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Kobun Chino Otogawa was a key figure in the transmission and development of American Zen. If there is a single quality that defines his teaching, it is this - the Buddha has no body but ours. Again and again, he turned his students away from a conceptual view of zen and his clearest instruction to us is to look for Buddha within our hearts. While enlightenment is the simple nature of all things, the place we hear its voice most intimately, the only language we can understand, emanates from deep within ourselves. In these talks, Kobun talks about everyday life and intensive practice, or sesshin..."What 'sesshin' means is 'embracing mind.' Whoever is sitting, that person's mind embraces the whole situation, centered in that person. So you have full responsibility and full understanding, by yourself, of what sesshin means to you. The teaching is within you, which includes how you live, how you think, where you came from..."… (more)
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Although he came to assist Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco Zen Center, Kobun was enamored by the way Zen, unfettered, blossomed in new soil and he followed it wherever it grew. For Kobun, Zen was not an institution, but the elemental nature of every aspect of our lives and existed in myriad forms. Kobun founded four temples, taught Buddhism at Stanford and Naropa University, demonstrated and taught calligraphy and archery, spoke at events and met with sitting groups in their living rooms and hiked the wilderness with the people he mes. When Steve Jobs launched Next computer, Kobun was listed as it's spiritual director. However Zen spoke to a person, be it as a religion, a practice, and aesthetic, or a guiding principle, Kobun wholeheartedly believed in it's Buddha nature and followed that path with creativity and grace.
Kobun, who believed that no institution could contain nor offer complete insight into the nature of zen, also never bothered to write a book to explain what Zen is - especially as was captivated by momentous change. The wide-ranging talks in this book began as sesshin talks, instructions given to students while in the midst of a weeklong period of intensive sitting. Together they offer an insight into the Zen of Kobun Chino Otogawa, containing both his perspective on the forms and teachings of Zen and his emphasis that Zen is revealed not so much in the sutras as it is the everyday.