May I have your ATTENTION please ...

The Fire of Attention ...

Joko's Rinzai-esque side comes out a bit with the hot fires and the sharp, burning swords and the 'full blaze' of a flaming Sesshin.

While Soto-istic sitting can seem soft and easy in comparison, rest assured that we burn just as brightly and cut just as sharply ... Soft water's flow will wash away the hardest rocks, sometimes slowly and sometimes in a flash.

Joke quotes Master Huang Po, "On no account make a distinction between the Absolute and the sentient world." I might restate it as, "On no account make a distinction between the world without distinctions and the world with distinctions. Then learn to distinguish too the world of with-without."

It is nothing more than parking your car, putting on your clothes, taking a walk.

But the way we perceive each of those acts can be worlds apart.

Gassho, Jundo