AWAKENING A Zen Reflection 2021 Zoom Zen Retreat Empty Moon Zen Tom Daimon Wardle Senior Dharma Teacher     True confession: I do not want to give this talk today. Actually, I’ve had several months to savour the dread of today’s talk since “awakening” was chosen as the theme for this sesshin. We always select a theme for our longer retreats, something to give the various dharma talks a bit of a throughline, and awakening is an... Read more

      Evelyn Underhill was born in Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, on this day, the 6th of December, in 1875. She would grow to become a poet and novelist, as well as one of the most important interpreters of mystical Christianity in modernity. I’ve written about her and her importance to me personally, elsewhere. Here I thought I’d just let her speak for herself. I shared the Poetry of Mysticism a few years ago. If you missed it,... Read more

    Faustus Socinus, also known as Faust Paolo Sozzini and sometimes as Faust Socyn was born in Siena in Tuscany on this day, the 5th of December in 1539. He was educated at home and quickly fell under the influence of his uncle Celso, who encouraged the boy’s searching intellect, as well as another of his uncles, Lelio a full on Renaissance humanist, intellectual, and increasingly anti-Trinitarian thinker. When he inherited a small fortune Faustus began more formal studies... Read more

        Lovely and lyrical and as sharp as a Center of all centers, core of cores, almond self-enclosed and growing sweet – all this universe, to the furthest stars and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit. Now you feel how nothing clings to you; your vast shell reaches into endless space, and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow. Illuminated in your infinite peace, A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above... Read more

      We are in a magical and dangerous moment, where uncertainty is in the air. Maybe even end times. And with that, doors are opening. Not least among these are doors opening into deeper understandings of what religion and spirituality might be. So, a critical question. What is religion? And with that what is spirituality? It turns out these are in fact slippery terms, especially religion. In my view Merriam-Webster is the great American dictionary. It’s worth looking... Read more

      Sixty years. Oh, my. Sixty years ago today, the 2nd of December, in 1961, the San Francisco Zen Center published the first issue of Wind Bell. An unsigned article from 50years.sfzc.org tells us: “From its humble single-sheet newsletter beginnings on December 2, 1961, prior to San Francisco Zen Center’s incorporation, over the decades Wind Bell has grown into a much admired chronicle not just of Zen Center but of emerging Western Buddhism. Library Journal has praised Wind Bell as... Read more

  Tell all the truth but tell it slant – Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind – Emily Dickinson People sometimes say they are spiritual but not religious. I find that phrase can open us into a great mystery. Not that it must. Often people use the phrase to mean they are only... Read more

    The deep matter of the heart is not bound by any religion. It is not owned by any culture. It is our common heritage as human beings. I suspect it will someday be possible to diagram the matters of the heart in scientific terms. And we are not there. Each time people think they’ve come to the end of science and have the world all figured out, it turns out they’re just stepping over the rise of a... Read more

      As it happens the Episcopal diocese of Hawaii celebrates today, the 28th of November as the “Feast of the Holy Sovereigns.” The rest of the Episcopal church marks today as a feast for “Kamehameha and Emma, King & Queen of Hawaii.” While I have mixed feelings about how royals end up saints, formal or informal, this particular one tickles me. Hawaii was for a hundred years a kingdom, united in 1795 under Kamehameha the Great. In 1893... Read more