Canberra Soto Zen Group - CSZG

07/01/2026

Just to be yourself is what is meant by ‘just to sit’

We begin this 2026 practice year on Sunday 18 January with a reading from "Becoming Yourself", a new collection of talks by Shunryu Suzuki.

When we hear terms like "Buddha nature" or "non-duality" or "oneness with the Truth", our small mind is inclined to start searching for something outside our normal, everyday experience. The searching is an important step in the awakening process, but setting goals that we try to achieve at a future time can be a distraction from seeing the Truth that exists right here and now.

This week's talk, Sharing the Feeling, gives us a fresh perspective on what non-duality means. In describing Buddha's moment of enlightenment, we hear how the Buddha saw the morning star, not as a sign or symbol, but just as it was, in the Here and Now. "In other words, he shared his feeling with the morning star’s feeling... When he saw the morning star rising up from the east, it was the first thing he saw coming out of his empty mind."

We need to understand that an 'empty mind' is not one without thoughts, rather a whole mind that can experience every particular moment. That mind is 'Big Mind', an expansive or open mind, ready for change. "But just to open is not enough; the spirit of repetition is also necessary. If you do not have this kind of spirit—if your everyday life is not based on this kind of spirit—you cannot cope with the problems you have day after day."

This spirit of repetition, an activity done in each moment, is what we cultivate through our commitment to Zen practice at Zazen-kai.

22/12/2025

22/11/2025

In Zen, it is very common to think that our practice is going wrong when we run into difficulties, have intrusive thoughts, or make mistakes. But in this week's talk, Mind Weeds, Suzuki Roshi reassures us that these difficulties can be the very things that enrich our practice.

"If you have some experience of how the weeds in your mind change into mental nourishment, your practice will make remarkable progress. You will feel the progress. You will feel how they change into self-nourishment."

Zen practice is all inclusive. When we run into doubts, that is Zen. When we make mistakes despite our best efforts, that is Zen. There's no secret to success in Zen. Everything in your life is an opportunity to return to your original nature. Just to sit is enough. It's that simple!

"Once you understand our innate power to purify ourselves and our surroundings, you can act properly, and you will learn from those around you, and you will become friendly with others. This is the merit of Zen practice."

Announcements:

Teishin Innes, ordained monk and Assistant Teacher of Jikishoan Zen Buddhist Community, will be visiting us on the 6-7 December. We will have an informal dinner with Teishin on the 6th. Please reply if you are keen to attend.

Also, the end-of-year retreat is coming up on the 12-14 December. Please confirm your attendance by the 8th at the latest. Many thanks!

15/11/2025

Zen points to an understanding of Reality that goes beyond knowledge, thoughts and ideas. In this week's talk, Believing in Nothing, Shunryu Suzuki gives us a clear direction: "it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in Nothing [No-thing]."

Our challenge in practising Zen is to let go of self-centred thinking, to expand our consciousness from things to No-thing, from self to no fixed-self.

As Suzuki Roshi says in the Preface, "...Zen is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense." What is a 'pure' mind and 'fundamental sense' when related to Nothing-ness and Emptiness?

A pure mind is one that accepts everything as it is. No judgement, no expectation. One moment there's this reality, the next moment there's another reality. They all come from the same fundamental Source, which we might call Nothing-ness or Emptiness. The Heart Sutra reminds us that our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind are the mechanisms by which we perceive reality. If we grasp at reality or try to process it, we lose sight of the Source, because everything that comes also goes. We suffer because we become distracted from the Source, which is our true nature.

So the way out of suffering is not to adopt a particular attitude, idea or religion. It is to remain utterly open to Emptiness, as it appears in all its Forms. "If you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from Nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such form and color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure."

Then "you will appreciate yourself as a wonderful part of Buddha's great activity, even in the midst of difficulties." This appreciation is what we embody as a community at Sunday Zazen-kai.

07/11/2025

From the beginning,

all beings are Buddha

When we hear words like 'enlightenment' or 'awakening', we are likely to think of something as far from our daily reality as we can possibly imagine. In this week's talk, Nothing Special, Shunryu Suzuki helps us understand that our everyday reality is enlightenment itself.

"For people who have no experience of enlightenment, enlightenment is something wonderful. But if they attain it, it is nothing."

