To Our Dear Sangha

Happy New Year and thank you! Looking back at 2025, we are grateful to each and every one of you for subscribing to this newsletter, attending zazenkai, and connecting with us in the ways that you do. You definitely add a richness to our lives, and we hope we are contributing to your peace of mind, happiness, and, of course, your practice. May this coming year be a wonderful one for you and your loved ones.

Our first newsletter of the year addresses a few common questions people ask about satori (enlightenment) and “no self.”

We are also making some changes to our zazenkai schedule:

• Our nighttime zazen is changing to 19:00-23:00 Japan time (previously starting at 18:00) .

• We will try an occasional Saturday night.

• Weekly 1-hour zazenkai is currently Thursday nights.

And just in case…if you are new to zazen, please do not let the 4-hour sessions intimidate you. You are welcome to leave early if necessary. Also, we do not sit in total silence and as still as statues for 4 hours. There is always question and answer time, and sitting in zazen is not a physical endurance test. Sometimes it is amazing how quickly those 4 hours can pass.

May 2026 be an enlightening year for all of us, and a year of some expansion for us at Zen Online. Hopefully we can add some different things to what we offer! Stay tuned and thank you for your patience 🙂 

Table of Contents

• Announcements/Schedule

• Today's Teisho: Four commonly asked questions about satori and "no self"

  • After satori, do people sometimes “go back” to how …

  • What is “no self”?

  • There is something about “true nature” that I can’ …

  • Do I disappear with satori?

• Madoka's Memo: A few things "no self" is not

• Please Share Our Newsletter!

Announcements

Upcoming Online Zazenkai Schedule (Japan time):

Zazenkai with Matsumoto-san:

Jan 19 (Mon) 8:00 a.m.-12:00 noon
Jan 31 (Sun) 19:00-23:00
Feb 16 (Mon) 8:00 a.m.-12:00 noon
Feb 28 (Sat) 19:00-23:00

**Weekend times are generally more convenient for Europe, Africa, and Asia. Monday times are Sunday in N/S America and Oceania, as it is Sunday there.

Wednesday Zazenkai with Madoka:
Every Thursday at 9:00pm-10:00pm Japan time.  Anyone is welcome!

Zazenkai reservations can be made here:  
https://www.zen-online.info/reservations

Very Useful Time Converter to calculate zazenkai in your local time
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

(Translated by Madoka)

Four commonly asked questions about satori and no self

After satori, do people sometimes “go back” to how they were before satori?

Satori is when caw! is clear, with no subject or object. So after satori, it cannot become unclear. There is no deepening either. When facing forward, it is the way it is forward. This is the proof that there is no confusion, no deepening. If you confirm and know for yourself what Zen is (what is actually real itself = caw!), such questions about “returning” from satori will not arise.

If you don't know what Zen is (what is actually real itself), you might think that satori is some state that you attain and sustain. If you think that satori is some sustained state that you attain, then it may be conceivable that someone could return to an unenlightened state or that satori could deepen. But this is a mistaken understanding. Looking to the right, it’s the way it is to the right. Looking forward, it is the way it is forward. There is no sustaining anywhere. There is only what is actually real, right now.

What is “no self”?

No self is caw! It is caw! itself. It is caw! without a listener.

“Having self” is thinking that there is something when there isn’t, and then believing it actually exists. During zazen, for example, if the thought “I am looking at the wall” arises, you might then think you need to get rid of the “I” who is looking, and then start trying to devise mental tricks to eliminate it. That is evidence that you believe a self really exists. It was just the thought of “I am,” but because you believe in the existence of a substantial self, you start to do things to make it disappear or go away. But because it is a thought, if you simply sit, the thought “I am…” is gone before you know it.

It is the same with “no mind” and “having mind.” After a thought, if you think you had a thought, you might try to get rid of the thought. “No mind” is not the absence of thoughts. It is when you’re not thinking about whether thoughts exist or not, when it’s just the way the thoughts are. Reading these sentences, you are probably also thinking. But you are probably not thinking, “these thoughts exist.” In other words, no mind.

There is something about “true nature” that I can’t quite grasp. I’m not convinced.

True nature (what is actually real) is caw! when there is caw! Nothing more, nothing less.

Caw!

You say “I can’t grasp it” or “I’m not convinced” because you’re trying to understand caw! better. But it isn’t something to understand better.

Even if the desire to feel convinced or understand comes up, just be that way. “Just be that way” does not mean to intentionally use will to make an effort to remain a certain way. When doing something, even if a wanting to understand comes up, if you continue whatever it is you are doing, wanting to understand is forgotten. If it happens during zazen, continue sitting and it will be forgotten.

Do I disappear with satori?

Satori is true nature only. Satori makes it clear that from the beginning, there is only true nature. If you’re thinking, “I’ve disappeared,” it means there is some awareness of something disappearing, and hence still a sense of subject and object. There has never been a self as an entity. It is a thought. Because it never existed, satori is not an experience of feeling like you disappear.

A few things “no self” is not

The first time I heard the expression, “no self,” I was bewildered. I had never questioned my own existence.

I started asking people and reading about it, and came to think that “no self” was a feeling of not having a self, or seeing through the illusion of self, or being free from the illusion of self and other, and whatever it was, once realized, it would make my current sense of self disappear. In other words, I thought it was a feeling or state of being that would replace my current illusion of existing as a “me” separate from others. 

I started questioning that assumption after encountering Kando Roshi and Matsumoto-san. One day, I saw a video of Inoue Tetsugen Roshi (Kando Roshi’s older brother) talking to a woman who insisted that she had no self. She explained that her sense of self had disappeared after a lightness came to her heart. In response, Tetsugen Roshi, an enlightened Zen master, kept saying something to the effect of, “You say you have no self. That’s not the satori we speak of. You know that you feel like there is no self, right? That’s you.”

When I saw that, I trusted that Tetsugen Roshi knew what he was talking about, but could not understand how he could be so sure that this woman was not clear on “no self.” How could he know for sure how she was experiencing reality?

But after continuing my zazen practice for some time, and after listening to Matsumoto-san’s teisho many times, something clicked and I understood why Tetsugen Roshi was so sure.

The woman explained no self as a state. She said she felt something lift out of her heart, and after that, had no sense of self anymore. In all the accounts of Zen masters’ satori that I had heard, there was never mention of observing or feeling it happen. There is shine! Or whack! Or caw! In Matsumoto-san’s case, there was tick! (sound of the second hand of a clock).

One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked around my room. I felt as if there was just the room and just looking around, and the sense of self that I was used to was absent. But there was definitely an awareness of the room and looking around…a subject looking at objects. This could not be no-self. I remembered the video of the woman insisting she’d felt her sense of self disappear and how Tetsugen Roshi responded, and it made more sense to me how Tetsugen Roshi was so sure that the woman was still not free from the illusion of self and other.

A few days later during dokusan, I told Matsumoto-san about this and said that while I still didn’t know what satori was, I was much less deceivable! He smiled.

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Love and Gassho _/\_