Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Roshi offered this reflection at our Empty Moon Zen half day Zen sit on Saturday, the 4th of October, 2025. With his generous permission I offer this reprint hoping to find the larger audience this talk deserves… There is a lot to be said for Iceland. It is, as an example, considered one of the happiest nations on earth. It enjoys an enviably high level of gender equality. The volcano that Arne Saknussemm went down to journey... Read more
My friend Ken Ireland wrote this memoir of his encounters with the Chinese Vajrayana teacher C. M. Chen, best known perhaps, as Yogi Chen, for his Buddha, S.J. blog. I thought it worth wider distribution, and with his kind permission, I offer it here at Monkey Mind. When Father Bob Ochs and I lived together on Hillegass Avenue, we both began serious conversations with Buddhists — conversations with the intense inquiry that Jesuits are well known for. In the Spring... Read more
Hildegard of Bingen died on the 17th of September in 1179. She is one of those people I think of as pan-spiritual saints. And I try to note her feast as it rolls by annually. As far as I’m concerned the 17th of September is observed as a feats for one of most interesting and complex individuals in the annals of Christian mysticism. Itself a complex subject. The mystical life is often mixed up. In any number of ways. Hildegard... Read more
Yesterday evening I gave a talk at the Zen at Neighborhood class at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church. Preparing for it, I ran across this from a few years ago. It ended up largely being what I shared, but written down, and has fewer uhs and ahs than last evening’s talk. Possibly worth a read… The Case Master Wuzu asked one of his students, “The woman Chien and her spirit had separated. Tell me, which is the true Chien?” Wumenguan,... Read more
My dear friend the Roshi Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer, currently guiding teacher of the Empty Moon Zen project gave the dharma talk at our Empty Moon half day retreat on the 6th of September, 2025. In it he unpacked the meaning of Zen’s teaching of not knowing. I found it very helpful, and with his generous permission to reprint it, I offer it here at Monkey Mind… *** Remember the old television show Weeds? Karen and I watched all eight seasons,... Read more
Nineteen years ago on the 5th of September, 2006, at 12:53pm (Eastern time), I posted my very first Monkey Mind blog post. It was a Gary Snyder poem. Lew Welch jut turned up one day, live as you and me. “Damn, Lew” I said, “you didn’t shoot yourself after all.” “Yes I did” he said, and even then I felt the tingling down my back. “Yes you did, too” I said — “I can feel it now.” “Yeah” he said,... Read more
The Case Zhaozhou visited a hermit. He asked, “Is anybody in? Anybody in?” The hermit lifted up his fist. Zhaozhou said, “the water is too shallow for a ship to anchor.” Later he went to a hermit, and asked, “Is anybody in? Anybody in?” The hermit also lifted up his fist. Zhaozhou said “Freely you give and freely you take away. Freely you kill and freely you give life.” And he made a full prostration. Gateless Gate, Case 11 I... Read more
I’ve been drawn into Zen Buddhist reflections on (mostly) Christian holy days over the past few years. One such day is the Assumption of Mary. It’s is a Christian festival universally celebrated in the liturgical churches. It’s marked in the Eastern Christian churches on the 15th of August as the Dormition of the Theotokos. And in the Roman calendar for the same day it’s called the feast of the Assumption of Mary. In the Anglican calendar the day is traditionally... Read more
Robert Ingersoll was born on the 11th of August, 1833. He is pretty important in the general formation of my spiritual life. And I continue to feel his influence on my more spare Buddhism. So I like to reflect on him and his contributions from time to time. What follows is something I keep working at. I expect to get it right within the next decade or so… Writer Kimberly Winston wrote of the good colonel, as he was usually... Read more
This past Saturday at our monthly Empty Moon half day sit, Roshi Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer offered a reflection out of the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9ths of August in 1945. I asked his permission to share it here at my blog and he graciously consented. *** On a splendid August day like today, it’s easy to put out of our minds that eighty years ago, people in Hiroshima, Japan were gazing... Read more
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