décembre 2009
Out of Bounds: The Bodhisattva’s Way
I’ve been thinking about a question someone asked: Is there ever any mention of compassion in this Zen practice? Is there any emphasis on compassion? I was thinking about how best to address that question, [...]
Unfolding like a fan
This Zen teaching unfolds like a fan. (I use these two words, Zen and teaching, as tools to limit something that has no limits.) The more we become aware, present, openly, selflessly, the more it [...]
I’m practicing right now
Someone who knows little about "Zen" asked today whether I "practiced" everyday. Well... I thought of saying, "I'm practicing right now." But I didn't. I asked him, "Do you mean formally?" Which was not really [...]
One unthinkable step
What if everyone at rush hour in the Paris Métro really listened to that recorded voice that says sometimes, "Attention à la marche en descendant du train," (Watch your step when leaving the train)? That [...]
Meanwhile, all bursting
Morning seems touched by the sun today, brightly, freely, serenely. Or is it morning that touches sun? And the moon last night in a clear purple sky, fully nearly full, then crossed by a drift [...]
Where I turns
Back from retreat in Portugal, in Coimbra, where we sat in a kind of haven planted between ribbons of highway and a shopping mall. As the days passed, we didn't so much go deeper as [...]
novembre 2009
No sitting Nov. 27 in Paris
Heading to Portugal for several days of retreat. Which means there will be no sitting in Paris on Friday night at the Red Earth Centre (Nov. 27). Back to usual the following Friday (Dec. 4). [...]
8 1/2, or All 1
Difficult to imagine a more perfect depiction of what in Zen jargon is called "shikantaza" (bearing witness to the whole of life) than the final scene of a film just seen at the Cinémathèque, Fellini's [...]
Every moment unknown territory
What if we think of sitting, what is known as "meditation," as a kind of travel, a trip to an endlessly wondrous here and now? The French poet Yves Bonnefoy writes that because what the [...]
The beautiful game
Soccer is known as "the beautiful game." Yet violent behavior is often displayed by opposing players and fans, like in Cairo recently before an Egypt-Algeria match. What is that all about? "Be a lamp unto [...]
A splendid Heart Sutra meal
A weekend of studying the Heart Sutra went something like this: Boundless, we go around and around, and back and forth, with words and silence, speaking and not, we move from cushions to chairs and [...]
A sandwich for lunch
So it's Thursday, and I had a sandwich for lunch. At a desk in front of the daily news: secret prisons in Beijing, oil profiteering in Iraq, U.S. Marines on Okinawa, Obama, Bush, John Kenneth [...]
The walls falling
Today is the day that everyone has been discussing for days, the 20th-anniversary day of the night when that strange wall "fell." Little has been said of how that wall came to be. Or how [...]
Swing
I would like to post something here, but what? We all seem so involved with getting and spending, pursuing distraction. I see it, I see me do it as I enter into a discussion about [...]
octobre 2009
Soulages and the unsuspected possibilities
Upon seeing the Pierre Soulages exhibition in Paris, I am struck by the continuous reverberations that I am still feeling from what was essentially a painterly presentation of black substances (not only paint). "Le noir [...]
Leaning into the flux
Late in the afternoon I go out: for a walk, to run some errands, feel the air, see the sky, experience the relationship of being among persons and things, move away from the writing I [...]
Time tells
Yesterday I read about a guy in the United States who preaches something that he calls practical mysticism. Apart from the fact that he is in big trouble because three people died and many others [...]
Underneath your feet
Hours and dates advance, from night to morning to afternoon, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, September to October, in an indecipherable flow. Calendar and clock keep the count for me: I believe I can see time and [...]
Program 2009-2010
Wild Flower Sangha retreats and one-day practice sessions led by Amy Hollowell Sensei: Paris 31 Oct. 14-15 Nov. 13-14 Feb. 26-27 June Normandy 15-18 April 20-27 August Portugal 27 Nov.-1 Dec. 17-21 March 25 July-1 [...]
Skidding like the clouds
It's been such a busy week. My nose is running all over the place. I watch the clouds skid across the sky as day seems to be drawing to a close more quickly than ever. [...]
Alexis says:
Alexis says:
Alexis says: