janvier 2010
And that’s all there is
In an old book that I haven't opened for many years, I discover a scrap of paper on which I had written: "Sweet birdsong before dawn pierces night & day and the aching heart, too, [...]
Everything is quiet
Another one of those days. Everyone tells me it's warm, almost spring-like. And from the window it doesn't look like winter in the garden, although it is damp and overcast. Cats chase one another through [...]
Spring-Summer 2010
“City” retreats (nonresidential) and one-day practice sessions: led by Amy Hollowell Sensei Paris Feb. 13-14, May 1, June 26-27 Lisbon Feb. 6-7 Residential retreats: Normandy April 15-18, Aug. 20-27 Portugal March 19-23, July 25-Aug. 1 [...]
More of one
More words about the fundamental "oneness" of all things, as an aftershock rocks Haiti again and President Obama's second year begins, looking less promising than the first, and the days are growing a wink longer [...]
One neighborhood
Tonight I am recalling how the snow fell not so long ago on cars and trees and stairs and streets in my neighborhood, and how the chill made my boots creak. It was all here. [...]
When the earth shifted beneath Haiti
Stumble upon this quote from Immanuel Kant last night; it grabs me: "I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself." And then woke up this morning to [...]
In the name of waking up
In the newspaper this morning, this sentence: "In the name of science, Westerners may have done more harm than good, several studies have found." Oh really?! "Science," of course, is not to blame. Rather, the [...]
The basic choice, everyday
After lunch, dishes, paperwork, just going about the life I lead, just as it is, I come across this in a work about the bodhisattva ideal: "In whatever life we are already leading, just as [...]
décembre 2009
Ringing in, ringing out
This message is already circulating on my mail circuit, but a repeat can do no harm. And feel free to pass it on! As we ring out an "old" year and ring in a "new" [...]
Out of Bounds: The Bodhisattva’s Way
I’ve been thinking about a question someone asked: Is there ever any mention of compassion in this Zen practice? Is there any emphasis on compassion? I was thinking about how best to address that question, [...]
Unfolding like a fan
This Zen teaching unfolds like a fan. (I use these two words, Zen and teaching, as tools to limit something that has no limits.) The more we become aware, present, openly, selflessly, the more it [...]
I’m practicing right now
Someone who knows little about "Zen" asked today whether I "practiced" everyday. Well... I thought of saying, "I'm practicing right now." But I didn't. I asked him, "Do you mean formally?" Which was not really [...]
One unthinkable step
What if everyone at rush hour in the Paris Métro really listened to that recorded voice that says sometimes, "Attention à la marche en descendant du train," (Watch your step when leaving the train)? That [...]
Meanwhile, all bursting
Morning seems touched by the sun today, brightly, freely, serenely. Or is it morning that touches sun? And the moon last night in a clear purple sky, fully nearly full, then crossed by a drift [...]
Where I turns
Back from retreat in Portugal, in Coimbra, where we sat in a kind of haven planted between ribbons of highway and a shopping mall. As the days passed, we didn't so much go deeper as [...]
novembre 2009
No sitting Nov. 27 in Paris
Heading to Portugal for several days of retreat. Which means there will be no sitting in Paris on Friday night at the Red Earth Centre (Nov. 27). Back to usual the following Friday (Dec. 4). [...]
8 1/2, or All 1
Difficult to imagine a more perfect depiction of what in Zen jargon is called "shikantaza" (bearing witness to the whole of life) than the final scene of a film just seen at the Cinémathèque, Fellini's [...]
Every moment unknown territory
What if we think of sitting, what is known as "meditation," as a kind of travel, a trip to an endlessly wondrous here and now? The French poet Yves Bonnefoy writes that because what the [...]
The beautiful game
Soccer is known as "the beautiful game." Yet violent behavior is often displayed by opposing players and fans, like in Cairo recently before an Egypt-Algeria match. What is that all about? "Be a lamp unto [...]
A splendid Heart Sutra meal
A weekend of studying the Heart Sutra went something like this: Boundless, we go around and around, and back and forth, with words and silence, speaking and not, we move from cushions to chairs and [...]
