Zen Won’t Save You: A Talk on Practicing Enlightenment

“Zen Won’t Save You” is the title of the talk that Tetsugan and I will be offering on Tuesday, April 1st, from 7pm to 8:30pm, at the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church, 524 Allen Ave., Portland, Maine.

“Zen Won’t Save You?”

Yesterday I was working on our new web site for Great Tides Zen with Paul, a Zen student and our web guy. When we reviewed the events page with “Zen Won’t Save You,” he said something like, “You do terrible marketing! You know how they built the mega churches? It wasn’t by saying they won’t save you… even the Mormon’s had a better idea with polygamy.”

Now Paul is a wry and waggish fellow so I didn’t take offense. Well, polygamy seems to be one of the worst ideas anyone ever came up with, so I did pause on that one.

Anyway, Zen won’t save you. That’s what we’ve got going for us. And like Mumon’s verse for “Zhaozhou’s Wash Your Bowls” puts it:

Because it is so very clear,
it takes so long to realize.
If you only know that flame is fire,
you’ll find your rice has long been cooked.

Zen won’t save you. Can’t save what’s already saved.

Zen won’t save you.

If you’re in the Portland, ME, area, please do come by and we’ll work this theme together.

*”Not One Thing” and seven other Nonin pieces will be available for bidding in our online auction to support Great Tides Zen start up, coming soon to a computer near you.