Guest post: Fugen on Jukai experience

Note from Irisha:
Many of the Leafers have started the preparatory study for the second online Jukai and put their sewing skills to test. Once again I did not think I was ready for taking Jukai this year for a number of reasons but asked Fugen (Torbjörn), one of the last year’s Jukai takers and a [...]

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100-day Ango starts

The 100-day Ango with virtual TreeLeaf sangha started yesterday. I set up a separate page here on Appropriate Response
with the idea of establishing some structure for jotting down my Ango experiences on a regular basis, as well as sharing it with other fellow-practitioners so we can (re)connect and support each other in our focused efforts [...]

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Guest blog: On mindfulness

Have you ever watched a kid playing?  There is something special about the way they can pick up a stick, shout “STICK!!” and run into the world causing havoc. There is nothing more in this moment than the kid, the stick and the world. I would like to call this special something ‘mindfulness’ or ‘presence’ [...]

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Spinning world of desires

Since I started doing sitting meditation one of my legs (or both) would inevitably fall asleep and for the most part the sitting would evolve around staying with those sensations in the body. I know it is not harmful for my health and would probably pass with time so I just accepted it as [...]

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Metta meditation

I rather like this version for the metta meditation.

May we all be…

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Practice unfolding: real tools in the toolbox

In episode 118  Buddhist Geeks interviewed Daniel Ingram on his book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha that Daniel revised and made available online in PDF-format (Thanks, Daniel!)
Why all this excitement about yet another book on Dharma? Books we have plenty of but manuals packed with straightforward techniques – not so many.  Daniel describes [...]

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Meditation and the brain

Although not a mega meditator, with time I noticed some effects of meditation and got curious in what exactly happens in the brain when I sit on the cushion and watch my mind jumping around,  patiently learning to bring attention to the intention and stay with life itself instead of the virtual reality my mind [...]

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Does sit happen?

Since my sitting practice recently has been somewhat rusty (understatement of the year) the  Trycycle Magazine 90-day Zen challenge comes at the right time.  I like that the”package” aside from sitting the actual sitting includes listening to the Dharma talks,  study Dogen’s Genjokoan and practising with other sitters.  The sitting itself is 20 min long [...]

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Work as an extension of a bodhisattva vow

When I just started working with coaching an acquaintance of mine, who’s been sitting zazen for quite a while, asked me how I was going to combine the practice and working as a coach.  The way he put it I had to actually bury my integrity in order to get into coaching. Whatever his perceptions [...]

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Guest post: Integrity

Meriam-Webster has three senses listed for its entry on integrity:
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness
The first sense of upholding and living by a code [...]

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