juillet 2009
To one and all
Off for a week, in retreat. Keeping in mind the words of Obaku, one of the ancestors: I don't expect anything. I just bow. And so I do, to one and all.
How the light gets in
Listen to the silence. Then Leonard Cohen last night. How marvelous: Everything has a crack; that's how the light gets in.
juin 2009
Life and death in black and white
Summer in the city. I'm just going through the day, hot and sunny, blue-sky fine. What else is there to do? Somewhere across the Atlantic, Madoff gets 150 years in prison and the talk is [...]
Summer retreats 2009
Living in occupied territory? Revolt! Sit down and vacate with the Wild Flower Sangha. Practice, study, experience the art of everything-is-practice. Beginners welcome. Two summer retreats, in France and in Portugal: Aug. 1-8, Portugal info [...]
A bonus plant, by night and day
Summer's good tonight. Not a cloud in the sky. The day birds are making their last calls, night birds not yet starting up. One of the orchids on my table - the bonus plant, I [...]
In accord with worldly affairs
It's Friday. There was work today, so much that I didn't stop for lunch. On a television in another office, weekly prayers in Tehran seemed loud amid what has until now been mostly silent upheaval. [...]
Happy Bloomsday!
Happy Bloomsday, one and all! Like Leopold Bloom 105 years ago today, you're the hero of this day. Look around! It's all worth celebrating, morning to night. As Molly said from beginning to end: Yes. [...]
This is where we are
D.H. Lawrence said that the soul can get to heaven in one leap but that, if it does, it leaves a demon in its place. It could also be like this: The soul that thinks [...]
In perpetual motion
Realize it's been a week since previous posting. Much coming and going (nowhere): In the Métro, in the streets, in the newspapers, on the radio and television, everybody's coming and going (nowhere), too. A plane [...]
Zen and Joyce’s « Ulysses » in Paris
Welcome, O life! A weekend of sitting and study practice around James Joyce's Ulysses with Amy Hollowell Sensei June 13-14 Paris *** (version française ci-dessous) *** Jung called it so profoundly an "Oriental" book that [...]
mai 2009
Retreat notes (III)
We just sit together. It starts like incense smoke, a fine strand rising straight, direct, unmoving. Without warning it suddenly disperses, broken and scattered in a thousand directions, wildly, freely disappearing into the splendid chaos [...]
Retreat notes (II)
Today ceremony/ritual on "receiving" the precepts for T., "Terre d'Eveil." I transmit what can't be transmitted to him and to all. Each becomes one and all, acknowledging this, our very life, as the natural expression [...]
Retreat notes (I)
Retreat notes, Day I, Les Longues Bruyères: Brilliant sun all day, as if a blessing. For no apparent reason. Slept restlessly, with strange dreams in the night. As if something hard didn't want to go [...]
Time to move on
Here, an "absence" is a "presence" enhancing the experience of what I call the no-escape-universe: quiet holiday street, sun dipping in and out of clouds, bag packed to go. What next? The afternoon is everything, [...]
A piece of unstained silk at noon
Sitting here wondering about torpor at midday, pausing for no apparent reason amid translating work that I like. I am turned to thoughts of what to say. Thoughts of having to say something. Cars come [...]
Spread out, ubiquitous
As Henri Michaux wrote, l'abandon de l'empire de moi m'a étendu infiniment... (abandoning the empire of me spread me out infinitely) The obstacle that is me is no longer obstacle. Space is neither great nor [...]
Anne Waldman
Double Change vous invite à une lecture bilingue de Edith Azam et Anne Waldman mardi 4 mai 2010 à 19h au Point Ephémère 200 Quai de Valmy 75010 Paris Entrée libre Poète, performer, activiste, Anne [...]
Nathaniel Dorsky
May 5, 19h, Centre Pompidou, three short films by American experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky: Song and Solitude (2005-2006), Threnody (2004), The Visitation (2002) May 12, 19h, Centre Pompidou, four short films by American experimental filmmaker [...]
avril 2009
The hand that can’t be told
Recall a verse from a song from childhood, what used to be called a "negro" spiritual: He's got the whole world in his hand... And then of course there's the grain of sand in the [...]
May retreat
Il reste quelques places pour la retraite Wild Flower du 21 au 24 mai en normandie. (There are a few places left for the May 21-24 Wild Flower retreat in Normandy.) Infos et inscription/registration: zenscribe@free.fr
