Link fixed on prior post.

 Darn it. I've got to check these posts after I upload them. Sometimes the link disappears and have to redo. Or maybe I just forgot it. Anyway, now it's there. - dc

Podcast

A Chat with Paul Discoe - in which Paul talks about his O2 Artisan Aggregate in Oakland, how his Zen Architecture book was guided by the Genjo Koan and much more.

Paul Discoe cuke page.

Stick

Jack Weller: Docho Roshi, I am troubled by your saying that you don't trust us. 

SR: [Laughs.] Yeah. I want to encourage you to, you know, stick to something, you know, not in term of good or bad, but like water sticks to lower place. Without that kind of spirit, we cannot trust anyone, until we can see that kind of practice in some other person.

Jack: Then we can trust them, right?

SR: [Laughs.] Yeah.

Jack: So we can trust you.

SR: [Laughing.] Ho!

Jack: But you cannot trust us.

SR: Yeah, maybe. I am trying, you know, always to stick to something, not because this is good or bad. When you stick to one thing only, you know, it may be sometimes understood as something good. Sometime it may be understood as something which is bad. But whether it is good or bad, is out of the question. If it is helpful for me and for others to stick to one practice.

Jack: Thank you very much.                --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

An Onion in my Pocket

 

Deborah Madison's new book is out.

Deborah Madison dot com

Deborah's cuke page

One Practice

Dan Chesluk: Docho Roshi, why have you told us this morning to concentrate on one activity?

SR: What I mean is not so complicated a thing-- you know. Try to get up before the alarm [laughs], or, try-- try not to eat too much -- that kind of thing is-- anything which you think you want to try.

Dan: I thought you meant that for a long period of time we should concentrate on one thing.

SR: Yeah [laughs], that is something which you should do always for long period of time.

Dan: Concentrate on one thing? Pick one thing?

SR: Yeah. That is very good practice.

Dan: 'Cause for myself I tend not to do that, you know--

SR: Yeah, maybe so. So stick to one practice forever [laughs]. That is very good [laughter].

Dan: Thank you very much.                --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

A Sacrifice

Here's the third and finalpost in this week's Tracy Cramer series. Tracy wrote:

I am ebaying my tin batmobile to pay for Manjushri. One treasure for another. All superheroes. 

Manjushri cuts through the delusion of duality, and Batman and Robin are relieved of the burden of the belief that they have to clobber someone to relieve all suffering.

Salvation

E. L. Hazelwood: Docho Roshi, I have a question, but I can't see it. And so I can't grasp it. And so I don't know what it is. And so I don't know how to ask it.

SR: Yeah. The basic problem is the same for everyone. Anyway as long as you are here, don't be too much concerned about yourself, or what you do, or what others do. Just observe Tassajara as one body, as one person who has every part of body-- hands, legs, head, ears, eyes. And let it work without much mistake. If you try to practice our way, everyday practice, with this idea, then there is salvation for each one of us.

E. L.: Thank you very much.               --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Barton Stone's Words of Thanksgiving

To the topsoil and all its inhabitants, worms, insects, fungi, microbes, we utterly depend on you. Your presence is the foundation of our life, and our daily interchange.  Gratitude to you, topsoil!  Thank you!

Gratitude to you, our human ancestors!  We are gathered here from the four directions, from many continents, on this ancestral land of the Ohlone, Miwok, Pomopeople.  With pain in our hearts we acknowledge the continuing injustice of colonialism, your resistance, and your long stewardship.  We say thank you.  Thank you!

Gratitude to our Buddhist ancestors!  Sakyamuni, Bodhidharma, Dogen, Suzuki!  Thank you to Stone Creek founder, Jisho Warner, and our head teachers, Dojin Emerson and Korin Pokorny!  Thank you!

To the hills of northern California we say thank you!  Shasta, Diablo, Tamalpais, Sonoma, Sugarloaf and all their inhabitants!  We receive the perspective you offer us with humility and deep gratitude.  Thank you!

Gratitude to the gardens, where we gratefully practice the healing process of collaboration with the other forms of life and receive beneficent beauty and abundance.  Thank you, gardens!

Barton Stone cuke page

Disgust

Jeff Broadbent: Docho Roshi, why do I feel hatred, repugnance, and disgust?

SR: Maybe because you want to solve everything, every problem in limited sense and by limited way-- that is why. You should wait, you know. You should do one by one. Then there is no hatred or no bad feeling.

