Kokyo Henkel: Conversations on Buddha-Nature 06-26-2021
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Description & Participants
Buddha-Nature in Early Chan and Japanese Zen
26 June 2021 · 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
We were on Facebook live on Saturday, June 26th at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, 5:00 PM CET, 9:00 PM Bhutan Time. The discussion is available online and sections will also be made available as answers to specific questions on this website.
Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho had a wonderful, animated, and detailed discussion with Rev. Kokyo Henkel about Buddha-Nature in Early Chan and Japanese Zen and comparisons with Tibetan Dzogchen. They also discussed some Koans, Dogen, and many textual sources from Indian sutras in Tibetan and Chinese translation to sources for key schools of Buddhism in China and Japan up to more modern texts.
Conversations on Buddha-Nature
Watch Short Clips Here | Click here to see short video clips of key topics from the discussion. |
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Description
June 26th, 2021 · 11:00 am Eastern Standard Time
Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho had a wonderful, animated, and detailed discussion with Rev. Kokyo Henkel about Buddha-Nature in Early Chan and Japanese Zen and comparisons with Tibetan Dzogchen. They also discussed some Koans, Dogen, and many textual sources from Indian sutras in Tibetan and Chinese translation to sources for key schools of Buddhism in China and Japan up to more modern texts.
Kokyo Henkel has been practicing Zen since 1990 in residence at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (most recently as Head of Practice), Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, No Abode Hermitage in Mill Valley, and Bukkokuji Monastery in Japan. He was ordained as a priest in 1994 by Tenshin Anderson Roshi and received Dharma Transmission from him in 2010. Kokyo is interested in exploring how the original teachings of Buddha-Dharma from ancient India, China, and Japan can still be very much alive and useful in present-day America to bring peace and openness to the minds of this troubled world.
Kokyo has also been practicing with the Tibetan Dzogchen (“Great Completeness”) Teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche since 2003, in California, Colorado, and Kathmandu.Conversations on Buddha-Nature
This is a space for stimulating and inspiring conversations on Buddha-Nature and related subjects. As a part of the Buddha-Nature Project of the Tsadra Foundation, Karma Phuntsho will host conversations with a Buddhist leader, influencer or expert each month on the theories and practices of Buddha-Nature, which will be live on Facebook. As an exercise of mindful listening, right speech, and wholesome exploration of meaning and nature of life and existence, these conversations aim to enhance the understanding and awareness of Buddha-Nature and promote the ethos of innate goodness and positive perception.
Recommended content
To understand what is meant by “Buddha Nature,” we can look at the story of the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. The first turning of the Dharma wheel is the four noble truths: that discontent arises from grasping the ever-changing phenomena of body and mind as “me,” and that freedom from this discontent is revealed through the path of not grasping anything as truly me. The four noble truths is a kind of deconstruction method. However, in this first turning, all the different elements that we can deconstruct this person into really do exist. Earth, wind, fire and water, for example: those kind of physical elements, when you break them down into their smallest bits, are indestructible elemental energies or physical matter, atoms. Early Buddhists, who were first turning exponents, had this kind of theory—that the world is made up of atoms—several centuries B.C., long before modern scientists discovered atoms. We don’t really exist as independent “persons”; we are a conglomeration of all this stuff that we think is a real “me,” but if we look closely, we only find atoms. This turning of the Dharma wheel was only the first.
Read more here