Zen Masters, edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, arrived at my door a few days ago with the customary dog-go-wild-at-the-strange-man-in-brown-shorts. Or maybe Bodhi was just howling and another very nice piece of dharma scholarship … naaaa.  The book focuses on the image of the Zen master through the years and across traditions. It includes essays on Baizhang, Dongshan, Yanshou, Dahui, Dogen, Menzan, Soen, Hisamatasu, Maezumi, and Seung.  I’ve spent the most time so far (0h, so predictably) on... Read more

Above you’ll find Tom Waits from 1977. No accounting for taste, as they say, but I love it.  Below you’ll find a piece of my writing practice that doesn’t seem to fit well with the manuscript I’m working on – I’ve wiggled this way and that. Some of these passages will be familiar to the regular reader. I often first explore a line of inquiry here and then cut/paste/edit into the manuscript. This is a self admonition. She said “How... Read more

We begin sesshin tonight and will sit through Tuesday evening. Sesshin, for those of you unfamiliar with the practice, is an intensive period of practice – not a “retreat” as one might think with lots of time to meander by the lake in a thoughtful manner.  We sit quite a lot, beginning at about 4am and ending at 9pm, with just a few short breaks during the day.  And a little nap after lunch time that I’ve added to Katagiri’s... Read more

Just in from weeding the garden and making some rhubarb crisp for sesshin to find that Tricycle: The Buddhist Review’s Editors’ Blogwatch has a positive review – imagine that – of this here Wild Fox Blog.  Check it out: click here. There’s a place for comments if you want to straighten then out! Thanks to Glenda for pointing this out.  Read more

Above is the garden tonight at Yugeji.   And below is based on the webinar-ending, sesshin talk from May 15, 2010, transcribed by Steve. Thanks! Today we will be wrapping up our work on Dogen’s Tenzokyokun (Instructions for the Cook), focusing on the joyful, nurturing and great minds. These three minds answer the question, “What is mature practice?” Dogen gives us many ideas about what mature practice looks like, how we could cultivate a mature practice and then condenses it to... Read more

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf Here’s Simon Sinek, another talk from TED: Ideas Worth Sharing. Great stuff with lots of application to dharma and daily life.  And follwoing is a one-minute email I sent to a friend (more or less) explaining why I found this great: “Loved the ‘why’ in the middle – passion, intention, purpose – and then the strategy and outcomes flowing from that. Lots of zen students focus on the what and split-off the original passion that brought them to practice,... Read more

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Friday morning I was checking in with a co-worker about the day ahead. Somehow the conversation drifted and she mentioned that she believes in rebirth and hopes that she’ll do good enough in this life so that in the next life she’ll have parents who love and care for her so she doesn’t have to go through all the shit she has in this life.  The conversation then slid to her mentioning someone in the District who continues to rise... Read more

Above is Walden Pond in March, 2010.  Here’s a sesshin talk, wrapping up the study of Dogen’s Instructions for the Cook. Click here (then View and Video once the Webex player gets rolling).  Here’s how I summarize the text: Allow yourself to be polished by others through detailed consultation;  sort rice and sand – sacred and mundane – in the midst of work itself;  lift a single vegetable and making a golden body; intimately consider the details of your work; ... Read more