What is it tonight? More fragments, the only thing possible. "Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick," thinks Stephen Dedalus, on the beach in the morning in Joyce's Ulysses. This afternoon, I meet by chance someone whom I've not seen for some time. We talk at my kitchen table, exchange [...]
Streets are the theater of more protests today, youths confronting police armed for battle. At the place Denfert-Rochereau a stand-off is underway when I emerge from the Métro. The surrounding avenues are eerily vacant of traffic, cordoned off by the troops, and shops are closed. Here and there, people are huddled in little groups, murmuring, [...]
I see images tonight on the television of gangs of young men, boys even, in the streets of France smashing cars and windows, charging the police, throwing stones, bottles, sticks, lighting fires. Someone says its urban warfare. But these kids are not protesting the government's retirement plan. They are full of rage over the life [...]
Tonight, I'm ready to shut it all down and go to bed. The day was busy with the rigors of parenting, the grind of household duties. No time for "I"! So after the last dishes are finally done, the night is quiet, I sit down, put the words here. Whatever words come. I know they [...]
All these people in the streets protesting against the measures proposed by the French government to raise the retirement age... A journalist wonders in Le Monde how many writers were among the protesters. Good question. And how many Zen teachers? The writer's life knows no age. A Zen life, too, is ageless. What does it [...]
Attention!!! À partir de vendredi 15 octobre, changement d'horaire pour nos séances au Red Earth Centre: 19h45-21h15
I've been busy since yesterday with study among peers, old comrades, friends, our teacher. We talk and talk, exchange, explore. And then a few hours ago we emerge into the afternoon and it's another beautiful day. I think, "Divine!" Then I think, "Divine?" The words escape me in the brilliant sun, suddenly, like the truck [...]
Paris (infos et inscriptions: zenscribe@free.fr) 2010 dimanche 17 oct. (9h30-18h): Journée de méditation samedi-dimanche 27-28 nov. (horaires à détérminer): Week-end "Zen art" 2011 dimanche 23 jan. (9h30-18h): Journée de méditation samedi-dimanche 26-27 mars (horaires à détérminer): Week-end "Zen art" dimanche 8 mai (9h30-18h): Journée de méditation dimanche 19 juin (9h30-18h): Journée de méditation 20-27 août: [...]
Fabulous October morning bathed in sun, and in the garden the wet grass bathes my bare feet in what's left of night. The cat stays with me a moment, then trots off to her own secret frontiers. Seems we've been granted another reprieve from the inexorable descent of summer. Ah, the pleasures of illusion! The [...]
It's Monday. And so? And so the activity that has "occupied" me for nearly a week has come to an end. For five days, I participated in the Salon Zen in Paris, a teeming marketplace of seekers and sellers. It was a souk, with stand after stand of goods on display. A brisk trade ensued. [...]