Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, gives a detailed discussion of the philosophical and historical backgrounds of religious traditions as they developed in India—Vedas, Brahmanism and Hinduism.

Lola explains the meaning of many of the Hindu terms and explores the Isha Upanishad.

Shakti, the Great Mother or feminine energy of the universe. We all have in us a power. That is shake.

Hindu Tantra versus Buddhist Tantra.

Prakriti and Purusha.

Maya.

As mentioned in the Bible, your actions in this world show your faith.

A medicine is true if it cures. Your experience, not words, is what matters. Consciousness does not evolve without effort.

Everything in your body is used material, recycled from the past.

Surya (the sun god) and Agni (the fire god). Surya is knowledge. Agni is action. The combination leads to the truth, to the Supreme Vision and Divine Bliss.

We all have the same name: “I.”

May 10, 1987

(Note: original recording audio is not ideal, but Lola's message is great)

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, gives an ind-depth explanation of the practice of sitting, as this talk is during a sesshin at the temple.

Who is the Buddha? What is birth and death?

Zazen is learning about life by dying to one’s self. Be quietly alert, dropping the ego and identifications.

Our mistake is taking the phenomenal to be the noumenal. But they are really two aspects of the same thing.

Emotions confuse us and cause us pain. Learning how to sit with pain. Everyone has pain. Complaining about pain is your ego at work. One transcends pain by focusing and going beyond the phenomenal.

What do you want from your sitting practice? Instruction in meditation. Breath through the Hara to find the calm. Radiate your peace.

The evolution of Zen from India and Hinduism to Taoism and China to America, where we are now (in 1987) the new caretakers of the tradition.

The ringing of the bell as part of the transmission process. One must learn how to ring it properly.

Then Lola leads a Rinzai chant before the students enter Sesshin.

Nov 29, 1987

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, discusses the meaning of the Zen saying, “Joy in the morning. Sleep at night. What else?”

When we “do not know,” then we don’t concern ourselves with obsessions about outcomes. That is the meaning of “no mind.”

Start by discovering what “no mind” is not.

Is there a gradual acquisition of “no mind?”

Is there an enduring entity called self? Is there a self to improve? Do not accept of reject an answer without learning for yourself directly.

Is the thinker different than his thoughts?

Just like we have frames of images in our vision, which are just a series of flashes which we might think are continuous… so do we have a series of thoughts, a thinking mind, that we might think are continuous… but they are not.

How do we use the mind to study the mind? A knife cannot cut itself. How can you, living in time, know what time is?

The “I” that develops as one grows in childhood grasps at immediate wants. Then, eventually, it also wants to be socially accepted. Those two wishes cause conflict in us.

Your knowledge and memories are held in your subconscious. Your instincts, heart beats, etc, are held in your unconscious.

It is this unconscious that is the gateway to reality.

There is a method to examine your self moment by moment—called Prajahara.

July 18, 1981