About

“The darkness is inside the bright,
but don’t look only with the eyes of the dark.
The brightness is inside the dark,
but don’t look only through the eyes of the bright.
Bright and dark are a pair,
like front foot and back foot walking.”
(Taking Part in the Gathering)


Welcome to Bright & Dark: An eclectic collaborative magazine for our Zen community.

Hosted by Zen Open Circle, Bright & Dark is an extension of our ever widening temple. This is a place for practice, attention and deep care. Whatever the format, whether it is medium, short or tall, humorous, or heartbreaking, we hold these offerings to be sacred. As it evolves over time, we hope that this magazine can be a generous refuge for our communities.

Contributions:

Everyone is invited to contribute. Share your voice, your experiences, your practice, and your heart with us. We encourage you to share original content – something particular to your practice and experience. This is an opportunity for intimacy: so dive in to the unknown! What could possibly go wrong?!

  • Please send contributions to gassho@zenopencircle.org.au
  • Include:
    • Title
    • Author
    • Email address if you would welcome private communication about your article
    • Content
  • Music/Video content will need to be hosted on an external website (i.e. soundcloud, youtube). We will embed the content on this site. If you need assistance with this let us know.

Confidentiality:

We ask that the content of this site be maintained as confidential. Please do not share these articles/images/items without asking permission of the author in a comment.

Please keep also in mind that while this blog is password protected, these articles are on the internet. #justsaying

Categories and Tags:

We make use of categories and tags to help organise the content of the magazine. Most are self-explanatory.

Categories appear in red at the top of each article. You can click on these red links and explore other articles in the same category. The ‘miscellaneous’ category is used for items not created by our community members.

Tags appear at the bottom of each article. We use tags to record our contributors, and the specifics of each item (such as certain koans, or points of interest). You can click on a tag to view other items with the same tag.


FAQ:

Q: How do I find the most recent discussions that are happening?
A: Visit the {Tools} menu and click on {Discussion}.

Q: How do I find out about upcoming online practice opportunities?
A: Visit the {Tools} menu and click on {Calendar}.

Q: How do I comment on an article?
A: There is a comment section at the bottom of most articles. If you cannot see it, try clicking on the title of the article and scrolling down.

Q: How do I find what I am looking for?
A: There are several ways to find articles on this site. You can use the {Categories} menu to filter articles based on their type, group, or teachers. You can use the {Themes} menu to look at articles grouped around key topics. Or you can use the {Search} option at the top of each page to look for a particular item.

Q: Does a dog have buddha nature or not?
A: …