Bultasa Zen Group

04/02/2026

Dana

The meaning of generosity is very clear. All human beings have possessions. But why do you obtain and keep these things? Are they only for your own pleasure, or do they help you to help others? This is a very important point. Many people keep their things only for themselves, or for their family. This causes attachment, and attachment always leads to suffering. When you die, what can you carry with you? “Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed—that is human.” A famous Christian proverb says, “The shroud has no pockets.” And you cannot even take your body with you when you go! So human beings cannot carry anything with them: why should we be attached to our things in this life? However much you value your possessions, they cannot help your true self. We must all remember this. So Mahayana Buddhism teaches generosity to help us keep our direction clear. My life is only for all beings, so my possessions are also only for all beings. If money comes, that is OK. If money goes, that is also OK. How do my money and my things function to help other beings? And this generosity does not apply just to physical objects: everything I have and everything I am is only for all beings. — Zen Master Seung Sahn (Photo by Kateřina Černá Grofová.)

02/27/2026

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A Korean Zen Master for a Global Age

12/27/2025

12/11/2025

11/25/2025

This truth pierces a conceptual past, conceptual present, and conceptual future. Equanimity and wisdom cannot appear if we are continually commenting both internally and externally on people, events, situations, and conditions. Commenting causes all sorts of emotional responses. This is the crux of

10/18/2025

Here is a cup of orange juice. If you have "cup," then you can keep this orange juice here. But if this cup breaks, how can the orange juice remain? You cannot keep the juice there, yah? Suffering is the same as that. Where does suffering abide? If you are attached to the five skandhas of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, or consciousness, then suffering has a place to stay. But the Heart Sutra shows the view that these five skandhas are empty. Mind is completely empty: where can suffering possibly stay? So this teaching about emptiness is very, very important to attain. When you practice the way of the perfection of wisdom, you attain that all five skandhas are actually empty. Attaining this view saves us from all suffering and distress. Merely understanding these views cannot help you—you must attain something. —Zen Master Seung Sahn

08/28/2025

08/26/2025

Succinct.