‘”No place to fall” is the life of a home-leaver.’ (The Zen Teachings of Homeless Kodo)

Leafing through this book again, I was struck by how many of his remarks are about our attachments to money and status – especially as these play out in Japanese society. Many of them are quite harsh, but I think there is a corrective value in these things being expressed. And as a priest – a home-leaver – I am keenly aware, in a city as money-bound as San Francisco, of my lack of status and relative lack of money. Yet I can still feed myself, pay my rent, and buy a few things when necessary. Sometimes, as I have expressed, my life feels precarious, but that is as it should be.