Sometimes my notebooks have lines and sometimes they don’t. Writing with the lines and writing without lines are very different experiences. As a writer, I know that different pens and paper, like different places and moments, offer different experiences. The experience of writing with lines, I realized, can be likened to the experience of practicing [...]
In an old book that I haven't opened for many years, I discover a scrap of paper on which I had written: "Sweet birdsong before dawn pierces night & day and the aching heart, too, is pure.'' An underlined sentence says, "Everything we need for awakening is present in the very ground upon which we [...]
Another one of those days. Everyone tells me it's warm, almost spring-like. And from the window it doesn't look like winter in the garden, although it is damp and overcast. Cats chase one another through the full bushes, up the leafy trees, over the rooftops. Isn't there too much green out there? Finally I just [...]
“City” retreats (nonresidential) and one-day practice sessions: led by Amy Hollowell Sensei Paris Feb. 13-14, May 1, June 26-27 Lisbon Feb. 6-7 Residential retreats: Normandy April 15-18, Aug. 20-27 Portugal March 19-23, July 25-Aug. 1 Introduction to Zen in Paris, March 2, 19h30-21h30, and other dates by appointment. To register or for more information: zenscribe@free.fr
More words about the fundamental "oneness" of all things, as an aftershock rocks Haiti again and President Obama's second year begins, looking less promising than the first, and the days are growing a wink longer here in the Northern Hemisphere and the cat sleeps most of that time beside my desk as I work for [...]
Tonight I am recalling how the snow fell not so long ago on cars and trees and stairs and streets in my neighborhood, and how the chill made my boots creak. It was all here. But it might have been another continent or year, for now there is no snow here and the bite has [...]
Stumble upon this quote from Immanuel Kant last night; it grabs me: "I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself." And then woke up this morning to learn that the earth had shifted beneath Haiti. Everything "stable" suddenly was not, everything "constructed" came crashing down in a [...]
In the newspaper this morning, this sentence: "In the name of science, Westerners may have done more harm than good, several studies have found." Oh really?! "Science," of course, is not to blame. Rather, the question is: What do we do with "science"? Do we put such knowledge to destructive or constructive use? All actions [...]
After lunch, dishes, paperwork, just going about the life I lead, just as it is, I come across this in a work about the bodhisattva ideal: "In whatever life we are already leading, just as it is, we can choose to direct our energies toward accumulations of worldly power and material wealth, either with well-meaning [...]
This message is already circulating on my mail circuit, but a repeat can do no harm. And feel free to pass it on! As we ring out an "old" year and ring in a "new" year... What better time to take that step back and look within? May you experience the richness of life and [...]