"Buddhism" is a relatively modern Western term. The body of spiritual doctrine and practice to which it refers has generally been known on its own ground, in countries across Asia, as the Buddha Dharma, which is perhaps best translated "way of the Buddha." This teaching came from one young man who "woke up" from life's melodrama... and was thereafter called the Buddha, 'the awakened one.'"

Central to Buddhist beliefs is impermanence. Everything, every living creature, in fact the whole universe, is subject to change. Nothing is permanent, least of all you and I. Our plans, hopes and dreams, our emotions, ego, our society, our institutions, religions, everything is impermanent. This shouldn't be viewed as "subject to destruction," which is a rather negative connotation that obscures how renewal and creation are central to the universe. Impermanence is neither good nor bad; change is simply the way it is, as in birth-and-death, impermanence is a continuing karma process.

Buddhist doctrine neither supports nor denies the existence of a God, or Gods. It's not that Buddhists do not believe in a God; most Buddhist do not pursue the question.

Siddhartha was a man who one day woke up, or awakened, to the world as it really is, not as we perceive it to be through our judgement, or our mind's eye. The Buddha saw, after spending many years attempting to do so through a number of different methods, that among other things, life is full of suffering. This suffering is not the cause of a God or gods, but, most often, through our own causes. As the cause of much suffering our effects are enormous; we hurt our own as well as others on this planet including its many creatures, both living and inanimate.

What sets apart the Buddha's Enlightenment from the experiences of other religious figures in world history is the absence of any divine intervention, or transcendent illumination from some higher-than-human sphere. "The truth to which the Buddha came was entirely a discovery made by a human being, brought about by his own efforts. The one way to man's peace, fulfillment and release lay through the calm control of his/her own mind and senses. Even the original Buddhist goal of nirvana (or "salvation," if one wishes to use a Western term) was the realization that life's meaning lay in the here-and-now and not in some remote realm or celestial state far beyond one's present existence. At his enlightment Gautama saw himself and all life as a vast process, an ever-moving stream of becomings and extinctions, and within this ever-moving flow and interpenetration of energies he recognized as delusion the idea of existence of an individual ego. What ws taken for the "self" was actually a composite of various aggregates, a series of psychophysical reactions and responses with no fixed center or unchanging ego-entity"

The Buddha's enlightenment revealed to him a great realization, four crucial, undeceptive truths revolving around human existence ...
1 - Life is full of suffering. Birth is suffering; decay is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, pain and grief are suffering; wanting and desiring is suffering; clinging is suffering.
2 - The cause of suffering is our desires, which give rise to repeated cycles of pleasure-seeking and craving. This is a product of ignorance, an unawareness of the true nature of things. Desire feeds suffering and suffering feeds desire.
3 - The endless cycle of suffering and desire can cease. There is liberation through a noble path.
4 - The path begins with the understanding and thought needed to take up training and a systematic strategy designed to uproot the defilements that cause suffering. In Buddhist doctrine, these are known as the Four Noble Truths.

"The Zen sect, in common with other Buddhist sects, accepts the historic Buddha neither as a Supreme Deity nor as a savior who rescues men by taking upon himself the burden of their sins.

Rather, it venerates him as a fully awakened, fully perfected human being who attained liberation of body and mind through his own human efforts and not by the grace of any supernatural being. Nor does Buddhism look upon Shakyamuni as the only true Buddha.

Just as in previous world epochs other sages had trodden the same path, attained the same level of perfection, and preached the same Dharma, so would there be Buddhas in subsequent world cycles to lead men to liberation. The historic Buddha, then, is a link in a chain of Buddhas extending from the remotest past to the immeasurable future.

The familiar statement of the Zen masters that we are all Buddhas from the very first must be understood in the sense that potentially everyone is a Buddha, that is, inherently endowed with the unblemished Buddha-nature, but that the candidate for Buddhahood must follow the arduous road to enlightenment if he would realize his innate Perfection.

Anyone who has experienced his Buddha-nature, however faintly, has realized the first stage of Buddhahood, since in substance this realization is no different from the Buddha Shakyamuni's. However, in the degree of his enlightenment as well as in the perfection of his character and personality - that is, in his equanimity, compassion, and wisdom - Shakyamuni Buddha towers above the man of average enlightenment.
 

"It is just allowing ourselves into the heart of this moment, which is the heart of our lives. It is simply paying attention to our actual experiences, to our lives as they are; a breeze passing your cheek, rain falling and soaking the earth and trees, a stomach ache, the laughter of children playing - seeing what you see, feeling what you feel.

Colors, forms, sights, sounds, touch, taste, smell, thoughts: all coming and all going. Where do they come from and where do they go? Zen is entering into things as they are, beyond concept and cosmology, beyond separation and duality, beyond personality, and into the intimacy and richness of this whole moment. It is radical questioning into whatever arises as our experiences and true entry into the nature of experiencing.