Jeff: How do you mean one by one?

SR: One by one? Just to do something in time. To keep up with other's practice. That is the main point. And don't discriminate your work too much within your limited time and material or space. You should do your best. Whether it is good or bad, no one knows [laughs], you know, whether it is good or bad.

Jeff: Thank you very much.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Judge

Niels Holm: Docho Roshi, will you please tell me why I judge myself and other as good and bad student?

SR: I couldn't follow it.

Niels: Will you please tell me why I judge myself and others as good and bad students?

SR: Judge or discriminate, you mean?

Niels: Yes.

SR: You are good student. There is no need to compare you to someone else. You have your own good quality which, you know, no one has. So you are independent. And when you become you yourself, you will be with all your friends. Okay?

Niels: Thank you very much.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Scribblings

Tracy Cramer's wife Yumiko just translated some Japanese notes of Shunryu Suzuki's that were on the page with calligraphy and other graphic artifacts from his hand. I knew it was not anything important, just some scribbled kanji, but there is so little that we've got in that area that I included it with other items which there are also few of. I'm glad there's just a little bit. Makes my job easier. I'm glad his wife Mitsu threw out letters and stuff (thanks Vickie for going through her wastebasket to get a little bit once) and that he did too and didn't do a lot of calligraphy and that the SFZC didn't have any system to save things - so into the here and now. So thanks Tracy and Yumiko.  

True Home

 Dan Welch: Docho Roshi, may we all understand our true home by the use of these words in the ceremony. 

SR: I couldn't follow it.

Dan: I hope--

SR: Uh-huh.

Dan: -- that we all come to understand our true home--

SR: Uh-huh.

Dan: -- by the use of these words in the ceremony.

SR: Uh-huh. Yeah. I hope so.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Podcast with Robert Halpern

Robert Halpern was an early student of Taizan Maezumi, Shunryu Suzuki, and Chogyam Trungpa who now lives in Halifax. Check him out at the Cuke Audio Podbean site. One of the great characters from back then.

Robert Halpern cuke page

Robert, Shunryu Suzuki, Phillip Whalen, - Tassajara 1967

An eko chant writ down Shunryu Suzuki

An eko in Japanese is a brief chant dedicating merit, often of a long chant that has preceded it. Shunryu Suzuki wrote an eko out and copies were made for a reason unknown in these quarters. Reb Anderson gave Tracy Cramer a copy of it and Tracy sent me a photo of it and Shohaku Okumura translated it. That's presented here. It has been on the cuke page for Suzuki's calligraphy or anything by his hand - without translation. 

Comment and translation by Shohaku Okumura, ed by DC - thanks Tracy Cramer for getting the following from him. Here's Tracy's story about receiving it from Reb.

The writing of Suzuki Roshi is a brief Eko for a service, Sutra Chanting for Mortuary Hall Patrons (in Soto School Scriptures For Daily Services And Practice published by Sotoshu Shumucho). It is in page 68 of the book. The English translation of this part of the eko is:

May the merit generated thereby assist their awakened spirit and adorn the land of their reward. We humbly pray that within the current of birth and death they shall be as a lustrous pearl shimmering undisturbed in a vast sea; that on the shore of nirvana they shall be as a cinnamon moon shining alone in the azure sky; so that they will guide the entire world, together climbing the path to awakening.

Who

Katherine Thanas: Docho Roshi, who are you?

SR: Good question [laughs]. To whom you are asking [laughter]?

Katherine: To all of you.

SR: Hmm? All of me [laughs]? Do you really understand all of me -- what you see and what you do not see?

Katherine: I don't know that I understand it all. I feel there is much there.

SR: I am here. But before I am here, you know, what exists here? Something you don't know existed [laughs]. I am, you know, someone who exists here who is speaking something. And I am also someone who does not appear in this way. Before I say something-- before I exist here, something is here with all being. And I am both someone who has form and color, and someone who has no form and no color. And you are speaking to someone who has body and mind.

Katherine: Thank you very much.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

RIP William Irwin Thompson

Bill Thompson 

16 July 1938—8 November 2020

A number of people came to the SFZC through the Lindesfarne Asso. on Long Island I think it was. Michael Katz for one. I first met him there as did Dan Welch and others who visited them from the SFZC. Hope to gather more on this connection and history. - dc

Wikipedia page

Founder of the Lindesfarne Asso. which funded (I think) the Lindesfarne building at the SFZC's Green Gulch Farm. The association's center in Crestone was transferred to Richard Baker's Dharma Sangha.

