanings and expressions. Understanding is in the province of desire, and desire turns into disease. Right now, just detach from all things, existent or nonexistent, and even detach from detachment." - Pai ChangFor 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 19, 2008. "In reading scriptures and studying the doctrines, you should turn all words right around, and apply them to yourself." - Pai ChangFor 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."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.