Zen is the day to day and moment to moment practice of this moment. It is the transmission of yourself to yourself in a lineage of teacher to teacher, face to face. It is a mind to mind transmission that has spanned two thousand six hundred years from India to China to right here."

Zen training is rooted in zazen, dokusan, and teisho. It is impossible to understand Zen without practicing sitting. Zazen is attending to experience as it presents itself. The posture is important in focusing your mind; your body should be balanced, grounded, and open to experience.
Sit facing a blank wall.
Sit on a zafu , a small, round firm cushion. Do not lean too far back or too far forward. Cross your legs and rest them on the zabuton , a large, flat cushion under your zafu. Lift up your ankle with your hands and pull it up onto the thigh of the other leg. It doesn't really matter which leg is uppermost. This is the half lotus position.

If you can, try to bring the other foot up to the same position. This is the full lotus position. You will probably experience some discomfort. Stop "holding it" and just relax, sitting in it. The idea of discomfort is alot worse than the actual sensation.

If neither the half, or full lotus, is suitable as yet, try the "Burmese" posture. Your knees contact the zabuton and one ankle is placed in front of the other. If this is not suitable, use a seiza bench, or turn your zafu on its side and kneel with the zafu between the ankles supporting the buttocks.

Birth-and-death - the world of relativity; the transformation which all phenomena, including our thought and feelings, are ceaselessly undergoing in accordance with the law of causation. Birth and death can be compared to the waves on the ocean. The rise of a wave is one "birth" and the fall one "death." The size of each is conditioned by the force of the previous one; itself the progenitor of the succeeding wave. This process infinitely repeated is birth-and-death.
Buddha - the Buddha refers to a historical person with the given name of Siddhartha and the family name of Gautama who was born around the year 563 BC, the son of the ruler of the Shakyas, whose small kingdom lay at the foothills of present-day Nepal. In time he came to be known as Shakyamuni ("the silent sage"). It is recorded that he was married at the age of sixteen and had a son, later to become his disciple. Deeply troubled by the sorrows and tribulations of human life and perplexed by the meaning of birth-and-death, the future Buddha at the age of twenty-nine could no longer bear the life of ease and luxury into which he had been born, and he fled his father's palace to become a recluse, a seeker after truth in the solitudes of the forest. For a time he undertook the severest ascetic practices to gain enlightenment. Close to death as a result of these austerities, he at last saw the futility of self-mortification, abandoned it, and finally won perfect enlightenment, becoming "the Buddha." Thereafter for forty-five years, until his death at the age of eighty, he not only taught his own band of monk-disciples but tirelessly trudged the roads of India preaching to all who would listen, always suiting his exposition to the capacity of his hearers' understanding. Men were moved to follow his Way to spiritual emancipation as much by his serenity and compassion as by the wisdom of his words. Eventually his sermons and dialogues were recorded and these sutras (or scriptures) now comprise the basic doctrines of Buddhism.
Dharma - a fundamental Buddhist term having several meanings, the broadest of which is "phenomenon". All phenomena are subject to the law of causation, and this fundamental truth comprises the core of Buddha's teachings. This dharma also means "law," "ultimate truth," "the Buddha's teachings," and "doctrines of Buddhism."
Dokusan - a private encounter with the roshi in his teaching chamber. A face to face teaching, sometimes called 'sanzen'.
Ego - according to Buddhism, the notion of ego, that is, awareness of oneself as a discrete individuality, is an illusion. It arises because, misled by our bifurcating intellect into postulating the dualism of "myself" and "not-myself," we are lead to think and act a though we were a separated entity confronted by a world external to us. Thus in the unconscious the idea of "I," or selfhood, becomes fixed, and from this arises such thought patterns as "I hate this, I love that; this is mine, this is yours.". Nourished by this fodder, the ego-I comes to dominate the personality, attacking whatever threatens its position and grasping at anything which will enlarge its power.
Karma - a sanskrit term for action; in Buddhism it is further defined as "volitional action." If in carrying out an act, at some point volition has not been involved, then the act is not Karmic. Under the Law of Cause and Effect there are actions taken without thinking (i.e. non-thinking action, such as inherent reflex actions). These are not Karmic because volition is not present. There are accidents and the reaction to accidents - since volition is not present (usually) - these are not Karmic. In addition, under the Law of Cause and Effect are those actions decided upon by the exercise of our volition. These, of course, are Karmic deeds.
Teisho - the 'tei' means to pick up or to carry, 'sho' means to present or proclaim; formal discourse of a Zen teacher.
Truths; Four Noble Truths.
Zafu - a small, round firm cushion. As with the zabuton, these are available for purchase from a variety of trading companies or sanghas.
Zazen - "sitting zen"; to be distinguished from meditation, which usually involves a visualization or putting into the mind of a concept, idea, or other thought form. During true zazen the mind is one-pointed, stabilized, and emptied of random, extraneous thoughts. Zazen is not limited to sitting but continues throughout every activity.