Cleveland Zazen Group

01/15/2026

"The first aim of sitting is to unify the mind. For the average person whose mind is being pulled in many directions, sustained concentration is virtually impossible. Through the practice of zazen, the mind becomes one pointed so that it can be controlled."
-Hakuin Yasutani Roshi*
Sensei Jissai Prince-Cherry spoke: Now, a word that means more to me than control is "directed". So it (the mind) can be directed ... in my neighborhood, there is an elementary school, and during lunch, I'll go for a walk, and in the big school yard, there will be all of these elementary school children running around. There may be a group racing each other, another group playing skipping rope, another group playing kickball, all these kids multiple classes intermingling with each other in this big schoolyard, and at a signal from a teacher, students will gather around the teacher, and the teacher will line them up, make sure everybody's there, and they will walk back into the school building in single file, moving as One unit, focused unified when they're all running pell mell in the school yard, there's no focus there. It's once they're gathered together, then they can be aimed, focused into the school building. That's really what we're doing in zazen, unifying the mind so we can focus it.🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
-Venerable Jissai Prince Cherry
excerpt from Dharma talk 22 Feb 2025, "Tips for working on Koans" -see comments

* Quote from Three Pillars of Zen, Teaching Practice and Enlightenment - book by Roshi Philip Kapleau
cr: 1965,1968 Roshi Philip Kaoleau.
cr: 1980 The Zen Center, inc
Pub: Anchor Books
*photo from Rochester Zen Center

01/09/2026

"There is something urging you to look deeper, something which seeks to be known. Don’t you see it yet? Isn’t it clear yet? You are sitting here because you cannot help but seek truth. The genuine seeks to know itself. Truth is seeking truth. That is why you are here, putting your heart and soul into meditation. Your time of awakening will come."

Excerpt from article:
"The Depth of Truth is Bottomless" by Harada Tangen Roshi
Published in online magazine, Buddha Now, 23 March 2018

*photo from Rochester Zen Center
*Roshi Philip Kapleau was a Western student of Harada Roshi at both Hosshinji Monastery and Bukkoku-ji Temple.

01/03/2026

Zen, being grounded in Faith of our True Nature and Zazen. Ordinary life, awareness in daily life while "Chopping wood & carrying water"... doing zazen, living our vows in mindfulness and action is our Buddhist Nature.
Roshi Kapleau says,
"True awakening... is not a 'high' that keeps one in the clouds of an abstract oneness, but a realization that brings one solidly down to earth into the world of toil and struggle".
"To enter fully into every action with total attention and clear awareness is no less zazen".
From the book:
Awakening to Zen : the teachings of Roshi Philip Kapleau c1997

01/01/2026

"May all beings be happy, May they be well, May they be peaceful, May they be free to cultivate boundless love" 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

The Three Treasures:
*I take refuge in Buddha,and resolve that with all beings I will understand the Great Way whereby the Buddha seed may forever thrive.
*I take refuge in Dharma, and resolve that with all beingsI will enter deeply into the sutra-treasure whereby my wisdom may grow as vast as the ocean.
*I take refuge in Sangha,
and in its wisdom,
example, and never - failing help, and resolve to live in harmony with all sentient beings.

12/28/2025

New Years Eve grounded in zazen! Ringing in 2026🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

1. CZG December 31, 2-4p join us for two rounds of sitting and then tea and sweets to "sit out" the old year.

2. RZC Dec 31, 8-12 pm and ending just after midnight.New Years Eve.

* A meaningful and inspiring way to begin the New Year.
* see comments for schedule & zoom contact.


Does 2025 come to a dead stop then 2026 begins?
Dogen's reflections on
are we beings in time or are we being-time?
Dogen describes Being Time, "Uji", as Being-Time-Ness, "Gyoji", Continuous Practice.
"Included in each moment is the entire world and the individual being–time-ness of each being making the world. Continuous practice is the practice-realization of the Buddhist ancestors, including the Continuous-Practice of all other beings: trees, rocks, insects, etc. It is the whole-hearted effort and total presencing of each being in the ten directions... we are being–time.
Excerpt from Dogen's Gyoji, “Continuous Practice”
Excerpted from:
From Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji, by Shinshu Roberts (Wisdom 2018)

12/26/2025

New Years Eve Zazen
December 31 2:00 pm - to 4:00 pm, join us for two rounds of sitting, then tea and sweets to "sit out" the old year. Then join us to begin the new year on Tuesday, January 6, when we resume our regular sitting schedule.🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

12/24/2025

The best present that anyone can give to one's self/no-self and others is the knowledge that our True Nature is within, here & now, the Great Way of Buddha🙏🏼

*Roshi Sunya Kjolhede is a Dharma heir of Roshi Philip Kapleau and the sister of Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede. She is founder & Spiritual Director with her husband, Roshi Lawson Sachter of Windhorse Zen Community in Alexander, North Carolina.

