juin 2008
Big Mind with Genpo Merzel Roshi in Paris
Thursday, June 12 20h-22h30 199 bis, rue Saint-Martin 75003 Paris A rare opportunity: Genpo Merzel Roshi, one of the leading masters of Western Zen today, will for the first time present his Big Mind, Big [...]
One wind
Wind on my cheek, lightly, connects me with all it touches. The thought of who, what and where escapes me, a falling star: I can never fathom it in numbers and names. But in the [...]
Ultrasound
I am where the rise and fall cease to meet where simply morning is spring Mexican orange tree blossom all told and telling of nothing no who in the thicket sunpocked to hear.
The project is no-project
It's late afternoon by the time I get to my cushion at the window. At first I sit and look. I notice light rain on the brick path, the spiked holly leaves, puddles on the [...]
Yours is the best seat in the house
A poet wrote, "life on the doorstep of the Absolute..." But... What if there is no doorstep. What if everything is street-level. You don't need a special pass or a ticket to enter. No reservations [...]
mai 2008
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Waiting for a visitor in the wet, gray morning, I ask again: What is it? There is no answer apart from the question, which strips away the illusions that I take up in vain attempts [...]
The music of no one
A story I heard today: After a ceremony in a Zen monastery in Japan, a Western visitor asked a monk, "I don't really understand: to whom are you singing?" The monk replied, "That's difficult to [...]
Cartwheels on the path
Do I really want to say nothing or do I not? Remember the man who woke up. He came down or out, from the mountain or forest, and returned to old camrades, fellow seekers still [...]
Only now
"...il est clair que le besoin de la durée nous dérobe la vie, et que seule en principe, l'impossibilté de la durée nous libère." Georges Bataille, Théorie de la religion (Gallimard, 1973) ("...it is clear [...]
The sound of within
What is the shape of afternoon, in the garden, in spring? Birdsong is the constant outline, coming from nowhere and everywhere, the sound of within. The swallow's rhythmic coo is the call of the inside [...]
Zen in Paris
A day of Zen practice in Paris with the Wild Flower Zen Sangha and Amy (Tu es cela) Hollowell Sensei May 18 (Sunday) 9h30-17h30 Come one, come all. Beginners and experienced practitioners welcome. Registration (required) [...]
Beauty lurks
Behind words, within, beauty lurks. To open the space around words, to free them, I try other tongues. One language limits more than two or three or more. Tree is arbre is baum. Willow is [...]
Totem
On the corner the building is gone with a figure I can’t remember brushed on its gray shutter an unavoidable curve an unrecognizable spiral I didn’t know every- time was a climax looping out of [...]
I Am Not Near, Not Far
"Don't try to figure out who you are," said the Zen master Tozan Ryokai. "If you try to figure out who you are, what you understand will be far away from you. You will have [...]
The last word of the perfect tongue
Writing my "book," or reading, walking in the rain along a Belgian canal, riding the Métro on a holiday afternoon, letting the cat out and in, pulling on a black sock, sitting at the window, [...]
avril 2008
Familiar Twists of Strange Branches
Often in the afternoon, I turn from the Boulevard Raspail onto the Rue Emile Richard, which on each side is lined by parked cars and the stone walls of the Montparnasse cemetery. It is a [...]
When the server serves
Please forgive zenscribe's unforeseen absence in the blogosphere: The server was serving. Which serves as a flagrant example of what is so often forgotten or overlooked: The constant disappearance of all I know. There is [...]
One day replete/Une journée pleine
The whole day of words is wordless. I rest. To be quick, I must be quiet. Phone calls are answered. A friend offers tea. The stairs lead up and down, but one by one, nowhere. [...]
Die to live/mourrir pour vivre
Yesterday in sitting I see it: My thoughts wander, and "I" follows, running in aimless circles along trails that just double back onto themselves. This is going nowhere, blindly, incessantly yearning to come and arrive. [...]
La vulnérabilité des choses précieuses/Vulnerability of precious things
"La vulnérabilité des choses précieuses est belle parce que la vulnérabilité est une marque d'existence." Simone Weil, La pesanteur et la grâce (Plon, 1947) "The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a [...]
