Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Greetings Friends,
I am returning from the Light of the Ancestors Sesshin at Great Vow Zen Monastery and feeling deep gratitude for this path of practice and all the people who have walked this path— discovering freedom and love in their own lives.
Over the past few months the Monday night online Sangha through ZCO has been exploring The Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Dogen Zenji. In wrapping up our study of the sutra, we explored the last two stanzas from the version of the sutra that is often chanted in ZCO.
Mountains have been the abode of great sages from the limitless past to the limitless present. Wise people and sages all have mountains in their inner chamber, as their body and mind. You may think that in mountains many wise people and great sages are assembled, but after entering the mountains, not a single person meets another. There is just the activity of mountains. There is no trace of anyone having entered the mountains.
Although mountains belong to the nation, mountains belong to people who love them. You should know that mountains are fond of wise people and sages.
From ancient times people and sages have often lived near water. When they live near water they catch fish, catch human beings, and catch the Way. Therefore, thoroughly investigate mountains, thoroughly investigate water. When you investigate thoroughly, it is the work of mountains and water. Then mountains and waters of themselves become wise persons and sages.

When Dogen Zenji refers to mountains, he is inviting us to observe and contemplate actual mountains, to recognize and reflect on the constancy, stillness, presence and teachings of the mountains in the natural world and he is also inviting us to observe and contemplate our true nature. You can try reading the above paragraph substituting the words “true nature”, “the Way”, “awakening/enlightenment” or “practice-realization” for mountains.
What opens up as you reflect on these different readings of the teaching of this sutra?
How does the Way or practice-realization belong to those who love it?
What is your experience of your life being the great activity of awakening?
During the Light of the Ancestors sesshin, my co-teacher Bansho, Sensei referenced a koan from the Zen school, where a person is taking leave of the monastery and is asked by the teacher, “Where are you going?” The student replies, “around on pilgrimage.” The teacher then asks, “what is the purpose of pilgrimage?” The student replies, “I don’t know.” The teacher responds, “Not-knowing is nearness.”
We might also say, “not-knowing is love.”
In a world where we are taught to fear the unknown, to always have a plan or purpose—what would it be like, instead, to see not-knowing as an invitation to love? To meet the unknown with curiosity? To be intimate with the mystery?
Can not-knowing invite us in to the embrace of this life?
Can the practice of not-knowing create space for love to arise?
Is not-knowing an expression of love?

On this path of practice-awakening we are constantly being invited to love. To recognize that we are loved, to recognize that we belong to this life.
Another time a student asked, “what is the essence of the path?”
A teacher replied, “whatever arises, love that.”

Not-knowing makes us fetch-able, the way rises up and meets us, catches us in the openness of our curiosity. We become mountain, we become river just as mountains and rivers become us.
Listen to the Dharma Talk for a more in-depth exploration of these last paragraphs from the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, and for reflections on coming home to ourselves, not-knowing, love and belonging on the path.
Awakening happens in relationship. Hope to see you in-person or on zoom sometime soon. Starting this coming Monday, we will return to studying the teaching stories of the women ancestors found in The Hidden Lamp.
Weekly Online Meditation Event
Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring the Hidden Lamp: Teaching from the Buddhist Women Ancestors
Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK
In-Person in Oregon
Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin— August 10 - 16 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha
Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.
Upcoming Sesshins at Saranam Retreat Center in West Virginia
Interdependence Sesshin June 29 - July 5 (Registration is now open!)
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,
I’m a lover of poetry. A sometimes writer of poems. A sometimes reader. Poetry for me is more of a way of being, a willingness to be carried across by metaphor, to be turned inside out by image, to sit in the silence, to not know and to be transformed through the art of attention.
The best poetry is wordless attention.
And, also. Some poems really act as an arrow, straight to the heart of it and allow what is often inexpressible—a moment of shared recognition.
April was national poetry month, and one of the ways I celebrated was to reflect on poetry in the buddhist and zen tradition. I looked at the different kinds of poetry and its function. In doing so, I recognized four functions of poetry: enlightenment poems, death poems, capping phrases and poems of intimacy with what is.
Listen to the talk for more exploration of these four functions, with examples from some of my favorite poems from the tradition. Below are a few favorites for your reading pleasure.
Dongshan’s Enlightenment Poem

Long seeking it from others,
I was far from reaching it.
Now I go by myself,
and I find it everywhere.
It is just I myself,
but I am not itself.
Understanding in this way,
I can be as I am.
Ikkyu’s Death Poem

I won’t die.
I won’t go anywhere.
I’ll be here.
But don’t ask me anything.
I won’t answer.
Mitta’s Enlightenment Poem (From the translation/interpretation the first free women)

Full of trust you left home,
and soon learned to walk the Path—
making yourself a friend to everyone
and making everyone a friend.

