Plymouth Zen http://plymouthzen.com Primary Point Zen Sun, 10 May 2026 10:32:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 To Mother Earth and All Mothers http://plymouthzen.com/to-mother-earth-and-all-mothers/ http://plymouthzen.com/to-mother-earth-and-all-mothers/#comments Sun, 10 May 2026 10:31:54 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3250 Dear Mother, wherever there is soil, water, rock or air, you are there, nourishing me and giving me life. You are present in every cell of my body. My physical body is your physical body, and just as the sun and stars are present in you, they are also present in me. You are not outside of me and I am not outside of you. You are more than just my environment. You are nothing less than myself.

I promise to keep the awareness alive that you are always in me, and I am always in you. I promise to be aware that your health and well-being is my own health and well-being. I know I need to keep this awareness alive in me for us both to be peaceful, happy, healthy, and strong.

Sometimes I forget. Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me. Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you, the one I love.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

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This Monday, May 11, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Meditation Retreat! Cape Cod Zen Center will hold a one-day retreat with Guiding Teacher Terry Cronin, JDPSN on June 6 in West Barnstable. Registration and more information here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/one-day-zen-meditation-retreat-june-6-tickets-1986991984514?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/to-mother-earth-and-all-mothers/feed/ 0 In Relationship, With Respect http://plymouthzen.com/in-relationship-with-respect/ http://plymouthzen.com/in-relationship-with-respect/#comments Sun, 03 May 2026 11:11:51 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3248 The notion of the isolated individual makes us both sad and weak—-sad because it feeds loneliness and a sense that we don’t need to care about anything else and nothing cares about us; weak because our power lies in our connections. Our power is not autonomous because we were never autonomous. Giving up this notion of the individual doesn’t mean that we don’t get to have our own dreams and wild imagination and course through life; instead, it means that we do this in relationship to other people and with respect for all the other beings that we impact and are impacted by.

-Rebecca Solnit, in an interview with Sharon Salzburg and James Shaheen in Tricycle magazine.

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This Monday, May 4, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/in-relationship-with-respect/feed/ 0 Just Now Is the Only Time http://plymouthzen.com/just-now-is-the-only-time/ http://plymouthzen.com/just-now-is-the-only-time/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2026 10:23:30 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3246 Nobody guarantees our life. So if there is anything that you think may be useful, just now is the time to use it. In our life, past mind cannot be attained. Present mind cannot be attained. If you say “present,” it is already not present, already gone. If you lose this moment, you can never regain it.

We follow Buddha’s example. Buddha means awakened. If you are going to awaken, tomorrow is too late. One hour from now is also too late. Even one second from now is too late. Just this moment, wake up. I hope each of you will make correct practice in your life and attain this wake-up. Then one more step is most important: use this wake-up to help all beings.

-Zen Master Wu Bong

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This Monday, April 27, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/just-now-is-the-only-time/feed/ 0 Ocean Mudra http://plymouthzen.com/ocean-mudra/ http://plymouthzen.com/ocean-mudra/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:49:25 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3236 This ocean does not belong to the inside, outside or in-between. It is just I am always expounding the Lotus Sutra. The buddha does not abide in the east, west, south or north. The whole boat is empty; it returns full of moonlight. This return is a true place of settling. Who could call it stagnant water? It is actualized in the ultimate dimension of the buddha dharma. This is called the mudra of water mudra. Let me speak further. It is the mudra of emptiness. It is the mudra of mud.

–Dogen, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, “Ocean Mudra”, p. 384. Thanks to Roshi Joan Halifax for sharing this teaching.

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Happy Earth Day Week!

This Monday, April 20, our guiding teacher, Terry Cronin, JDPSN will offer an opportunity for one-on-one conversations via Zoom during practice.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/ocean-mudra/feed/ 0 Your Assignment http://plymouthzen.com/your-assignment/ http://plymouthzen.com/your-assignment/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:21:31 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3234 If you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

There are so many (voices and) noises going on inside of you, so many echoes of all sorts, so many internalizing of the rumble and the traffic going on in your minds, the confusions, the disorders by which your environment is peopled that I wonder if you can get still enough – not quiet enough – still enough to hear rumbling up from your unique and essential idiom the sound of the genuine in you. I don’t know if you can. But this is your assignment.

