Flooded With Beauty - Gifted Wisdom and Empathy Just Sitting

Flooded with beauty: the gifted wisdom and empathy that comes from “Just sitting”.

This talk is my attempt to convey the Way of “Just Sitting”(Shikantaza) and the tender heart it elicits. Without asking for it, such a Way restores wonder and makes us ‘accident-prone’ to really appreciating our lives; breaking our passion for the stories we cling to. Letting the 10,000 things show us what we are, instead of chasing fantasies, we may just see into the Heart of the Buddha’s core teachings and discover each other anew.

Forget these words, I’d like to just share with you the love and respect I have for this Way of ‘giving ourselves to the Rivers and mountains’.

Not a moment spent idly in twenty-four hours
Do they realize how my heart is always stirred
By the valley streams and lofty peaks
Under the setting autumn sun?
– Dogen Zenji 13th Century

Teacher: Doko-san was born in 1970 and is the Abbot of Dochu-an and Shumpu-an Zen Hermitages in Northern NSW Australia, where he trains monastics, lay disciples, and lay trainees. He is also the guiding teacher of Little Zen Sangha, Hobart Australia. In 1989 while recovering from a brain aneurysm, he was introduced to Zen by a friend and began to do some zazen instead of thinking so much. Doko became a monk with Hogen-san in 1994 and received Dharma-heir transmission to teach in 2008. In January 2009 he was granted full transmission as a successor and new ancestor in the lineage. He lives in Mullumbimby NSW with his wife, disciples, and three children.