I’ve driven Jan to the Portland airport and am now waiting to pick up my friend and co-conspirator in the Boundless Way Zen project, David Rynick. We will be driving out to Clatskanie and the Great Vow Zen temple to join with about twenty-five other Zen teachers for our annual American Zen Teacher’s Association gathering. This is an only in the West, perhaps an only in America sort of thing. The AZTA membership accounts for nearly every Zen lineage in... Read more

Over at his blog the wily fox Dosho has been ruminating on the nature of Dharma transmission in Zen. He notes how the forms are a necessary although not sufficient condition for the making of a teacher. Dosho has open comments at his blog and they have come. Mostly, I’m impressed. A bit too much Zen talk, and a tilt toward either faith in capital letter masters or faith in Zen without any actual form or people, two mistakes; but... Read more

Well, the trip with Jan is almost over. We made our way up the Oregon coast to Astoria then left 101, heading east on 30, drove past Clatskanie, where I’ll be returning tomorrow, and on into Portland. As has been the case for this whole trip we’ve not contacted friends in the area, choosing instead to spend our time together. I’ve felt small tinges about this decision, but mostly have been so grateful to have time to just be with... Read more

Robert McNamara 1916 – 2009 Hard to think of anything to add here… Read more

This morning I opened the New York Times online and saw that a scholarly consortium has brought the scattered parts of the Codex Sinaiticus together online. It is a very important document, being the oldest extant collection of what we think of as the “New Testament,” if enriched with two texts not considered canonical by most modern Christian churches… Which set me to thinking a bit about sacred texts. Yesterday we covered some three hundred fifty miles from Fort Bragg... Read more

We overslept our planned leaving time. But it is a holiday, fr goodness sake! Groggy, but refreshed with caffeine, each through our preferred modality, and some fruit for breakfast, Jan & I turned off of Highway 1 to 17 and crossed the mountains to San Jose and on to our featured pass through for the day, the legendary Berkeley. We parked on Telegraph Avenue (thanks to it being the 4th of July and the light traffic), and spent a half... Read more

I’m writing this in the semi-dark of a motel in Santa Cruz. Jan is still asleep. I have a cup of coffee in hand and have just worked my way through emails. Yesterday we made our way up the coast from Los Angeles. This drive is arguably the most beautiful in the country. And while I’ve made it a dozen times, it has been many years, and the chance to drive north (the only way to go with those drop... Read more

In about ten minutes (and only two hours later than I wanted…) Jan & I climb into the rental and begin our drive north along the California & then Oregon coast. Just J & me, moving sufficiently fast we will not be stopping to visit friends. A small sadness, that. But, the chance to just be with Jan, frankly, makes it all okay. Not a convertable, but there is one of those moon windows above, so we can pretend… Somehow... Read more

And sometimes it isn’t… But, when it is… Read more

Well, it’s now Wednesday. Monday involved flying out from Salt Lake City and shaking off, for the most part, anyway, the psychic sense of work. I love my work, but I also very much feel a need to be away just for a while… Touching feet to the ground at the Burbank airport and breathing in the dry hot air helped in the shift toward “holiday.” For the next few days we’re enjoying something of an enforced inaction perched at... Read more