Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

Lou Hartman, when he could be prevailed upon to give talks at City Center, had something that I eventually realised was a repeating motif. He would say, very solemnly, that he had had a whole talk prepared and ready to go, but somehow something always intervened – a piece of news, an encounter in the building – and he felt unable to give the talk as planned. It felt like he was reminding us each time that nothing could be counted on.

I had a bunch of stuff I was going to write about for today’s post – including a few things I had meant to add to my previous story post – but then I got the news about the Tassajrara zendo burning down, and the rest of the morning got a little discombobulated.

In the afternoon I went to Lorenzo’s shuso ceremony – it had originally been scheduled for today, but moved forward so that people could attend the No Kings protests. A lot of people were there, including elders who were present when the original Tassajara zendo burned down in 1978 (I was thinking a little naughtily of Oscar Wilde), and it was the topic of many conversations, of course – if not that many questions during the ceremony.

On my Patreon page my planned piece of writing also did not make it to today’s post, but there are pictures of the zendo over the years. I enjoyed reading people’s reminiscences of sitting there, and I could add many of my own (not all happy memories by any means), but not today.