When the whole world is your friend,
fear will find no place to call home.

And when you make the mind your friend,
you’ll know what trust
really means.

Listen.

I have followed this Path of friendship to its end.

And I can say with absolute certainty—
it will lead you home.
On this spiritual path, poetry has been an inspiration for me. Not just the poetry of the ancestors, but so many other poems have graced me with their invitations to wonder and open to a world that is alive, and inviting. Do you have a poem that has inspired or transformed you? Do you have a poem you keep coming back to? Feel free to share it here.
Weekly Online Meditation Event
Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji.
Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK
In-Person in Oregon
Light of the Ancestors Sesshin—May 11 - 17 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin— August 10 - 16 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha
Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.
Upcoming Sesshins at Saranam Retreat Center in West Virginia
Interdependence Sesshin June 29 - July 5 (Registration is now open!)
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

One of the figures that we encounter in the Zen literature is the stone woman. In the Precious Mirror Samadhi we find her dancing, in another story she calls us back from our dream of the world.
In the study of the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, she shows up early on when Dogen quotes Furong Daokai. “The green mountains are always moving, a stone woman gives birth to a child at night.” He then comments on the stone woman, saying:
“A stone woman gives birth to a child at night” means that the moment when a barren woman gives birth to a child is called “night.” There are male stones, female stones, and nonmale, nonfemale stones. (13) They are placed in the sky and in the earth and are called heavenly stones and earthly stones. These are explained in the ordinary world, but not many people actually know about it. You should understand the meaning of giving birth to a child. At the moment of giving birth to a child, is the mother separate from the child? You should study not only that you become a mother when your child is born, but also that you become a child. (14) This is the actualization of giving birth in practice-realization. You should study and investigate this thoroughly.

So, who is this stone woman? Have you met her? Have you taken the time to hear the stories of the mountains, the stars, the river rocks, the stones you encounter on your walk? What is their experience of night? Of birth? Of silence, life, time and human?
The Stone Woman Speaks
There are stories told throughout the world, throughout time about the lives of mountains, stones, trees and the natural world. Stories of how the mountains were made. How the world was made, stories of creation. There are even stories of women being turned to stone.
When I was living in the Pacific Northwest, I learned some of the creation myths of the indigenous people who live in the region. In the telling, the local mountains have a prominent role.
The Chinook tell of Thunderbird laying eggs on top of Saddle Mountain, which an ogress will then throw down the Mountain, peopling the area.
The Klickitat story involves the formation of Wy’east (Mt. Hood), Pahto (Mt. Adams) and Loo-wit (Mt. St. Helen’s). In this story Loo-wit is a beautiful woman, who once guarded the first fire for the Great Spirit. Wy’east and Pahto were brother warriors who both fell in love with Loo-wit, and started fighting over her by spitting fireballs over the land. Eventually Great Spirit turned them into stone, mountain-volcanoes—banishing the Stone Woman Loo-wit up to the northern regions.
Do you know some of the stories about the mountains, rivers or landforms in your area? Or ones you have visited? Have you ever listened to or heard the story of a tree, rock, flower, river or some other being in the natural world?
During the Grasses and Trees Sesshin at Great Vow Zen Monastery on the fourth full-day of the retreat we often invite participants to have sanzen with a being in the natural world. Sanzen, which means sitting zen together, is what we call the 1:1 practice meetings in Zen. We are invited to meet a blade of grass, a pond, a noble fire, sky with an open mind, a question, a willingness to listen and learn from. Often people come back with a story of transmission. Something happened in the encounter, often part of the practice involves a willingness to listen to the silence—for the natural world often doesn’t speak in human language.
Mysterious Transmissions
This image of the stone woman is also pointing to prajna paramita, the mother of all buddhas, wisdom beyond wisdom. To encounter the stone woman, is to meet the night, the darkness of not-knowing, the pure potential energy that we are—the great mystery. We are invited into the dark-unknowing, the womb of pure potential—where we become one with the wisdom of the ancestors, where we are born anew.
From this place our life emerges, from this place it is fulfilled. —Hongzhi

For more explorations of the stone woman giving birth at night, listen to the dharma talk. I would love to hear any reflections that you have.
It’s poetry month, and I am also exploring encounters with the stone woman through poetry.
The Stone Woman Speaks(a poem)

the stone woman
lives in the foundation of my house
but also, in the potholed alley
the river bed
& on the rock face of the glen.

she who was
—before—
people, animal, name.

she who will be here
—after—

we are no longer.

