Obaku Zen School – Honora Zen Monastery – Switzerland

Welcome to our family tradition. Zen master Ingen from China, visited Japan and founded Obaku-san Manpuku-ji (1661) in Kyoto, Japan. The beginning of the Obaku Zen school. Zen Master Obaku was Master Rinzai's teacher and pioneer of the Rinzai school.

Obaku Zen - Koan

The Buddhas and the Patriarchs Spiritual powers are alive in him. A simple, everyday word of his startles the monks, snapping their chains around their collars and rousing a bunch of robed brothers. His example takes those who have felt the "taste of being" on the tongue and offers them that which is transcendent. It is not easy to name a master who has already appeared in this way (even in a way that does not spare himself) before the brothers in his robes. Listen and see:

Obaku stated during the instruction of his monks:

Instead of recognizing and tasting fine wine, you are all brothers and philistines, just in the way you pilgrimage scholars make a pilgrimage from one monastery to the other. Where remains, in the here and now, your TODAY? Do you even know that there is no Zen master to be found in the whole great empire?

Then a monk stepped forward and asked:

Then I would like to know why there are monasteries all over the country where brotherhoods are led and wandering monks are taken care of?

Obaku replied,

I'm not saying there is no Zen; I'm just saying there are no Zen masters.

Zen Master Obaku

As practitioners of meditation you know how to raise your fist or blink your eyes, how to eat rice or drink water. Isn't that thing it? So, before raising your fist or blinking your eyes, what is that thing? Without fail you must try and say something before a single thought arises. You, must be clear about that thing. If you just wonder whether or not it is that which knows how to feel, then you don't really know what it is. Such an approach is called intellectual Zen.

To accomplish this task it is also necessary to produce an attitude of great courage.

Meditation center

Here you get more information about the monthly meditation retreat.