Off to a day-long zazenkai.
The sermon still needs some work, but the timing seems in hand…
Joan Halifax forwarded this quote from Thomas Merton, which considering much that is going on in the Zen world, seems particularly appropriate.
The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice, but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility. And if the sheer force of his own self-confidence communicates itself to other people and gives them the impression that he really is a saint, such a man can wreck a whole city or a religious order or even a nation. The world is covered with scars that have been left in its flesh by visionaries like these.
Wise man.
Good advice to anyone looking for a spiritual guide.
Now, off to sit for a few hours…