Bill Thompson's Amazon page - Don't see his At the Edge of History there which was nominated for the National Book Award. i learned that when I introduced him to Stewart Brand by the pool at Tassajara and Thompson congratulated Brand on beating him out for that award with the Whole Earth Catalogue. 

Here's an Amazon page with a fuller list of Thompson's books

Youtube search result for William Irwin Thompson

Answers

 Harriet Hiestand: Docho Roshi? You told us once that we are each our own teachers, and so every question I thought of for you I could answer. But I felt that I should ask them anyway. How can I trust my own answers? 

SR: Your own answers? Maybe you cannot completely trust any answer. Whether it is your answer or my answer, you cannot trust it completely. But when you ask me question, it is a kind of communication. To share the problem is the point of asking question.

Harriet: But I get very frustrated because you never answer. You just substitute words, and there's never-- never an answer.

SR: Mm-hmm. To understand in that way is better, you know, not to rely on the answer so much. But to present some question, that is enough.

Harriet: Thank you very much.              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Forget

Mary Quagliata: Docho Roshi, I always forget what I am going to say at this ceremony because it is so formal, but I hope you had a good day today and we can practice together in a group.

SR: [Silence. Sounds like Suzuki bows.]              --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Insurmountable

Liz Wolf: Docho Roshi [one sound of clappers], I have many questions, and I can't choose between them. And so I just want to say that you are the only faith that is here for me, and I want to thank you. 

SR: Yeah. But choose, you know, something and be concentrated on something you have chosen. Choose some problem and try to be concentrated on that--

Liz: On that what?

SR: -- on that problem-- on the problem you have chosen.

Liz: What if it seems insurmountable?

SR: Choose something easier [laughter].

Liz: Thank you.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Consideration

Sally Block: Docho Roshi, you have told us that we are not alike at all, and also you tell us that we should develop consideration for each other. How can we develop a feeling for what goes on in other people's minds, or how they think, how they react, why they react, and how they live, so that we can develop consideration for them? 

SR: To be able to understand reality from various angle-- even though it is not possible to understand things from various angle, we should reserve always some understanding for someone else and try to understand other's feelings, other's understanding. Other's understanding may not be always right: sometimes wrong, sometimes right. As what you understand is sometime right and sometimes wrong. But without being caught by the idea of right or wrong, we should try to understand something which is something wrong as well as something which is right. This is-- if you try to do it, this is very difficult. But the only way is to practice zazen-- to be concentrated on your zazen practice. The way you practice zazen and the way you do something in your everyday life is not the same. Your everyday life will be good when your practice is good because your everyday life will be supported by your power of practice. So the best way for us is to be concentrated on our zazen practice. This is, anyway, the most important point. Everyday practice will be taken care of if your everyday life is concentrated on your zazen practice.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Fixed the link

 to the Glady Thacher story below. Here it is again. 

- thanks Ray

Remembering Chris Pirsig

Forty-one years ago today, our dear friend and fellow student Chris Pirsig, was murdered while walking near the SFZC City Center. He'd been practicing with the us for four years. Remember or learn about Chris at his cuke page. He would have been 63 today.

Duality

Angie Runyon: Docho Roshi, I too want to know the meaning of human existence. The meaning of human existence?

SR: Human existence? Yeah-- human existence, you know, is-- the characteristic of human existence is duality. We are dualistic being. That is our characteristic of life. So if you attach to one side of our life, we will be completely lost because we have double nature. So our understanding of life should be double structure.             --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Glady Thacher’s Story of Connection

Glady Thatcher's story of connection with the SFZC - from SFZC Sangha News

Glady has started four non profits in her living room. Here's a report about one of them. I am fortunate to have spent some time with Glady going to SFZC events. She's a radiant person. - dc

Photos of Loring

Got almost all the photos on the Cuke page of Loring Palmer, who died on November 11th peacefully in the morning, off his Facebook page. Gotta crop some of them and get the names and dates down, but good enough to share for now. - dc

This one's by Sally Chapman who also has a photo of his altar on that page

One

Evelyn Pepper: Docho Roshi, you say that we're all one. Then why are we-- is everything so different?

