45 min
Talk · Philip Kapleau
Fuketsu and the Dharma Seal
A teisho on case 38 of the Hekiganroku, on what cannot be handed over and is handed over anyway.
Overview
What does zen point to?
Zen Buddhism is a tradition of direct practice, simplicity, and close attention to ordinary experience. Emerging from Chinese Chan and later taking distinctive forms in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and beyond, Zen places particular emphasis on meditation, awareness, and seeing into the nature of mind without relying only on concepts or beliefs.
Its practices range from silent sitting and koan inquiry to chanting, work, and everyday activity carried out with full attention. Different Zen schools have their own methods and styles, but many share the same invitation: to meet life as it is, loosen habitual ways of seeing, and discover a freedom that is not separate from this present moment.
The practice is not preparation for anything.A central teaching within Zen
Teachers
Teachers across every lineage of Zen.
Zen holds many schools and lineages beneath it. Its teachers are gathered below.
Retired
Zen
Adyashanti
American-born spiritual teacher who has taught for over 30 years, offering teachings free of any single tradition or ideology; founder of Open Gate Sangha, now retired.
TraditionZen
AH
Zen
Alok Hsu Kwang-han
Zen calligraphic painter and teacher who works with brush, ink and rice paper, and who describes his own approach as teaching painting by not teaching painting.
TraditionZen
Zen
angel Kyodo williams
Ordained Zen teacher holding the title Rōshi, known for connecting Zen practice with social justice and structural change.
TraditionZen
In memoriam
Zen
Bernie Glassman
American Zen teacher (1939–2018), trained as an aeronautical engineer and a dharma heir of Taizan Maezumi. He founded the Zen Peacemakers, built the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers on open hiring so that anyone could get work, and held street retreats in which practitioners live homeless for days. He treated the street as the zendo.
TraditionZen
Zen
Brad Warner
American Sōtō Zen priest, author and bass player, born in Ohio in 1964. He played in the hardcore band Zero Defex, moved to Japan in the 1990s and ended up working for the studio behind Ultraman, and trained there with Gudō Wafu Nishijima, who ordained him and named him his dharma heir in 2000. He teaches from Los Angeles and writes about Zen in plain language, with little patience for its trappings.
TraditionZen
DL
Zen
David Loy
American Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage and scholar of Buddhism and modernity, best known for linking Buddhist practice to social and ecological issues through his "ecodharma" work.
TraditionZen
Artists
Musicians and singers.
Devotional music and chant from within this path, alongside its teachers.
Zen
James Nyoraku Schlefer
Shakuhachi grand master and composer in New York, trained in the Kinko school and certified dai shihan in 2001. He teaches the solo honkyoku, the repertoire the komusō monks of Fuke Zen played as suizen, blowing zen, where the breath is the practice rather than the performance, and he brings the bamboo flute into Western chamber music.
TraditionZen
KK
Zen
Kakizakai Kaoru
Japanese shakuhachi master, born in Chichibu in 1959, who plays honkyoku, the solo repertoire that came out of the practice of the Zen monks of the Edo period, in which the flute is played as meditation rather than as performance. He was the principal disciple of Yokoyama Katsuya from 1982 until Yokoyama's death in 2010, and is a senior carrier of the Watazumi and Yokoyama line.
TraditionZen
KD
Zen
Kiku Day
Shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist based in Copenhagen, who plays honkyoku, the solo repertoire of the Zen monks, on the unlacquered jinashi flute. Honkyoku is suizen, blowing zen: the breath as the practice rather than the performance. She trained in Tokyo with the master Okuda Atsuya.
TraditionZen
Zen
Riley Lee
Shakuhachi grand master, granted the rank of dai shihan in 1980 and carrying two lineages back to the komusō, the wandering Fuke Zen monks for whom playing the honkyoku was not performance but suizen, blowing zen: the breath itself as meditation. Born in Texas, living in Australia, and the author of a doctorate on how that Zen repertoire is handed on.
TraditionZen
Talks & videos
Watch across zen.
Documentaries, interviews and talks connected to this path and its sub-paths.
42 min
Talk · Philip Kapleau
You Are Echo
A teisho on case 7 of the Blue Cliff Record, where a monk asks who the Buddha is and is told his own name.
52 min
Talk · Philip Kapleau
A Buffalo Goes Through a Window
A teisho on case 38 of the Mumonkan, recorded at the centre he founded.
3 min
Interview · Bernie Glassman
What Is Zen?
Three minutes, answered without a single technical term.
Listen
Recordings from across zen.
Talks, guided meditations and podcast conversations from the teachers within this lineage.
Reb AndersonZen
↗ rebanderson.engagewisdom.com
Giving Joy
Reb Anderson takes up the first of the ten bodhisattva practices from the Flower Adornment Scripture, joyful giving, and discusses giving without regret, without seeking honour and without attachment to the outcome.
From the podcast The No Abode Audio Archive
Reb AndersonZen
↗ rebanderson.engagewisdom.com
Zen Bodhisattva Love
An afternoon talk at No Abode Hermitage on case twenty of the Book of Serenity and the thirty-year friendship of the Zen teachers Di Tsang and Fa Yan, used to explore not-knowing as intimacy.
From the podcast The No Abode Audio Archive
Reb AndersonZen
↗ rebanderson.engagewisdom.com
Two Kinds of Buddhism
Drawing on chapter eighteen of the Flower Adornment Scripture, Anderson argues that nirvana and helping others are not two separate paths, and works through the bodhisattva's ten ways of practising non-negligence.
From the podcast The No Abode Audio Archive
Reb AndersonZen
↗ rebanderson.engagewisdom.com
Clarifying Dharma
A talk on Book 18 of the Flower Adornment Scripture and the dialogue between the bodhisattvas Vigorous Wisdom and Dharma Wisdom, on finding the balance between forcing practice and neglecting it.
From the podcast The No Abode Audio Archive
Upcoming events
Events across zen.
Events tagged to an unpublished school or lineage automatically remain discoverable here while that level stays unpublished.
04NOV
Dharma Seminar: The Diamond Sutra, 4 November
Online · Online seminar
See event pageOnline seminar
05NOV
Zazenkai - Zen Meditation Weekend in Silence
Herrischried, Germany · Weekend meditation retreat
See event pageWeekend meditation retreat
05NOV
Ango Intensive: Buddha Nature - Revealing the Jewel Within
Mount Tremper, New York, United States · Short intensive retreat
See event pageShort intensive retreat
05NOV
Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim, Jakarta: second day
Jakarta, Indonesia · Question and answer gathering
See event pageQuestion and answer gathering