A Parable for Silent Illumination An excerpt from Silent Illumination Natural awakening is inherent within everyone—it is not something produced through practice. Hongzhi eloquently described it as the “vacant and open field,” the “lucid lake,” our “original home.” The point of Chan practice, then, is to regain our original freedom by clearing away our emotional [...]

The Works of Zen in the Song Dynasty     This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World.  You can start at the beginning of this [...]

The Works of the Chan & Zen Patriarchs     This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World.  You can start at the beginning of this [...]

The Great Koan Collections     This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World.  You can start at the beginning of this series or simply explore [...]

Shambhala: Can you tell us something about your background-how you encountered the Buddhadharma? Guo Gu: I first learned meditation when I was in Taiwan at age four. A meditation master named Guangqin taught me how to sit in meditation, and I thought it was fun to copy what he was doing. Later, my family immigrated [...]