"Genuine art - dharma art - is simply the activity of nonagression." There's more to this statement from the late great Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa than meets the eye. And yet... It opens every moment of life to the possibility of "art." Which is the truth, no doubt about it. Meanwhile, the getting and spending [...]
City is hot, sticky yet less congested. Little by little, the population is shifting, any residents who can going elsewhere, tourists who can staying. Always the come-and-go. And yet, here we are amid events of the day. There's always a spark, never a dull moment as they say, if we stay right where we are. [...]
Summer is well on its way. Last night we sat together for the last time this "season" in our Friday night place, the Red Earth Centre. My question for everyone was: What is your one obstacle? I talked a bit, others shared their thoughts and impressions. Then we each went our ways. A true meditation [...]
Other outages, and now a return "online." Like the basement that flooded yesterday for the first time after heavy rain. Now it's a delicious evening, the beginning of the national holiday in France, people wandering toward street parties for drink and dancing. Certainly nothing like Spain the past few nights, though. We knew that kind [...]
Baking in the heat. Remember the Zen tale of going where there is neither heat nor cold: When it's hot, just be hot; when it's cold, just be cold. Now it seems a storm must certainly be brewing. Technology has played havoc again with my best intentions to make a record here of the days. [...]
Have been absent from this space for far too long. Rather, I have been present, just without words. Tonight, a sweet evening deepens. I'm recalling the "writing" and "sitting" day shared with Paris Wild Flowers on Saturday, in and out of the sun and shade. So many words emerging, floating, soaring, searing, singing, ringing, jingling [...]
At the office, a colleague likes to talk about "Buddhism" with me. He stops by my desk the other day. He's reading sutras, he says. There's a soccer match playing on the television nearby. He likes what he reads, he says, but he adds that he's discouraged because he can never remember what he reads. [...]
Amid all this busy-ness, round and round, only one thing to say, in honor of Joyce's bodhisattva, that hero of basic goodness: Happy Bloomsday.
A roundabout discussion in the rain with a friend who is passing in the street early this morning as I head to another day at the office. The subject of structure (or lack thereof) is addressed somewhere in the middle, or perhaps it is the end. We agree on the merits of structure in relation [...]
Afternoon is hot and lazy. Breezes rise and fall almost imperceptibly. I'm surfing it, mildly. There's a wedding party honking up a ruckus in the street, then a fire truck, a bus, a car in reverse, a woman with big headphones ambling along the sidewalk. Each has its sound and its silence. Almost imperceptibly. Louise [...]