Only our delusion of being a separate self keeps us from realising this. When we see through the veil of separation, we find our true nature is always there as Awareness.

"Zen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Of course, whatever we do is the expression of our true nature, but without this practice it is difficult to realize."

The key point is that "Everything is Buddha nature" - this means everything, just as it is right now, is Buddha (Awakened, Enlightened). There are no non-Buddha elements. This applies to humans as much as it does to every other form of existence: "To be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for human nature, our true human nature."

By deepening our practice, little by little we can look beyond the illusion of 'self' and, through this awakening process, appreciate that we are the wonderful unfolding of the universe right before our eyes.

"In Zazen what you are doing is not for the sake of anything. You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire." It's what we endeavour to do at Zazen-kai as a community of practitioners.

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For your diary: Canberra Soto Zen Group will be holding a short retreat at Lake George from Friday 12th to Sunday 14th of December. This will be the formal end to the practice year for our Sangha and will include an exiting ceremony along with oryoki meals, zazen, kinhin and chanting practice.

02/11/2025

To resume our original nature, which is there 'from the beginning'. is to be a Buddha. Although Zen teachings are vast and rich, they are only pointers to the basic truth that in this very moment we are living the life of a Buddha, even though we may not realize it.

This week's talk, Experience, Not Philosophy, tells us that "whether Buddhism is philosophically deep or good or perfect is not the point. To keep our practice in its pure form is our purpose."

Trying to understand what Zen practice is isn't the point either. As Shunryu Suzuki says, "We do not even know what we are doing when we just practise with a pure mind." In Zazen we 'just sit': there is no one sitting!

So to be a Buddha is simply to practise without any agenda. "Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it."

Pure practice is simply returning to being Aware (body and mind drop off). All that arises, moment after moment, appears to universal Awareness. This, Zen Master Suzuki tells us, is the key to fully appreciating life:

"When we resume our original nature and to incessantly make our effort from this base, we will appreciate the result of our effort moment after moment, day after day, year after year. This is how we should appreciate our life."

P.S. The Canberra Soto Zen Group is planning a retreat on 12-14 December at the Mirramu Arts Centre (Lake George). The date should be confirmed by next Sunday.

24/10/2025

The right understanding of Zazen as a practice is 'returning to our original nature, moment by moment'. In this week's talk, Nirvana, the Waterfall, Suzuki Roshi gives us a powerful metaphor for our original nature, and of our temporal life in living and dying: the river and the individual separate droplets formed by the waterfall, which return to the river again.

We can see this in our experience as human beings: "Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "Mind-only," or "Essence of mind," or "Big mind." After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling."

This sense of separation is the root of our suffering: "You have difficulty because you have feeling...When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear."

Zen practice allows us to see through the sense of separateness, if even for a moment. When we can let go of all that arises in shikantaza, we return to Big Mind, become one with the river and we can have a radically different understanding - "Our life and death are the same thing."

"One whole river or one whole mind is Emptiness. When we reach this understanding we find the true meaning of our life. When we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of human life... by your practice of Zazen you can cultivate this feeling."

17/10/2025

A major and fundamental aspect of the Buddhist perspective is the question of ‘suffering’ (dukka) and how to overcome it. As we continue with our reading of the Heart Sutra, it's important to appreciate its view on suffering. In its first sentence we find:

"Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practising deep Prajna Paramita, clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering."

How is it possible to relieve human suffering by seeing that all objects, phenomena and mental formations have no substance of their own? In this week's reading, Transiency, Zen master Shunryu Suzuki explains:

"Because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self." That means everything, including our sense of self, is constantly changing and, at the same time, in constant interaction with everything else. Nothing has separate existence, i.e. sense objects are 'empty'.

Our tendency, however, is to see objects as separate things. It is our attachment to the products of this separation that causes us to suffer. "Because we cannot accept the truth of transiency, we suffer."

It follows that when we accept transiency completely, we can "relieve all suffering". We can understand that "Good is not different from bad. Bad is good; good is bad. They are two sides of one coin." Actually there's no reason to use labels like 'good' and 'bad' if you accept that everything is in constant and interconnected change.

When we commit to 'prajina paramita' Wisdom practice, such as attending community practice such as Zazen-kai , we loosen our reliance on conventional thinking and can see for ourselves the truth that Avalokiteshvara revealed.