SR: Yeah. Because it is different, they are all one. Do you understand [laughs, laughter]? If it is same, you know, it is not even one. We say “one” because they are different. If it is, you know, same from the beginning, it is-- there is no need to say one. Okay?           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Brian Victoria on Zen Terrorism

 Zen Terror: Master Nissho Inoue and his band of assassins teach some uncomfortable truths about terrorism

Brian Victoria cuke page

Kind

Frances Thompson: Docho Roshi, your kindness touches my heart.

SR: Maybe because I am not so kind [laughs].

Frances: Thank you very much.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC 

Slowly

Emmy Buckley: Docho Roshi, I carry a very weak light to help me find my way through the darkness that I feel breathing all around me. I go very slowly. And I am very deeply grateful for your patience and understanding you have in helping me. Thank you very much.

SR: Go slowly as much as you can.          --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Rip Loring Palmer

He died on the morning of November 11th with a smile on his face.

Loring Palmer cuke page - with a link to a long podcast done with him recently. 

Issan Tommy Dorsey

" This is a recollection of the last 10 days of Issan's life." - Ken Ireland

Serious

Pat Lang: Docho Roshi, could you explain what it means to be a serious Zen student?

SR: Serious? Excuse me-- serious Zen--

Pat L.: Serious student of Zen Buddhism.

SR: Serious student Zen Buddhism. Don't try to be serious [laughter, laughs]. Just keep up with our practice. Don't, you know, try to get up earlier than other people [laughs, laughter]. Stay in bed. Okay?

Pat L.: Okay. [Laughter.] Thank you very much.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Lew Richmond's new book has been released

EVERY BREATH, NEW CHANCES: HOW TO GROW OLD WITH HONOR AND DIGNITY has been released!  Purchase it here.  Amazon link is here. Watch a 1 minute video of Lew describing the book and check out his website for more info about him and his work.

Lew Richmond cuke page

Meaningful

Pat Herreshoff: Docho Roshi, I do not understand the meaning of my life. We have been given to understand that meaning is eternal. Is it possible for me to relate eternal meaning to this transient body? 

SR: Yes it is possible, and eternal meaning is actually in your everyday life. So there is no need to figure out what is the meaning of life-- especially for you. I say what you are doing is very good, so don't try to figure out the meaning of your life. To me your life is meaningful, but I don't know right now if it is meaningful for you or not. But your life is meaningful, very meaningful, and that you are struggling with it is also meaningful. Don't lose another aspect of your life. Don't stick to one aspect only.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Podcast report

 Erik Storlie was our guest twice last week. He's an early Suzuki student (from 64) who helped Katagiri found his new group after he left the SFZC. Has also written a couple of books. We had one long phone chat from which I cut the first twenty minutes or so for the Life in Bali podcast from last week - not that he has ever been here but it seemed to fit in there. The rest of it went up Saturday. Here's his cuke page.

A Chat with Erik Storlie

Life in Bali with guest Erik Storlie

Keep Up

 DC: Docho Roshi, I am so grateful to you and Tassajara and Zen Center that I'd like to study Zen. What should I do first? 

SR: You should do something in right time in the right way. Try to keep up with our practice.      --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

An almost silent Q and A in a Shosan Ceremony at Tassajara

 Arnold Silberman: Docho Roshi. [One crack! from one of them - then silence for a few moments.] Thank you very much.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

DC Comment: I was there (I asked the next question), but I don't remember this. Seems like either Arnold stood silently till Suzuki his something - like the mealboard in front of him with his staff, or that Arnold made the sound, maybe by bringing clappers with him to strike them together once and then Suzuki just bowed.

Upgraded Podcast page

Cuke Audio Podcast page on cuke.com now features the guests for the Zen related podcasts with nifty little photos beside their names and links to their podcast and cuke page. The other Zen related podcast themes - reading Crooked Cucumber, Zen Is Right Here, and Tassajara Stories, each have a page that's linked to. Next got to create a page for the Life in Bali weekly podcasts with guests.  - thanks Peter Ford

Sermon

Jack Elias: Docho Roshi, there are many questions about how hard and how long. The stream outside Tassajara has been flowing a long time. I wish to ask it now how long and how hard must it flow? Listen.

SR: If you notice that point, that is Buddha's sermon.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Brother

Our dear friend and dharma sibling Loring Palmer, an early Suzuki student, is in hospice care. He's going with the flow, being grateful and ready. It's all been "Good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end," as he says, borrowing from Buddha. If you want to send him a message, send it to dchad at cuke dot com and I'll forward it. Just did a long podcast with Loring recently. - dc

Loring's cuke page

Salvation

Rick Morton: Docho Roshi, how may this Lotus Sutra be used to gain salvation?

