Tag Archives: Bodhisattva

Beyond Birth and Death

Discussion of the Tozen Video, “No Birth, No Death,” from the YouTube Bodhichild Channel

Grok: The video “No Birth, No Death” from the Dragon Mind of Zen series on the Bodhichild YouTube channel, as taught by Tozen, explores profound concepts rooted in Zen Buddhist philosophy, specifically from the perspective of the Unborn Mind Zen school. The core theme revolves around the idea that the “true self” is unborn and deathless, existing beyond the cycle of birth and death, and that suffering (dukkha) arises from ignorance of this truth. Below is a discussion of the video’s key points, themes, and implications, based on the provided transcript and the broader context of Zen teachings. read more

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Springtime with Tozen

Every spring as the winter cold becomes a distant memory and everything about is brimming with life again, I like to take rides in the blossoming countryside. To accompany my reverie I always turn to the recordings of the Tozen teachings from our Bodhichild YouTube Channel, playing them from a memory stick implanted in my car’s dashboard. There’s a certain majesty about them, created back in the spring/summer of 2011 and originating from the teachings listed on the former Tozen Yahoo Group message board. These are archived now (*in our library) and measure in the thousands—from teachings, poems, interactions with students and even evolving insights from the students themselves. Riding along and listening to them brings new vitality to the spirit and even inspires new Buddhaic visions. This present series revisits those teachings and presents them in their original form, accompanied now with an exegesis of each invigorating lesson from the Mystic of the Unborn Buddha Mind himself. Enjoy the ride! read more

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Carriers of the Seed

An excellent composite study of Bodhicitta as well as all things Bodhisattva is The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, by Har Dayal circa 1932. For myself it has become the bible regarding such subject matter. What I treasure most about it is that it was written before contemporary sectarian studies that always flavors said material with superficial psychophysical makeup that mars the original import of the Bodhi-structure itself. Before dining on the succulent taste of this endeavor we must first focus on those who prepare the ingredients of this marvelous meal. The Carriers of the Bodhi-seed. Bodhisattvas as well as Arhats, yes Arhats too have much ado concerning this cuisine raffinée. Recollect that one of the epithets of the Buddha is that of an Arhat, this even after his former career as a Bodhisattva. read more

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Is a Bodhisattva dependent on sentient beings?

Continuing with Dorji Wangchuk’s study, he writes:

In Mahayana, the entire concept of bodhicitta and bodhisattva would collapse or make no sense without sattvas, for a bodhisattva is, in the first place, a sattva whose citta is directed towards attaining the highest state of bodhi for the sake of other sattvas. Not only is the bodhicitta of a bodhisattva dependent on sentient beings, but also his practices of the perfections (pāramitā) are in one way or another connected with them. A bodhisattva becomes a buddha by relying on sentient beings. read more

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Faith and enlightenment in Zen

All born things are subject to entropy. Nothing created can ever escape the critical point of its own decay and final dissolution.  read more

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Know your true nature

As an inexhaustible producer of form and emptiness,

the great Mind Essence remains permanently  imageless. read more

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The light of compassion


A mind of great honor, moderation and intelligence is not necessarily a mind  of foolish shortsightedness, nor is it one poor in compassion and humor.
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Finding [recollecting] the Unborn Mind.

Abiding in the blinding darkness of ignorance is not easy. If anything, countless sentients, suffering on a daily basis no matter their status in a grinding maze of discontentment can attest to this fact. If not in their best hour, at least in their worst. read more

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Being of a Single Mind – One-pointedness (Zen) is attained

Let not the appearance of these words fool you, 
yet do not wander off from the context at hand.
Being One in Spirit (will) and of One Mind
is to be of a Single Mind in a here and now
that stretches beyond the temporal prison
of this body consciousness, which clouds
the true vision of your luminous Self.
 
The Buddhas have never lied nor will they ever 
bare false witness [of the Dharma] to you.
Their dharma unfolds before you Minds´s eye
at any given moment. 
Blink and you´ve already missed its splendor; speak and
the spiritual song of the truly living,  becomes absent.
 
What you choose to SEE and SENSE and what really IS though,
are not of the same nature.
Where the one is empty (of dharma), the other shines
as purely itself permanently througout all ten directions.
How can you ever approach it or run from it by conventional means?
 
To say you are here, or there, or in that, or in the other,
implies the need of your present mind to constantly find
settlement and self identity with that, or the other.
This is the prison-consciousness of Samsara. 
Though ashes to some, and golden to others, 
It binds demons, animals, men and gods alike.
 
But your true Mind is primordially free; radiant, luminous – Unborn 
and hence not subject [initself] to any position or law of becoming
giving the false sense of real beingness arising from it.
 
We speak of something incomprehensible pure; a nature and light,
second to no thing, or ideated being. read more

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Emptiness on a Thursday Afternoon

Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra
46. Mañjuśrī Teaches Prajñāpāramitā
Translated from Taishō Tripiṭaka volume 11, number 310 read more

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