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 Galbraith, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Shiites in Iran, Maoists in Nepal, heavy snow in northern China... Not bound by a notion of [...]
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 any wall comes to be. Or what constitutes a wall, or what constitutes a fall. Much has been said of [...]
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 office intrigues or a football match or read about politics in the paper or shine my shoes. And so what? [...]
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 a des possibilités insoupçonnées et, attentif à ce que j'ignore, je vais à leur rencontre," Soulages says. ("Black has unsuspected [...]
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 do all day, alone. I choose a way I have never gone before, in a neighborhood where I have lived [...]
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 are hospitalized after one of his practices in a sweat lodge turned bad, I've been wondering what "practical mysticism" could [...]
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 space move! Activities unfold, my attention floats and holds, floats and holds as I answer a knock at the door, [...]
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 Aug. Introduction to Zen in Paris Oct. 28, 19h30-21h30, and other dates by appointment. Méditation en semaine à Paris/weekly meditation [...]
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. The need to stand from my desk and go grows, due to worldly obligations. The funny thing is, I have [...]
This weekend I traveled to Amsterdam and back. People, places and things were not where and what they were supposed to be, and yet everything was in its place. I read poems with other poets and musicians as a packed room and Proust in a painting listened. I don't remember the applause, but I'm sure [...]