In 1987 (or there abouts), Katagiri Roshi sent me to Ann Arbor to the World Buddhism Conference – a remarkable event and probably the first get-together of all the various Buddhist teaching streams coming to America.  One of the stand-out moments for me followed Aitken Roshi’s presentation about the universal Zen sangha. Many of the Theravadan persuasion took issue with his non-canonical approach, preferring to define sangha as the community of monks and nuns. Although I enjoyed his presentation... Read more

We’re back from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Another fantastic father-son trip and I’m now settling into home life for the next few months, getting ready for another school year, and more regular blogging too. Above is a shot from our campsite one early morning. I choose this shot because I learned upon returning to cell phones and email that Robert Aitken Roshi had died last week at 93. “Woe on woe. Oh, Death canst thou sometimes be timely,” wrote... Read more

My son and I are preparing for our last trip of the summer – our annual 5-day adventure in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. A little taste of something like our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ life style.  It occurs to me that one big difference between them and us is the material that our gear is made of. Ours will mostly be poly-something and theirs was mostly animal byproducts. But perhaps the biggest difference is that we can’t replace our gear ourselves... Read more

I’m back from a sweet seven-day sesshin with Boundless Way Zen at their beautiful Mugendoji temple in Worcester, MA. Above are a few participants in post-sesshin bliss. Simply put, Boundless Way is a healthy Zen group. Yes, you heard it right. “Zen” and “healthy” can go together in the same sentence and not be a mind fart.  Further, the group and teachers are so minimally hung up, power trippy, and/or into the usual egolessness (aka, spiritual masquerade) double speak that... Read more

What a coincidence! I love that (Thanks, Ed!). Here’s a brief post (all about me me me, of course). First off, you might notice that shiny new award notice over on the right sidebar for one of 50 best Buddhist blogs. It’s really going to my already inflated ego and so I’m wondering about the motivation of those blog awards rascals.  I smell a conspiracy! “Let’s see if we can mess with the Buddhists by telling them how good they... Read more

I’m back from a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, my first in that vast, beautiful and relatively uninhabited land. Above is the sun setting over Lake Superior a few days ago, taken from a 10-mile stretch of sand beach (rare on Lake Superior) near the Porcupine Mountains. I definitely plan to return and hope to spend some time in one of the remote cabins in the Porcupines doing retreat.   But today I’m getting my bag packed for the... Read more

Here’s the talk I gave June 27th in Omaha. It starts with an expanded version of the story I told a couple posts back about the guy who saved his daughter’s life during the recent tornado in Mentor, MN. The talk starts at about 4:45 so you can go to the place without announcements if you wish. http://www.divshare.com/flash/playlist?myId=11923176-42d  Read more

I’m enjoying our biggest stretch of vacation time at home before camping and conferencing and sesshining later in the month. And then up to the Boundary Waters for canoeing in August. This down time has given me the chance to enjoy my hobby of reading scholarly Zen stuff, savoring David Riggs’ piece, “The Zen of Books and Practice: The Life of Menzan Zuiho and His Reformation of Soto Zen,” in the new anthology by Heine and Wright, Zen Masters. The... Read more

It takes courage and compassion to work the edge of this practice, this life.   The Banyan Deer: A Parable of Courage and Compassion (click here for more at Wisdom Publications) by the great storyteller, Rafe Martin (and illustrator, Richard Wehrman), retells a classic Buddhist story about a deer king who is willing to sacrifice his life for a doe and her unborn fawn, for the “other” herd, and then for all the animals, birds and fishies.  It’s a darling... Read more

Above is a Canadian black bear of the smallish variety in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. We spotted her/him very near the road eating slugs from a stump and had time to snap the shot.  A couple days later, my son, dog Bodhi and I were at the beginning of a 16 mile hike and 850 foot climb of the Sleeping Giant (culminating with my 13-year-old’s verification that it is indeed a “breath-taking view” – see below), chatting as we walked... Read more