Summary: Episode Description: In this talk, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer begins with a poem meant to commemorate the beginning of a Practice Period or, in this case, a sesshin. The poem was written by Rujing, teacher of Zen Master Dogen. Sensei Fischer highlights its importance to sesshin by explaining how it helps us to see through dualities in our practice. She uses the examples of seeing beyond right and wrong, or good experiences and bad experiences. She also uses the story of a personal friend and fellow practitioner, whose humorous anecdotes she uses as commentary to Rujing’s poem. She then leads a guided meditation which focuses on the lower stomach before relaying a second story from her own past which analogizes her experience as a mother to the attachment we have to our own thoughts. She concludes with a passage from Zen Master Suzuki Roshi which describes the garbage-like quality of many of his thoughts which he was able to transcend when he returned to his core motivations.<br> <br>
