“And thoughts of mortality touch the mind.” Virgil The other day I was talking with a friend, I haven’t asked, but I’m guessing someone in her mid or late thirties. I referenced Jimmy Durante. She had no idea who I was speaking of. Now be clear my friend is literate and in touch with culture. But time. Not only was Jimmy Durante a fixture of my childhood he was a cultural icon. So,... Read more
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the... Read more
Quotations from Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton (Shamelessly lifted from Terebess Asia Online) Chuang Tzu was a Taoist sage, living sometime before 250 B.C. The book Chuang Tzu is believed to contain both his own writings and writings by others about him and his teachings. The quotations at this site were taken from The Way of Chuang Tzu, which was compiled by Thomas Merton (a Roman Catholic monk) after reading four different translations of Chuang Tzu. It... Read more
True Sitting & the Fundamental Koan: A Discussion with Shin’ichi Hisamatsu[1] translated by Jeff Shore in collaboration with Nobumichi Takahashi and Gishin Tokiwa[2] Hisamatsu: During a sesshin-retreat, various doubts or problems are bound to arise. For your practice it is essential to raise them and have them resolved, so today I will speak in response to your questions. Anyone should feel free to speak up and, by discussing together, we’ll find a solution. That said, I’m sure... Read more
In my adolescence I stumbled upon Journeys on the Razor-edged Path. It was written by someone named Simons Roof. I never learned much about him beyond that in the first half of the twentieth century he traveled to India and studied with several prominent gurus. He appears to have written a single book. However, that single book became very important to me, especially some of the teaching stories he collected. They pointed me in directions that would become... Read more
The Edicts of King Asoka Read more
Out on the inter webs someone asked the question “what are the central differences between Zen practiced in Asia and in the West.” My old friend the ever thoughtful Stephen Slottow chose to respond. “Some of the most salient, between Asia and the West? (1) Inclusion of women, (2) change of focus from monastic to lay practice, (3) along with (2), an increased emphasis on meditation outside of the training hall, along with a decreased emphasis on ritual (despite all... Read more
H. P. Lovecraft was born on the 20th of August, 1890. Me, something pushing on toward sixty years ago, I stumbled upon his writings. No doubt his dark universe, which if I recall it aright these days, the “Cthulu Mythos,” had an evil race locked in mortal combat with an even more evil race, and kind of as an aside we humans were bred from apes as convenient labor and, in a pinch, for food, seemed... Read more
I have this contention that there is in fact a naturalistic wisdom. That is we as human beings have an inherent wisdom that arises out of our embodied minds. It is rooted in a twin insight, the one aspect of it is that we are each of us unique within the world, but at the very same time made up of the stuff of the world. And that we have access to a body knowing which... Read more
Not long ago I had a Skype conversation with my old friend the scholar and author Rick McDaniel. His books are wonderful narrative accounts of Zen, tracing it over various volumes from China to Japan to North America. And now he has a new book project he’s working on and wanted to ask me some questions. I thought we were going to be talking about my ordination master Houn Jiyu Kennett, and indeed we did talk a little... Read more
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