décembre 2008
Une vision immédiate
Winter sun in my eyes casts long shadows of tea cup, pile of papers, hand moving with pen, sesame seed, crumb. Bright is bright, darkness dark in this pale season. The vine climbs the stone [...]
Bird Math
Two birds hold a ledge black under bloated clouds then four perch two by two until flight flushes each one equally nowhere.
Seeing and being seen (one big blue ocean world)
The latest installment on stilltv.com from my dear friend Peter (KuKu) Cunningham, longtime dharma bum/photographer/clown with Bernie Glassman Roshi, is of a heart/mind project with his photo students during a workshop in Shanghai last month. [...]
Where my life turns
My teacher wrote this verse, a quote from Nisargadatta, on my rakusu: "When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that's wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that's [...]
Play of the Day, with Jo-Ha-Kyu
I awoke to dark morning today. Although I see that it has now lightened to a watery gray, I do not see how or when. The advancing thick of day feels spindly, like bare trees, [...]
Waiting for Picasso
They are all lining up, well-heeled, under umbrellas in the rain for Picasso and "the masters" here. Tickets reserved, coats checked, headsets ready. Everyone is as they should be. And the genius of 20th-century art [...]
50 in Paris
There was a little celebration in Paris on Monday night. Check it out at the Zen blog created by my dharma brother Man of No Rank: http://pariszen.wordpress.com/
Ungovernable in Venice
In Venice, everywhere is land's end. Around each corner, water provides direct evidence of the absence of solid ground. Every step is bottomless. But on Monday, we awoke to a deluge in this marvel of [...]
novembre 2008
How things real-ly are not
Nearly lunch time. Another bus passes outside the window, and a green VW Polo parks beside the linden tree. Fewer and fewer leaves are clinging to its tangle of limbs. The cat snores curled by [...]
Enter where you are
Another busy day: work, appointments, house chores, Métro rides, sitting group, meals... When sitting I see the revolution at hand. I see how this Zen practice is subversive. I love it! Think of the 9th-century [...]
Peter Matthiessen, true man of no rank
Peter Muryo Matthiessen Roshi, a successor of Bernie Glassman Roshi in our White Plum lineage, was awarded the prestigious National Book Award in New York last night for his novel "Shadow Country," a revision of [...]
Life is unconventional
Here is Giacometti pinned on my bulletin board sculpting, his one intention being, as Yves Bonnefoy notes, "exhumer des aspects visibles l'invisible de la présence" (to exhume from the visible aspects the invisible presence) of [...]
Hotei’s bag
The wild and wandering Zen master Hotei was confronted in a marketplace by another Zen master, who asked him to present his understanding of the Zen teachings. Hotei put down his bag. The other master [...]
Portugal is a thought away
Back from Portugal, a journey across five days, two countries, many encounters old and new. In Lisbon, up hills and down, along the river, then into the deepening night where I am pressed with questions [...]
Obama, the most perfect union
It's a new day. Can't let this marvelous moment go by without a word or two. Obama's election brings tears of joy to my eyes in front of the computer at 5:30 a.m. My country's [...]
octobre 2008
The art of Zen: A humbling lesson
The art of Zen is none other than the art of life. As Brando so aptly noted, Hamlet's soliloquy, Act III, Scene 2, says it all: "Let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the [...]
Easy Rider
A conference at the Cinémathèque was billed as "A cinema lesson," given by the actor/director/counterculture hero Dennis Hopper. It ends up being Hopper just chatting about Hopper and his (famous) buddies. Not much about the [...]
The finest place
Afternoon is in its final retreat. Evening is enveloping the city. Today I went out for an appointment, ran errands, then returned. Soon, after cooking, I'll be leaving again. The best place is always where [...]
What I want?
It's a quiet night now after the busy day. I see I'm anticipating more of that dailyness in the week ahead. Is that what I want? As Joyce said, "I'm like a blind man walking [...]
Untwisting a pretzel
Question from a colleague: How can I make the benefits of practice remain with me throughout my day at the office? That is, how can I not become caught up in the tensions and frictions [...]
