I was sad to read that Tetsugen Bernie Glassman had died. His role in the expansion of American zen, especially into the realms of social action, was of great importance, and will outlive him. I was reminded of that recently when I re-read Instructions to the Cook, with its mix of the practical and the traditional.
He visited Zen Center a few times while I was there, and I wrote about one such visit on the Ino’s Blog. Since I know many of you don’t click the links, he spoke about ‘Lebowski Koans’, which became one of his themes of practice; I was especially taken with ‘new shit has come to light.’ Strangely enough, looking through the Zen Center dharma talk archives, the recording is not available – perhaps I messed it up as ino. And even though I refer to the Livestream recording, those archives don’t seem to go back far enough. So you will just have to take my word for it that is was a splendid event. At least I have one visual memory from the day:
The clown version of ‘shoes outside the door.’
