I’m back from sesshin at Boundless Way (click here for a shot of the sesshin crew and the Monkey Mind’s reflections on sesshin) and (finally) getting a day of needed rest after the work week. Today’s rest is one of soft grief. Lots of death around me lately, including my 97-year-old grandmother on Thursday night and then Newtown, CT, mass killing, as you know. So grieving we all are today. Even though I’ve worked with young people with serious emotional... Read more
I’ve promised myself and you, dear reader, that I’d address this question: What is a Zen life and what does it have to offer? So here it is. But before I get into the “what,” first let me address the “why” question – why Zen? Zen offers a path of awakening to the truth of this one great life. It really does. It really is. If you’re a person who sees through the hollowness of the American Dream (pseudo-fulfillment through... Read more
As I plotted this blog, I noticed thinking that I “should” be writing about the recent Sasaki Roshi sex scandal rather than the question I promised in last week’s post that I’d address this week: “What is a Zen life and what does it have to offer?” Sex seems to trump pretty much everything and try as I might as I sat down to write, that’s the topic that kept coming up. I even tried to weave the Zen life... Read more
The fine Buddhist scholar Dale Wright (see Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, for example) gave a fine talk at the recent bi-annual meeting of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association about the virtues of Zen practice and his concerns about where this boat is going. I wasn’t at the meeting but listened to the mp3 of his talk available for members only, unfortunately, at the SZBA site. Grace Schireson’s blog posts at Sweeping Zen first alerted me to the talk, paraphrasing Wright, “Zen... Read more
“Take a straight dose” is one of the slogans in Michael Carroll’s Fearless at Work: Timeless Teachings for Awakening Confidence, Resilience, and Creativity in the Face of Life’s Demands. I don’t do much reading of dharma books of the Tibetan persuasion but the Shambala folks sent this one my way and I’m glad they did. For one thing, I find it easier to be appreciative of contemporary expressions of other traditions. I can set my zen-bitch mode aside more easily,... Read more
During a sesshin dokusan in 1981, after practicing with Katagiri Roshi for three or four years, I asked him if he’d ordain me. During this period, I’d been living a few blocks from the Minnesota Zen Center and like my fellow committed students, I attended most morning zazen sessions, 5am – 7am (including a short service) and evening zazen, 7:30pm – 9pm. Roshi gave a talk every Wednesday night on a sutra or a koan, usually as part of a... Read more
I was pleased this morning as I reviewed the comments to my recent posts about Soto Zen going to hell. Seems like as real a cyber conversation as we’ve had in these parts. Not everyone agrees, of course, and sometimes feelings flare. One way to frame the disagreement is as a debate between inherent stability and full aliveness. As is often the case these days, Dogen is brought up as a proponent of inherent buddha nature with a slight twist... Read more
A couple weeks ago I posted “Zen is Going to Hell and It’s the Boomers’ Fault!” Today’s post is a follow up and in the blaming way of the moment, I’ll say it’s James Ford’s fault. You see, I was all set to let the matter rest, but then this morning I read his lovely “the prayer of form and emptiness.” As I’ve said before, James is a much nicer person than me and much more of a gentleman. He... Read more
I had planned to write about Journeys on the Silk Road this morning, but I see that old Monkey Mind has beat me too it, leaving me with not enough to add to interest even me in my own review. I’ll just confess that I sure get fascinated by history these days and dharma history is especially riveting (Neanderthal’s and Denisovan’s DNA coming in a close second). Another long-time interest is Zen poetry and good lordy has Kaz Tanahishi come... Read more
Well, that’s one voice – my crabby-old-man-yelling-at-the-neighborhood-kids-to-stay-off-his-lawn voice. Before I really get into this voice, first let me praise the Boomers for all they’ve done for Zen. Really. The Boomer Generation has been a great generation for Zen, instrumental for the Zen transmission to the West and important also sparking a revitalization in the East. That said, here we are in 2012 and in Soto Zen, 22% of the respondents to a recent survey of dharma successors were over 70... Read more
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