When I teach Zen, am I teaching what the Buddha taught? Who knows? The Buddha taught 2500 years ago. It’s probably getting closer to 2600 years. His teaching was handed down orally for five hundred years before it was written down in Indian languages that I don’t understand. The teaching came to me largely by way of China and then Japan, bits through Viet Nam and Korea and Tibet, and then to America. Along the way the teaching was translated into more languages that I don’t u

Roshi Bernie substituted “creations” for the traditional “sentient beings” in the first Great Bodhisattva Vow. I appreciated the idea of not discriminating against insentient beings – save the rainforest as well as the whales – but it was overwhelming. The more limited “sentient beings” was itself an impossible-to-achieve goal. Bernie was pushing farther even than the trees, at least as I understand his teaching now. Creations encompass not just all the stuff created by God

Every individual is unique, has value, and no one will ever be replaced. Tough guy bosses often threaten the person asking for a raise, “No one is irreplaceable.” What they mean is, “Don’t threaten me. We can manage fine without you.” Nice guy managers say the same words to members of their team when a key staff member departs, but they mean something more along the lines of, “Don’t worry. We will be fine without her.” Both miss the point. Everyone is irreplaceable. This is t