– Howard Thurman

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This Monday, April 13, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/your-assignment/feed/ 0 The Light of Our Awareness http://plymouthzen.com/the-light-of-our-awareness/ http://plymouthzen.com/the-light-of-our-awareness/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2026 10:26:36 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3232 Like emerging spring flowers along the forest pathway, each turn and each vista revealing a new wonder.

The light of our awareness burns through all of the old crud, the heaviness, the darkness, the bondages. If we allow it to, patiently, caringly, attentively.

…Like a mother hen sitting on her eggs, carefully turning and warming each one, patiently sitting, applying herself well…. we are Buddha-parent and we are Awakening-child, coming into the full maturity of the promise and potential of being human.

-Ayya Tathaaloka Bhikkhuni, from “The Buddha and the Easter Egg”

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Dharma Talk! This Monday, April 6, Senior Dharma Teacher Ann Miller, Abbess of Cape Cod Zen Center, will be giving a Dharma Talk at our regular practice time, followed by a circle talk where all are invited to share. Tea will follow the talk; you are welcome to bring a snack to share if you like! we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.
Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/the-light-of-our-awareness/feed/ 0 Compassion is a Discipline, Not a Feeling http://plymouthzen.com/compassion-is-a-discipline-not-a-feeling/ http://plymouthzen.com/compassion-is-a-discipline-not-a-feeling/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2026 11:38:09 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3230 In Buddhism, karuna (compassion as active practice) is one of the four brahmaviharas, the “divine abodes,” which means it’s not a feeling you hope to have, it’s a discipline you train.

Liz Bucar, Author and Professor of Religion at Northeastern University

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This Monday, March 30, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/compassion-is-a-discipline-not-a-feeling/feed/ 0 Always All Beings http://plymouthzen.com/always-all-beings/ http://plymouthzen.com/always-all-beings/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:01:59 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3228 A monk asked the tenth century Rinzai teacher Shoushan Xingnian, “What is a bodhisattva before she becomes a buddha?”

Shoushan replied, “All beings.”

The monk said, “How about after she becomes a buddha?”

Shoushan said, “All beings. All beings.”

-As told by Roshi Joan Halifax, Upaya Zen Center

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This Monday, March 23, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/always-all-beings/feed/ 0 The Four Commonplace Truths http://plymouthzen.com/the-four-commonplace-truths/ http://plymouthzen.com/the-four-commonplace-truths/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:06:16 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3226 1. No situation is impossible to change.

2. A communal vision, outstanding strategy, and sustained effort can bring forth positive changes.

3. Everyone can help make a difference.

4. No one is free of responsibility.

-Sensei Kaz Tanahashi, from Painting Peace: Art in a Time of Global Crisis

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This Monday, March 16, our guiding teacher, Terry Cronin, JDPSN will offer an opportunity for one-on-one conversations via Zoom during practice.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

]]> http://plymouthzen.com/the-four-commonplace-truths/feed/ 0 The Next Buddha Will Be the Sangha http://plymouthzen.com/the-next-buddha-will-be-the-sangha/ http://plymouthzen.com/the-next-buddha-will-be-the-sangha/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2026 11:43:06 +0000 http://plymouthzen.com/?p=3224 One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort. Thich Nhat Hanh said before he died a few years ago that the next Buddha will be the Sangha. The Sangha, in Buddhist terminology, is the community of practitioners. It’s this idea that we don’t have to look for an individual, for a savior, for an Übermensch.

-Rebecca Solnit, New York Times interview

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This Monday, March 9, we will have our regular practice of chanting, sitting, and walking practice followed by a short Zen reading.

Please consider becoming a dues-paying member of the Kwan Um School. $20 per month for seniors and full time students, $30 per month for others. Family memberships are also available. Your membership supports the school and this center; it also provides a wide range of benefits. Please see https://americas.kwanumzen.org/membership/ for details.

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