Canberra Soto Zen Group - CSZG

23/05/2026

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

Becoming yourself means to realize our original nature - our true self. This is the 'Buddha nature' that Shunryu Suzuki explains in this week's talk, Buddha's Enlightenment.

"The only way to understand Buddha nature is just to practise Zazen, just to be here as we are... when we practise Zazen we have Buddha nature, and each of us is Buddha." It's important to recognize that "What we see or what we hear is just a part, or a limited idea, of what we actually are" and "When we can 'just sit' in every moment, we can appreciate that things are as they are... Everything as it is — is the way Buddha is."

Zen doesn't focus on developing a deep intellectual understanding of what Buddha nature is - Zen's emphasis is on directly seeing into your own nature and discovering for yourself what you truly are. That is why we practise. It is our heartfelt desire to know our true self - the self that exists beyond sight and sound ("beyond the realm of consciousness").

When we appreciate Buddha nature in everything, including ourselves, then we are no different from Buddha. We are in complete harmony with the endlessly creative unfolding of reality, finding our true home in the present moment.

“Without trying to be Buddha you are Buddha. This is how we attain enlightenment."

P.S. The Canberra Soto Zen Group's Retreat will be held at the Mirramu Arts Centre on 11-14 June.

16/05/2026

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

That statement has the power of transforming our view of what we are and of our place in this world: Meditation (the practice of just sitting itself) is what we are!

How is that insight reflected in our lives? In this week's talk, Harmony [from Becoming Yourself], Shunryu Suzuki suggests that Zen practice is like being a gardener. "When you sow a seed, you have to wait for the seed to come up, and when it comes up, you have to take care of it. That is our practice.."

That insight about our true identity needs to be cultivated and we cultivate it taking care of people, relationships and things as they develop, being aware that "each seed and each plant has its own character and its own colour..." This relational aspect is the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism. Everything is related to everything else. Everything is included in our practice. "Zen is not just personal practice, and our enlightenment is not just personal attainment. When we attain enlightenment, everything should be enlightened."

In that context, enlightenment is like the rocks in Shunryu Suzuki's metaphorical garden. Today's enlightenment may be big or small, round or jagged, calm or austere; tomorrow's may be different. All are necessary to create a harmonious whole. We should not pick out only our favourites, but understand them all in relation to each other. "You should have various 'enlightenments'. You should experience various experiences, and you should put more emphasis on relationships between people."

As the famous Zen poem Sandokai says: "Each of the myriad things has its merit, expressed according to function and place."

Through our practice-enlightenment of 'just sitting', we find our 'function and place' in each moment and enable others to do likewise. This is how we create harmony and practice it as a Sangha.

09/05/2026

What happens when we drop the labels that historically have been used to describe 'Buddhism'? For Shunryu Suzuki, in this week's reading Original Buddhism, "Buddhism is just Truth, which includes various truths in it." It's an amazing statement, stated with the authority of a Master.

If we take it as a preliminary expression, we are led to ask: What is that Truth, also known as the Buddha's teachings (the Dharma) and how can we experience it?

As proof that we do not need to have a conceptual understanding of the teachings, he tells us: "Today it is raining. This is Buddha's teaching... Religion is not any particular teaching. Religion is everywhere. We have to understand our teaching in this way. We should forget all about some particular teaching; we should not ask which is good or bad. There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment, in every existence. That is the true teaching."

Through our practice of Zazen, we can come to realize that the greatest teacher is the Buddha - our own true nature as it exists here and now. Therefore, "To live in each moment means to be the temporal activity of Buddha."

At Zazen-kai and retreats we dedicate ourselves to 'live in each moment' as a Sangha, a community of those who practise the Truth.

30/04/2026

Canberra Soto Zen Group

Sunday Zazenkai 2:00 - 4:00 pm

(enter at 1:55pm)

Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre

32 Archibald St., Lyneham

and online via Zoom link below


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

A Zen proverb, attributed to Master Gensha [9th century Chan Master], points directly to Reality, That-Which-IS, regardless of thoughts and opinions:

“If you understand, things are such as they are. If you do not understand, things are such as they are. 'Such as they are' is the simple unproblematic characteristic of the Eternal Now."

