The Challenge of Lay Zen Practice and the Essence of Renunciation or "Letting Go."

Recorded June 8, 2024. The first 18 minutes of this recording are the “teisho proper,” focusing on the essential worth — and challenge — of ongoing lay Zen practice.   If you stop there you’ll have a short and direct teisho. But the rest of the recording adds resonance.  Roshi Martin then reads Kipling’s, “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat,” a tale that presents the essence of renunciation, the ancient traditional path of maturing beyond self-centeredness. We modern lay Zen practitioners must do the same, too BUT — and here lies our challenge —we must leave home without literally leaving home. For us, family, work, national and planetary citizenship are central to our path of maturing as whole human beings. Yet the fundamental awareness of what lies at the core are the same. The tale gives us a sense of that core. In response to this teisho a senior Zen student wrote: ‘. . it is nice to leave the world of sesshin-style exhortation and just settle back into a good story whose connections with the first part are not explicit. The first part of the teisho is so forceful. The second part is like falling under a subtle mesmerizing spell.’ • Books by Roshi Rafe Martin (https://endlesspathzendo.org/books.html) • Talks on YouTube (   / @endlesspathzendo4064  ) • More information at endlesspathzen.org (https://www.endlesspathzen.org)