That’s the American way as Ed Brown sardonically puts it in his wonderful presentation, Dogen’s Instructions to the Cook (click here for mp3).   Ed light-heartedly and piercingly connects dharma, a social message (often missing or assumed in today’s American dharma world), and the importance of relating with the red pepper we might be selecting at the store, chopping and cooking today. Opening ourselves to an unknownable and unpredictable outcome, intimately meeting the ingredients of our life, and allowing things... Read more

I had some fun making this video invitation for the practice period, Wholehearted Play: 90 Days of Cooking this Great Life, February 20 – May 22. Scroll down a post, click the link, or email us at [email protected] for more information. Read more

After the first talk in Anchorage last week, a practitioner approached me and said he’d sat with Katagiri Roshi at Southern Dharma in about 1988 and that he had a picture that he’d send me (and he did – above). It’s a deep pleasure for me to run into people who knew Katagiri way back when. And btw, if anybody out there has some old pictures of the old boy that you’d like to share, I’d be delighted to archive... Read more

photo by Carl at Cold Bay in the Aleutian Islands This playing has no purpose, no reason why. Play is the end itself. At that time you can have full commitment to play. If you just play with wholeheartedness then there is some power to transform your life, to produce a creative new life. – Katagiri Roshi Beginning on February 20th and ending May 22nd we enter a 90-day online practice period, rolling up our sleeves and going to play... Read more

On the plane last week, I settled in and read a couple articles that I’d tucked in my bag. First up was James Howard Kunstler from The Sun, “The Decline and Fall of the Suburban Empire.” Sayeth Kunstler,  The peak-oil problem means that we can no longer expect to run an economy based on never-ending growth, which means ultimately that we can’t service our debts at any level — personal, corporate, governmental. We’re comprehensively broke. That may not strike you... Read more

  Several readers expressed themselves and seemed to connect with my quandary posted about a month ago regarding my trying to connect with a young guy at work (click here for that post). It led to the reflections and webinar on Zen and Service (click here for that). I’m happy to report that this same young guy just organized a “Wear Pink for Port” day after spreading the false rumor that I didn’t have hair because I’ve been a chemo... Read more

I’m back at it here in White Bear after a long weekend trip to Anchorage.  I found Anchorage to be a quietly and dramatically beautiful place, very different in feeling tone than the Lower 48 – white mountains close up to the west and Sleeping Lady off to the east, the Cook Inlet with it’s rough looking ice and silt, and especially the somber, soft tone of light and long darkness each night. I loved it. My hosts, Ann and... Read more

I’m off to Anchorage for the weekend in a little bit and am leaving you, dear reader,  something to play with – same thing in brief that we’ll be investigating with delight this weekend – the koan of zazen. Here’s how Katagiri Roshi put it:  I often emphasize that zazen is a koan we have to digest in our whole life. Zazen is not the simple issue you have thought. “Simple issue you have thought” means you usually think zazen... Read more

  I found the discussion following my last post about Jiryu’s book, Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk’s Japan, (oh, go ahead, click and buy it right away!) quite heart warming in the midst of this cold Minnesota winter.  Jiryu’s last chapters were the most powerful in the book for me and I was riveted to the couch as he worked through multiple conundrums – seeing the light and shadow of the just-one-doing monastery, the urge to go and... Read more

I’ve been reading Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk’s Japan, by Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler. I’d stumbled upon the book while doing some late-night poking around the web last week and then the next day I received an email from Jiryu (who I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting) asking if I’d review it.  I said I would but because there are several themes that his book brings up for me, I’m thinking I might put up a few... Read more