That suchness is the characteristic of Original Mind, our true nature. The purpose of Zen practice is to "resume our boundless original mind" as Shunryu Suzuki tells us in the Prologue from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. To 'resume' means to return to, remember or rediscover our true universal nature, waking up from the delusion that we are a separate fixed self. When awakening (not a state of mind!) happens, we can appreciate that "our Original Mind includes everything within itself." That Mind is also known as Beginner's Mind, "when we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self."

Zazen (and all the other forms of the practice) is the practice that allows us to resume our boundless original mind. At Zazen-kai and retreats we can experience that together as a community.

10/04/2026

The core message of the Heart Sutra is vividly expressed by Shunryu Suzuki in this week's talk, Original Buddhism. When we 'go beyond, beyond, far beyond' all inverted views through words and concepts, we can come to the right understanding of what it means 'just to sit'. Just sitting is not a posture we adopt, it is Ultimate Reality unfolding right Here and Now.

With that understanding:

"Zazen is all the postures, and each posture is Buddha's posture... Zazen is a practice which contains innumerable activities; Zazen started even before Buddha, and will continue forever."

So Zazen is itself 'practice-enlightenment', the embodiment and expression of our original nature, whether we are sitting, walking or talking.

Zen points to an understanding that is not limited by written teachings. Even though Shariputra was an expert on the Buddhist teachings of his time, his liberation came only when he realized that the true teaching is unfolding moment by moment, in the Here and Now. That is why "There should not be any particular teaching. Teaching is in each moment, in every existence."

At Zazenkai, as we practice shikantaza, we remain awake to things as they are, and find liberation in the Present Moment.

03/04/2026

This Sunday is Easter Sunday, the celebration and commemoration of Jesus Christ's liberation from death. 'Birth and death' is a central theme in Zen Buddhism. Dogen Zenji made this clear in Shushogi (Shobogenzo): "The most important question for all Buddhists is how to understand birth and death completely, for then, should you be able to find the Buddha within birth and death, they both vanish."

Our reading this week, Song in Praise of Zazen, is also a celebration and a powerful statement on awakening and liberation. Hakuin Zenji, the author of the poem, asks "When shall we be freed from birth and death?" The answer is "not far". In fact we are already free!

As paradoxical as it may seem, to sit in zazen is to "confirm your own self-nature – that self-nature is no nature". That 'no nature' is the same as saying "All beings by nature are Buddha". That is, your true nature is already Awake and beyond birth and death. With this understanding, Hakuin says, liberation is already yours:

"Nirvana is here, before our eyes:

this very place is the Lotus Land,

this very body the Buddha."

When we dedicate ourselves to Zen practice, especially as a community, we can realise this Truth for ourselves and help bring liberation to others.

27/03/2026

After hearing in last week's reading that our true nature, Buddha-nature, is beyond consciousness (the dimension of Form), we are told that "we must believe in nothing" in this week's reading "Believe in Nothing" by Shunryu Suzuki.

Nothing actually means no-thing: which is not a form with shape and colour, and is not perceived through the senses and mind consciousness. It's a dimension of Reality which is always ready to be some 'thing'.

How do we experience this no-thing? By the practice of non-thinking, the art of Zazen. When we just sit (shikantaza) and let go of the thinking function, our attachment to thoughts as Reality, we return to Silence, Beginner's Mind, our original self, Awareness. We intuit that No-thing is our nature, just as Bodhidharma said to Emperor Wu, when asked who he was.

The fundamental practice at Zazen-kai is to experience this directly in all the forms of Meditation.

20/03/2026

"All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists...It IS that which you see before you..." This statement by Zen Master Huang Po (Chan Buddhism; d. 850; Lin-Chi's Teacher) encapsulates Zen's non-dual perspective of Reality.

That perspective is the unwavering message of Shunryu Suzuki found in all his talks/essays in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. In Beyond Consciousness, this Sunday's reading, we hear that "we must firmly believe in our true nature. Our true nature is beyond conscious experience."

That true nature is also called 'essence of mind, original mind, original face, Buddha nature, emptiness.' or One Mind. How can we experience it? "To realize pure mind in your delusions is practice...It is when you sit in Zazen that you will have the most pure, genuine experience of the empty state of mind."

That is shikantaza, going beyond conscious experience (sensations, perceptions, and mind activity) with the practice of "non-thinking, the art of Zazen."

Zazen-kai brings together those who practice shikantaza as an expression of our true nature.

12/03/2026