she speaks in
cool, smooth
ancient sounds

the kind
that turn you around

and let you hear
the voice
of your own

—inner silence.
Weekly Online Meditation Event
Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji.
Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK
In-Person in Oregon
Light of the Ancestors Sesshin—May 11 - 17 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin— August 10 - 16 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha
Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.
Upcoming Sesshins at Saranam Retreat Center in West Virginia
Interdependence Sesshin June 29 - July 5 (Registration is now open!)
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends,
Happy April Fool’s Day!
Last week I had the opportunity to co-facilitate a Zen sesshin in the mountains of West Virginia at Saranam Retreat Center.
Sesshin, a zen-style silent meditation retreat which translates as touching the heart-mind, has been a huge part of my adult life. While living at Great Vow Zen Monastery, I practiced sesshin together in sangha for a week every month. Such is the rhythm of monastic life we enter this cauldron of awakening together and let our hearts and minds simplify to reveal their true nature.
Preparing for sesshin has a feeling of preparing for death— for opening to oneness is not the ego’s domain.
Sesshin is grounded in the aspiration to awaken with all beings. An impossible vow that truly we are entangled in, this springing forth of great love is actualized through our practice—realized in this heart.
For the dharma teachings are not just “good ideas” but insights we can come to know in our bones, as our body-mind.
There is something utterly incomprehensible about sitting together in silence and allowing ourselves to be touched by the great mystery.
To return from sesshin is impossible, and yet—here we are.
Back from the dead, changed, transformed. Heart’s silent presence alive in our inter-relations. Vow awakened and lived into here-and-now.
This is compassion!
During sesshin we practiced with Dogen Zenji’s Mountains and Waters Sutra. Which I have been giving dharma talks on over the last few weeks, during the online Monday Night Dharma. This week we explored the practice of circling back to study ourselves. In the Mountains and Waters Sutra, Dogen says:
The blue mountains devote themselves to the investigation of walking; the East Mountain studies “moving over the water.” Hence, this study is the mountain’s own study. The mountains, without altering their own body and mind, with their own mountain countenance, have always been circling back to study themselves.

We encounter circles throughout this path of practice. As I said above, I circle back to sesshin regularly. Many of you have the experience of circling back to this practice of zazen-meditation. The study of the mountains and rivers sutra is a circling back to a teaching I have practiced with for over a decade. What do you find yourself circling back to in your practice-life? As we enter the season of Spring, what is beginning again for you? How are you circling back to yourself?
This circling back to study ourselves is one of the core instructions for zazen practice—to recognize our original self, the unborn buddha mind. Listen to the Dharma talk for more explorations of this teaching in the Mountains and Rivers Sutra. I reference the chant-able version of the Mountains and Waters Sutra which you can find here.
Below is a poem inspired by the practice of circling.
Mountains Circling Back to Realize Themselves

Circle back study yourself
Who are you?
What hears?
Who is breathing this breath?
What feels the heart beating, the touch of clothing, longing, aspiration?

Circle back and listen to yourself
What is your heart’s song?
Do you know the compassion that you are?
Are you in touch with this aspiration to awaken, to liberate all beings?
What is the shape of your vow?
What is the size of your heart?

Can you see that it truly includes the entire world?

Circle back and be yourself
See that you too are mountain, and flowing
You were never born, you will not die

Circle back and love yourself
For you are dying, too
Wonder at this Self
This miracle that you are
Let yourself be amazed
By this life you live
Appreciate the challenges, the joys, all the happenings
That make you — you

Circle back, greet yourself
For you are ancestor
Parent, protector, caregiver, teacher, friend, guide
To this earth, your family, community, all beings
And you are also child
A student of life, learning, being guided, protected
Cared for by this earth, and all your inter-relations

Circle back and meet yourself
As you are born, from the stone woman
From the dark
Even as you age
You are new
Like spring
Like a flower budding

Circle back home to yourself
Rest
In the vast openness
Of your original
Heart-mind
Always right here
Becoming Circle

What must relax in you
To become a circle?

What assumptions made about
who we are and why we are here
Must dissolve

So that feet can walk back towards head
as ground rises up
To meet the sky

We who once stood erect in the middle
Like pillar or tree
Like mountain

Now find ourselves
Turning inside-out
Walking backward as
we move forward

Being planet
Or globe
Flower
Or mandala
Or something else entirely

Weekly Online Meditation Event
Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji.
Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK
In-Person in Oregon
Light of the Ancestors Sesshin—May 11 - 17 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin— August 10 - 16 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha
Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.
Upcoming Sesshins at Saranam Retreat Center in West Virginia
Interdependence Sesshin June 29 - July 5 (Registration is now open!)
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