12/19/2025

During this season of giving and sharing, Buddhists can appreciate/practice Ðana: Giving, the 1st of the Paramitas (virtues).
Dana, giving with generosity. Giving includes Grace in receiving, being thankful.
Roshi Amala wrote
"Grace flows from gratitude.Grace is related to the word for ‘thank you’ —a meaning that lingers in our use of the word 'Grace', to mean a prayer of thanks for a meal."
So during these days of social gatherings, breaking bread together, we can heartily, humbly practice Dana...giving thanks.
Roshi Amala:
"In our grace we chant, ‘This meal is the labor of countless beings, let us remember their toil!’ We eat, and the toil of the sun, earthworms, farmers, truckers, road maintenance crews, oil companies, and supermarket check-out workers … of cooks, cabbages, and tax collectors, becomes our very cells. Thich Nhat Hahn describes this as the way in which the so-called self is made up entirely of ‘non-self elements.’ And so we continue our chant, ‘Our meal (that is, ourselves) is offered to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. With teachers and family, with nations and all life let us equally share. To beings throughout the six worlds we offer this meal.’ "
Excerpt from:
Grace by
Roshi (Sensei) Amala Wrightson
Current printing:
Zen Bow: Faith in Dharma vol ###vii
no 4 · 2014–15
*Zen Bow Editor’s note: Sensei Amala Wrightson (formerly
Charlotte Wrightson) was given permission to
teach by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede in 2004 and sanctioned as a Dharma heir in 2012. She teaches at the Auckland Zen Center, which she founded with her husband Richard von Sturmer in 2004.

*drawing by Giei Satō from the book, Unsui: a Diary of Zen Monastic Life by Eshin Nishamura

12/14/2025

May our daily Zazen, mindful prayer, ceremonial relgious practices bring compassionate wisdom heartful peace to all sentient beings ❤️🌎❤️
🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

12/13/2025

"The essential way flows everywhere...
The essential teaching is fully available...
Nothing is separate from this very place...

Observe the example of Shakyamuni Buddha at the Jeta Grove, who practiced upright sitting for six years even though he was gifted with intrinsic wisdom. Still celebrated is Master Bodhidharma of Shaolin Temple, who sat facing the wall for nine years, although he had already received the mind seal.
Ancient sages were like this; WHO NOW-A-DAYS DOES NOT NEED TO PRACTICE AS THEY DID?
-turn the light inward. Your body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will appear. If you want to attain just this immediately practice just this." Zazen!!! Now!!!

*excerpts: Fukanzazengi,
Recommending Zazen to all people by Eihei Dōgen, trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi (1999)

Eihei Dōgen (Dōgen Zenji)
January 1200-1253 Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, poet, writer and founder of the Zen Sōto school.

12/08/2025

"What jewel is lustrous • from the beginning;
what person is superior from the outset?
You must always keep polishing and always keep training.
Do not deprecate yourselves and relax in your study of the Way. Do not deprecate yourselves and relax in your study of the Way."
--Zen Master Dogen

We have been honoring a season of Gratitude, making ceremonial commitments to Buddhist way of living & Zazen practice with Jukai: taking of Precepts. We have had good fortune to give reverence gratitude to Buddha's own enlightenment during Rohatsu. So now, as Dogen encouraged, do not relax in your study of the Way.
Don't let up!!!🙏🏼

12/03/2025

You can still register for all or part of Bodhi Day retreat🙏🏼

2 day retreat: Rohatsu -Bodhi Day will be celebrated with CZG and Crooked River Zen Center collaborating with a 2 day retreat Dec 5 & 6.
Please Call or text to Susan: 216-630-3583
if you would like more info and to register.

This Bodhi day retreat may be attended in part or full. A solemn opportunity to meaningfully contemplate ones life, discovering and exemplyfying our own True Nature as Buddha learned then taught for the rest of his Earthly life and whose teaching have endured through Buddhists to this day.

Rohatsu -Bodhi Day, commemorating the day Prince Siddhartha Gautama, meditating under a Bodhi tree came to enlightenment becoming the Buddha, understanding the cycle of karma, death and rebirth, showing the Way to freedom from suffering, Buddha revealing for all beings our original Enlightened Nature.