Keizan’s Compassion

In this beautiful talk, Zenshin Florence Caplow introduces us to Keizan Zenji, particularly the deep love between Keizan and his mother, and his subsequent dedication to including women in the Soto tradition as both teachers and lay practitioners. She closes with a quote from Keizan’s Transmission of the Light about the two types of home leavers, those who leave physically and those who leave mentally, focusing on the latter.  He says, “those who leave home mentally do not shave off their hair or wear special clothing, though they live at home and live in the troubles in the world they are like a lotus unsoiled by mud, like jewels unaffected by dust… they see the one who is free even in the midst of a bustling city… They know that even cutting off passions is a disease and know that aiming for true thusness is also wrong… They are concerned with neither enlightenment or affliction.  These are people who leave home mentally.”