Roshi Bernie Glassman on the costs and benefits of conceptual thinking

"Our ideas and concepts are very useful, but we have to see that they're models, in the way that the globe is a model of the Earth. It is not the Earth. If we know the globe is the Earth, if we're full of ideas and knowledge we think constitute reality, we'll be shocked time after time when things won't go as we know they should.

When we're bound by ideas and concepts, it's easy to anticipate how we'll act. That's our karma, our propensity to do things in a certain way. But if we can step back and look at that bondage, examine how we act. When we free ourselves of those fixed ideas, when we no longer know how we're going to act, therein lies our true freedom. Each moment the circumstances change, freeing us to not know what we are doing. Indeed, we are free because we don't know. Doing what's appropriate is the expression of our freedom from notions of what's appropriate. Letting go is the manifestation of the One Body; appropriate action is the manifestation of not-knowing."....from Infinite Circle..Teachings in Zen, Bernie Glassman, pg 68-69

Also check out these Chan sites of interest:

1. chancommunity.ca

2. How to chan meditate:

http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/how-to-meditate/

3. Master Sheng Yen in Facebook

4. The Western Chan Fellowship at http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/

5. Upcoming events at Dharma Drum in Vancouver http://www.ddmba.ca/ddmba/apps_ddm/htmls_e/activities_intro.php#compassion_repentance.php

5. Other Buddhist centres in the Comox Valley:

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/hermitage/ 

http://www.sherabchammaling.com/biography.html

6. And California at http://dharmatalks.riversidechan.org/2013_07_01_archive.html

Please note the change of phone number, ...call Adrian at 250 650 9055,

email adrian2@shaw.ca