Above I’m moving in the water with two of my favorite people – my son and my brother. Three Ports in a lake. Somehow that might be connected to the Genjokoan theme of the week: If a person riding in a boat watches the coast, the person mistakenly sees the coast as moving. If the person watches the boat, then the person notices that the boat is moving. Similarly, when we conceive our body and mind in a confused way... Read more

There are a lot of cottonwood trees in my neighborhood and in this dry weather it is still snowing cottonwood fuzz. In the photo, my son is adapting to the circumstances to get the job done. And that’s what we Western Buddhists are doing too – cutting through the the fuzz to find the straight-up Buddhadharma. Seems to me that’s a normal thing at this stage of our development and happened at least in China and Japan too. And maybe... Read more

Here’s another section of the talk by Katagiri Roshi that I posted recently. It brings together several themes that we’ve been working with here abouts – compassion as salvation, the significance of Soto forms, daily life practice, enlightenment, wholeheartedness, and the meaning of Genjo. He didn’t leave much out! Salvation is described by regulation of the monastery – how to wash your face, how to use the bathroom, how to cook up the kitchen, how you deal with toilet paper,... Read more

A bunch of these wild fox calligraphies arrived yesterday from Lee at The Bird’s Path. He suggested that they be used as “party favors” so I handed them out to the study group last night. Thanks!, Lee, for the wonderful treat. Today I’d like to respond in a rolling fashion to some of the comments to yesterday’s post. IMHO, although it is important to learn from everyone and everything, that is not a replacement for the teacher-student relationship anymore than... Read more

Tetsugan, Bodhi, P and I went to Omaha to visit Nonin and Elizabeth (and dogs Buddy and Sammy) for the 4th. I think we all had a lovely time. Bodhi had a playfest with Buddy and Sammy, so much so that his feet hardly touched the ground as in the picture above. Hanging out with Nonin, a true dharma friend for many years, is wonderful for me, especially when we push back and forth about the dharma. Late into the... Read more

Polar bear and husky playing – unbelievable! Click. Read more

Here’s an excerpt from a talk by Katagiri Roshi concretely exploring the feeling of the Great Vow, “Living beings are numberless, I vow to free (or save) them all.” Compassion is salvation. Are you familiar with salvation? What do you understand about salvation? If I use the term salvation, how do you feel? “Salvation would imply helping all sentient beings escape from suffering. Avoid suffering.” I see. But at that time how do you feel directly from that? I’m not... Read more

I remember a passage in one of the Carlos Castenada books where Carlos was going to save a turtle by moving her off the road. Don Juan wouldn’t let him interfere with the turtle’s life. That passage came to mind recently while riding my bike around Bald Eagle when I saw a kind man trying to help a turtle. I stopped and talked with the man. He said he was sure that the turtle wanted to get back to the... Read more

The Wild Fox Blog has been more quiet than usual these past few weeks and my energy to start a new book this summer has also gotten redirected. This post explains what I’ve been up to and is also a pre-invitation for your involvement in projects that may interest you. Much of this new direction has been stimulated by Steve Harrington, a consultant and facilitator who I knew back in my Clouds in Water days. Steve contacted me several weeks... Read more

A little while back during one of our Dogen study sessions, the notion of size came up, as in Big Self and Big Mind. It seemed to miss whatever point we were working on at the time, a way of disparaging the small and aggrandizing the big. So I challenged the group to point to a classical source that used that notion. I really couldn’t think of anything and nobody else could either. I might have used the Jewel Mirror... Read more