Category Archives: Nona Strong Roshi

[AUDIO AND TEXT] Tonight, I want to touch on a koan that has somehow stuck in my consciousness and is shouting very loudly within me of late. It’s a scenario that hones in on the walls we build that make up our individual worlds – the boundaries we draw that circumscribe our experience of living.Continue reading “the walls we build”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] The book titled The Zen Teaching of Huang Po [tr. John Blofeld, 1958, pp. 127 – 128] reports a monk having a dialogue with Master Huang Po: Q: To whom did the Patriarch [that is the Second Patriarch, Hui-ke] silently transmit the Dharma? A: No Dharma was transmitted to anybody. Q: ThenContinue reading “transmission of mind – coming to awareness”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] This is the first talk given by Nona Strong Roshi at the June 2022 zen sesshin at Mercy Center Burlingame. “To have it all stripped bare, just experienced directly, naked: this is sesshin.” (Roko Sherry Chayat, Rinzai Zen master, Syracuse, NY, in Sitting with Koans, p. 337) This means staying awake whileContinue reading “staying awake”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] This is the second talk given by Nona Strong Roshi at the June 2022 zen sesshin at Mercy Center Burlingame. In the Heart Sutra, we read: Form is no other than emptiness; emptiness is no other than form. Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. The Diamond Sutra has the same factContinue reading “awakening ain’t thinking it”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] This is the third talk given by Nona Strong Roshi at the June 2022 zen sesshin at Mercy Center Burlingame. So, we have the essential world (emptiness), and we have the phenomenal world (form). They may not seem so, but they are co-equal. In fact, according to the Heart Sutra, they areContinue reading “keeping it simple”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] This is the fourth talk given by Nona Strong Roshi at the June 2022 zen sesshin at Mercy Center Burlingame. Despite the sensation we have of time passing, from life’s beginning to its end, life – especially our own life – is really a never-ending story, isn’t it? When we call upContinue reading “the never-ending story”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] I want to share with you some words of an African-American mystic and minister named Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981). Born and raised in Daytona, Florida, Howard Thurman began his religious studies in his early twenties, after graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. He attended the Rochester Theological Seminary in Rochester,Continue reading “Howard Thurman”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] Let’s start by revisiting this “On Zen” verse from the National Teacher, Dai-o Kokushi (Japan, 13th century), and see where we end up after that. He says: There is a reality even prior to heaven and earth.Indeed, it has no form, much less a name;Eyes fail to see it; it has noContinue reading “on zen”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] [This is the first of two sequential talks. The second talk is “Our Life Force.”] Those of you who are familiar with Zen literature know that the term “mind” comes up a lot. We know it from stories and koans, and it shows up often in the teachings of the masters. InContinue reading “mind”

[AUDIO AND TEXT] [This is the second of two sequential talks. The first talk is “Mind”. ] In an earlier talk, we considered “mind” as experienced by the Chan (Zen) master Linji (Rinzai). He said: Followers of the Way, mind is without form and pervades the ten directions [i.e., it’s everywhere]. In the eye itContinue reading “our life force”