Dharma Talk: “Falling into the Heart of the World” with Valerie Forstman

In this first teisho since returning from the North American Sanbo Zan sesshin led by Yamada Ryoun Roshi, Valerie takes up Case 4 in the Shoyoroku or Book of Serenity, ‘The World-honored One Points to the Ground.’ “Here is a good place to build a temple,” says the Buddha, pointing to the ground at the place where we stand. Manjusri bends down, picks up a blade of grass and sticks it in the ground. The Budda acknowledges, “The temple has been built.”

Why turn to this case at a time when wars are raging, people are starving, and the ground where we stand is on fire? What do the Buddha’s pointing and Manjusri’s gesture in response have to do with our sense of falling down and our longing for a world made whole? Might there be a radically different kind of falling – a falling away of self and other – that brings us home to the whole heart of the world right where we are?

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