Today is the day when Zen Center commemorates the death of Suzuki Roshi, forty-eight years ago now. The story of his dying, and the timing of it (on the first day of the Rohatsu sesshin) is told often enough. I picture him lying in the room that is now the kaisando, the room that all temples have where the […]
‘Common sense tells us that water is in a river, ocean, lake, or bowl, and that it comes out when we tip the bowl. Dogen says that wherever water goes, that place becomes a river; where water stays becomes a lake; where water becomes large and rests becomes an ocean. There is no ocean, river […]
‘You may think, “The Way of the Buddha patriarchs distinguishes individuals and capacities. We are not up to it.” Such a view is truly the stupidest of stupid views. Who among the ancients was not a body born of a mother and father? Who did not have feelings of love and affection or thoughts of […]
Perfect when clear Perfect when cloudy Mount Fuji’s original form Never changes.
‘We’re all so skilled at discerning how we’re different, but we don’t know enough yet about how we’re all the same.’ (Deep Hope) I have been finding this book full of pithy and uplifting aphorisms such as this one, and I know I will return to it often.
‘One great thing absorbed from Zen training in the monastery is the ability to transparently become what is happening right now. Not the idea of what is happening. But to meet what is happening and merge with it. In this merging with what is happening, it is as if our body in space dissolves into […]
The weather was just about perfect for the roam on Sunday, with clear skies and warm sun. There was a sense, sitting on Bernal Heights looking down over the city, that this was the last of the fine weather that has characterised the last couple of months in San Francisco. Out of the sun the […]