I will be joining the Mud Lotus Sangha in West Virginia for our first sesshin of the year. Sesshin is now often translated as a Zen-style meditation retreat. But the words meditation and retreat are mis-leading. It is in its truest sense a practice of recognizing our true nature, of touching, encountering the heart-mind that abides everywhere.
We are going to the mountains of West Virginia to practice. Stepping back into Mountain time to learn from the mountains, waters and great earth. To be students to the world before thought, which continues to blossom in the midst of all our human-made problems.
Preparing for sesshin is like preparing for death.
It is preparing for the unknown, for encountering the mystery.
It is a practice and path of discovering who and what we are when we aren’t engaging constantly in the impulses and desires of modern life—with its near endless supply of surface level distractions and pleasures—that often keep us from encountering the deep questions and true satisfaction of our being.
During sesshin we will be exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji. And we are also taking up this sutra on Monday nights, as part of the Monday Night Dharma teaching offered weekly on zoom (more info below).
It is a beautiful teaching that scholars, ecologists, practitioners, artists, mystics, activists, poets have turned to over the centuries for inspiration on this path of being human, of living awake to our deep interconnection with all beings.
So for the next couple months, we will be walking in the mountains together. We will be journeying in Mountain Time, studying the teachings of mountains and waters and how they are relevant in our own lives as modern, urban, technological beings.
One of my questions is, can the teachings of mountains and waters, the teachings in this sutra and other teachings we find throughout buddhism about mountains—can they meet us in this current moment? Can they meet us here in what feels apocalyptic? What do the mountains and waters have to teach us about hope/fear, gain/loss, life/death, awakening/delusion, joy, compassion, equanimity, freedom and how to live together on this earth or even in this cosmos?
The first line of the sutra says:
These mountains and rivers right now are an actualization of the ancient buddha way.

Pay attention to the mountains and waters, they are teaching us, they are the expression of the awakened ones, they are the way!
People throughout cultures and traditions regard the mountains as sacred, regard the natural world as sacred— as teachers, as expressions-embodiments of our true nature.
Mountains are mythic and evoke the spirit. They are often personified as spirit beings, praised, worshiped and prayed to. Many mountains are pilgrimage sites, temples were built on them, ceremonies are conducted on them. To live on the mountains, is to live with the mountains, to simplify—to be humbled and vulnerable in the mountains presence.
To take up mountains and waters as sutra, is to encounter this ancient way of being, is to connect with our ancestors, is to connect with the Earth as ancestor and realize our deep inter-being with all of life.
Are we willing to humble ourselves before the mountains and waters?
Are we willing to hear their teachings?
What kind of listening is required—to encounter earth as ancestor, lover, friend, mother, as the way, the path, true nature itself?
Are we willing to abide in mountain time, to open to the deep time, presence and pace of mountains?
Can we do this as modern people? Is this teaching relevant to us as people who are intertwined with technology and the creature comforts of urban life? What might we have to change, give-up, surrender or open to? Is it possible to study the sutra of mountains and rivers, right here—in our daily lives?
Throughout the study and practice of reading this sutra, contemplating it and putting it into practice—we will encounter these questions and more. We will get to experience a new appreciation for what the mountains and waters are, how they are teachers, buddhas, and the way.
The first paragraph of the sutra says:
Mountains and waters right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha way. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness. Because mountains and waters have been active since before the Empty Eon, they are alive at this moment. Because they have been the self since before form arose they are emancipation-realization.

And I will leave it there for today. Listen to the podcast episode for more and join us tomorrow as we dive deeper into the sutra and the practice of mountain-walking. Feel free to share any comments or thoughts below!
Weekly Online Meditation Event
Monday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji.
Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINK
In-Person in Oregon
Light of the Ancestors Sesshin—May 11 - 17 at Great Vow Zen Monastery
Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth—
In-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus Sangha
Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Retreats, Meditation instruction and other events can be found on our website.
Upcoming Sesshins at Saranam Retreat Center in West Virginia
Mountains and Rivers Sesshin March 18 - 22 (Registration is now open!)
Mountains are high and wide. The movement of clouds and the inconceivable power of soaring in the wind comes freely from the mountains. —Dogen Zenji, Mountains and Waters Sutra
During this silent, Zen-style retreat we will practice with the mountains and waters, opening to our own mountain-stability and the flowing nature of all experience.
Meditation provides the opportunity for intimacy with self and world, recognizing the interconnectedness of this very life. Healing and transformation happen as we abide in the mystery of who we truly are.
This will be a silent meditation retreat. After an initial meal, set-up and orientation we will enter noble silence. Supporting each other in connecting with our own inner silence, stability and confidence. We will follow a rigorous daily schedule which includes roughly seven hours of seated meditation, interspersed with periods of walking meditation, chanting practice, dharma talks, opportunities to check-in with one of the practice leaders, outdoor meditation sessions, mindful eating practice during meals, a late morning care-taking practice and breaks where participants have the opportunity to rest, exercise and explore the beautiful grounds and nature.
Interdependence Sesshin June 29 - July 5 (save the date, registration opens soon!)
I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and Hakomi (somatic mindfulness). I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.
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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe