Category: meditation
- What Healing IsFor My 72nd Birthday The morning my father died we had barely gotten back from the hospital when there was a knock at the door and my mother opened it to Mrs. Shriver, a neighbor from across the street. She was an older woman, with a ruddy, deeply lined face, kept herself busy with outdoor sports, ...Read more
- Sitting with LouisNotes During a Pandemic We came to stay at our Asheville cabin during the pandemic in order to take care of my wife’s brother Louis, who has a house on the same property. He’s 68 years old and autistic, diagnosed just a few years ago. His job was bringing in shopping carts at the local supermarket, ...Read more
- Makes the Other One Look GoodRefuge a film by John Halpern. With Martin Scorcese, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ani Tenzin Palmo, Oliver Stone, David Chadwick. **1/2 Zen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of BuddhaFest Online. ****1/2. Fifty years ago a ...Read more
- Or Something Like ThatZen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of Tricycle’s BuddhaFest Online. ***1/2. I rarely sign up for anything like BuddhaFest, the yearly event that Tricycle puts on, but this year, since it’s strictly virtual, and they’re ...Read more
- Books of a LifetimeA House for Buddha by Ross Parmenter. Woodstock Press. 529 pp. Sacred Land, Sacred Sex, Rapture of the Deep: Concerning Deep Ecology and Celebrating Life by Dolores LaChapelle. Kivaki Press. 383 pp. The Lyndoniad by William Guy. Xlibris. 444pp. On my second trip to Mexico—I believe the year was 1991—my wife and I had arrived at the Basilica ...Read more
- Facing DesireOpen to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life. Insights from Buddhism & Psychotherapy by Mark Epstein. Gotham Books. 227 pp. ***1/2 The Durrell-Miller Letters 1935-80. Edited by Ian S. MacNiven. New Directions. 528 pp. $21.89 In Open to Desire, psychiatrist and longtime Buddhist practitioner Mark Epstein takes on the central paradox of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. ...Read more
- All Religions Converge One PointThe Universal Christ by Richard Rohr. Convergent. 260 pp. $27.00 ***** For my devotional reading these days, I’ve been reading both The Universal Christ and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Rohr’s book seemed largely theoretical (though he mentions various practices) and Shunryu Suzuki’s perfectly practical: almost every section is about sitting. Somehow or other I finished both ...Read more
- Emptiness and GraceJesus and Buddha: Practicing Across Traditions. A film by Jon Ankele. With Paul Knitter, Father Robert Kennedy, Chung Hyun Kyung. Available at Amazon Prime. ***** I’m obsessed with the Buddhist-Christian dialogue. That’s partly because I’m married to a Catholic—a highly unconventional one—but also because I was raised in the Christian tradition and never shook it ...Read more
- That Little VoiceThoughts During a Pandemic I know by experience that sitting zazen enriches my life. I enjoy sitting with my brother-in-law at noon, as we get his day started, and I sometimes sit also in the late afternoon, after I’ve done yoga, but my favorite time to sit, a habit I’ve had for almost thirty years, is ...Read more
- The Hotel of LifeThoughts During a Pandemic I have two recurring dreams these days, or at least two sites for dreams. One is on a hilly street, maybe cobblestone, where there is an alley with various open-air bars. I tend to choose one of those bars in particular, though I’ve entered others. The other site is a huge luxury ...Read more
- Why Bodhidharma Faced the WallWhat if Turkey Sex Arises? I know it must seem strange to people that, when I meditate in my Asheville cabin, I look out the French doors at the back of my study. Soto Zen practitioners are supposed to stare at a wall. But in this smallish cabin (900 square feet), there isn’t any unoccupied wall ...Read more
- Deluded FoolZazen and Prayer Some years ago my wife and I were renting an apartment in Chapel Hill while our Durham residence underwent an extensive renovation. There were various problems with the apartment—it was small, and had a real problem with moisture in the air, so we had to run de-humidifiers all the time—and we were extremely ...Read more
- Coming Together by Being ApartIn Retreat and On Retreat My Zen teacher Josho Pat Phelan has sat with the group every weekday for years. In fact, though she does many other things—administrate the whole group, and give talks, and lead sesshins, and do dokusan—I’ve always thought of her her primary job as waking up every morning before the crack of ...Read more
- Embraced and Nurtured by this EarthSky Flowers on the Day Before: My Life Guided by Zen Buddhism by Kazumitsu Wako Kato. Self-published. 462 pp. $16.95. **** Kazumitsu Wako Kato preceded Shunryu Suzuki at Soki-ji Temple in San Francisco, and served as his assistant when Suzuki first arrived in 1959. For that reason alone this book will be of interest to Zen ...Read more
- Everything MattersThe Buddha Said Do Nothing? Where Was That? The most recent New Yorker includes the Ian Parker profile of Yuval Harari, author of such bestsellers as Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, all of which take an immensely broad look at history. I haven’t read the books, but my impression is that ...Read more
- What Makes a Religion?The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World by Barbara O’Brien. Shambhala. 316 pp. $19.95. **** I’ve been asking myself what makes a religion ever since I read Karen Armstrong’s marvelous The Lost Art of Scripture. There, in that cataloging of the world’s vast scriptures, Christianity almost ...Read more
- Is Kensho Necessary?One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart by Henry Shukman. Counterpoint. 339 pp. $16.95. **** Henry Shukman had an interesting life as a writer even before he began spiritual practice, but this memoir centers on his practice and wouldn’t exist without it. He is British and grew up in Oxford, the child ...Read more
- Repose and Bliss My AssSesshin Strikes Again “The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. . . . Traps and snares can never reach it.” Fukanzazengi , Eihei Dogen. I am often struck, let’s make that always struck, by the sick feeling of dread I have every year as our winter ...Read more
- Master and DiscipleThe Gift of Rain a novel by Tan Twan Eng. Weinstein Books. 432 pp. $16.99. **** The Gift of Rain is one of the most affecting novels I’ve read in years; toward the end I was both riveted to and deeply disturbed by what I was reading, so that I could hardly sleep. This is Tan ...Read more
- Old Lady KoansThe Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon. Wisdom Publications. 455 pp. $18.95 Among my favorite Zen teachings are the Old Lady stories, where some pompous Zen master thinks a great deal of himself and has his bubble burst by a woman who has no apparent status ...Read more
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And Is He PissedLooks Pretty Good to MeShe Wasn’t Crazy. The World Was.Elmore the GreatWriting Like God
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (121)American literature (213)art (112)Buddhism (167)Christianity (124)creative process (244)death and dying (137)meditation (122)movies (158)music (36)race (104)religion (185)sex (167)spirituality (170)the art of narrative (251)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)