SR: We don't know how. Still the salvation is going. It may go on forever.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Choose

Chris Flynn: Docho Roshi, some Zen masters, both contemporary and historical, have put a great deal of emphasis on reaching kensho. They put emphasis on method and posture, but here at Tassajara and at Sokoji we don't do that. 

SR: Then what will you do here? Here it is necessary to have confidence to keep up with everyday activity which is going here. If it is difficult to do everything perfectly, then choose something like zazen practice or like sutra reciting, like sutra study. Choose one or two out of the many activities, and try to be concentrated on the activity you have chosen, and try to do it satisfactorily.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

The Three Key B’s of Buddhism

 

Bowing Boredom and Bliss - another article related to dear old Philip Whalen, this one by Ken Ireland

And swiping this great photo from it as well. 

philip-whalen-anne-waldman-allen-ginsberg-performing-at-naropa-1975-photo-by-rachel-homer

Computer to shop

Perfect time to not have my newer ASUS laptop. The shop needs it till Thursday. It's Wednesday morning. Watching Tuesday eve election results while getting it ready to go. Told me to back up all data as they won't. Doing that now. Nyoman will be here to pick it up and deliver it to the shop when I call and let him know I'm ready. Backup laptop old and slow but I guess it will do. If not, these are good days to not have it. Posts and podcasts are pre-loaded. Pray for peace. 

My Practice for today starting at 7pm EST US

Not fight thoughts and fears and doubts and confusion. Just sit and breathe into it all -- while watching CNN and MSNBC, follow 538 and Talking Points Memo. Drink tea. Eat fruit. Stand up a lot and do little exercises and swing my arms, some yoga. Pace. - DC

Confusion

 Doug Bradle: Docho Roshi, there you sit resolute in your serenity, and here am I miserable and quivering in my confusion. And as I try to think of a question for you, I just became hopelessly tangled up in my own thoughts. And then, just now I thought, well, you probably had to go through the same thing at one time too. And you probably had to try and think of a question for your master. And what did you do? Did you become hopelessly confused like me, or did you find some way out? 

SR: You say you don't know what to do. If there is no one to ask about the confusion, then what is the confusion? The confusion itself is already the meaning of life, your own experience which you have to get through. So to ask a question, to present a question, is a kind of communication-- mutual understanding. It means to extend your experience. So you should accept the confusion as your experience of life. To be in confusion means to be  amid the boundless mercy of the Buddha. We should accept in that way. And we should lead our life in this way.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Compassion

Jeff Sherman: Docho Roshi, very often I feel your compassion. I don't understand emptiness. I was wondering where compassion is in emptiness.

SR: Compassion will be on always some phenomenal world, which causes our attachment. Originally everything is empty. That is how our compassion arises. So compassion and somethingness and emptiness is the same-- has the same quality. When we understand emptiness, we become compassionate on something which exists in terms of material or spiritual. So emptiness is not different from compassion. It is the source of compassion.

Jeff S.: I'm not sure I understand, but I don't know-- don't know what to say about my not understanding. I can't ask another question.

SR: Where there is something, there should be compassion. Compassion should be always on every being [?], like everything arise from emptiness.

Jeff S.: Thank you very much.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Philip Whalen Month on Parole Blog

 Saturday featured David Schneider's piece on Philip etc here from Parole Blog. Here's another 

This Heaven Where We Live As Music 
by Keith Kumasen Abbott

David Schneider live about Street Zen with Kochin Paley Ellison today!

Passing this on -  Dear friends,  Thank you for registering for the Shambhala Online Book of the Month--November Edition featuring Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey, by Tensho David Schneider. We are delighted that Sensei Kochin Paley Ellison agreed to join the conversation, which promises to be fascinating! The live event will take place on Sunday, November 1, 2020, at the following times: 10:00am (Pacific) / 11:00am (Mountain) / 12:00pm (Central) / 1:00 pm (Eastern) / 2:00 pm (Atlantic) / 18:00 (UK) / 19:00 (CET) (If you are unable to attend, please know that the event will be recorded.)   We look forward to seeing you online soon!   Sophie (Shambhala Online)   **********************************************   Zoom Meeting link: https://zoom.us/j/93959844700?pwd=eFpQdEFFV1dwYWcrMXVXVVBaUGQvUT09 Meeting ID: 939 5984 4700 Passcode: 991464