Various Feelings

Sometimes you will have pity on someone who is involved in wrong practice. And sometimes you will laugh at yourself, when you fall into wrong practice. You will tease yourself: “What are you doing?” You will have various feelings. All the real compassion, real love, true encouragement, and true courage will arise from here. You will not only be a courageous person but also a very kind person when you understand yourself in that way.

Fall, 1967 - Oldest Group Photo at Tassajara

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

With Guest Susan Ross

Susan Ross is an illustrator and artist who worked on Be Here Now. In this podcast she takes us from her native Ohio to Smith College to Woodstock to New Mexico, to Shunryu Suzuki's funeral with Gary Snyder and David Padwa, to Colorado studying with Trungpa Rinpoche. She's in Mexico now still being an artist, practicing Tibetan Buddhism, and working on turtle rescue. Her website is susanrosscreative.com.

Be Yourself

The purpose of our practice is just to be yourself. When you become yourself in that way, you have real enlightenment there. The enlightenment you have in your mind that you attained a long time ago, is not actual enlightenment.

Tassajara Spring Practice Period 1973

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

Featured Cuke Archives page

A Memorial Podcast for Gene DeSmidt - Gene was a dear friend of mine and the SF Zen Center who died on October 30th. Gene was a creative builder who left behind a number of sound structures at Tassajara and Green Gulch. He was also a musician who helped me much in that realm. He was a great character and a humorous, generous, good hearted person.

Painted - Actual

If you cannot see what buddha-nature [taps] actually is, it doesn’t mean anything [laughs]. That would be a painted rice cake; it is not an actual one. If you want to see an actual rice cake, you should see it when it is there.

From a silkscreen by William DeRaymond

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

Here

So budda-nature is not something which will appear in the future. Real buddha-nature should be something which is actually here [taps on table with stick].

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

RIP Gene DeSmidt

SFZC Instagram post about Gene's passing:

We were saddened to learn that Gene DeSmidt died on October 30 after a long illness. An old and beloved friend of SFZC, Gene is responsible for the construction and renovation of many iconic SFZC buildings including the Stone Dining Room, Bathhouse (old and new), Bird House, and Cabin 14 & 15 at Tassajara, as well as housing at Green Gulch Farm.

From Abbot David: "I remember him as a bright, energetic, creative person with a big heart. He was someone who loved to laugh and connect with people."

Image: Abbot David and Gene at Tassajara in 2012

Gene's cuke page - lots there and lots to add there. (will be updating)

Gene - Lot's of good times. Thanks for all. See you soon. Gya te gya te. - dc

from Gene's GoFundMe page:

As of Wednesday 10/30 at 8:46 am, our beloved father Gene has passed on to heaven.
We sent him off peacefully with Bob Dylan music in the air.
Thank you all for your love and support.
We will notify everyone about the memorial gathering in December.

DeSmidt Builders - lots to tell there

SF Chron X post on Season of Sharing helping Gene - with link to SF Chron article on him.

Gene with Jerry Brown whose home Gene worked on.

Become Yourself

Buddha-nature which you have proudly within yourself is not buddha-nature. Actual buddha-nature is when you say “Hai!” or when you become you yourself, or when you forget all about yourself. [Hai is yes in Japanese.]

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

Forget Ourselves

As Dogen Zenji says, “To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. And to study ourselves is to forget ourselves in each moment.” To forget ourselves means to be yourself in each moment. Then everything will come and help you, and everything will ensure your enlightenment.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

The Next Moment

You should forget all about any misunderstanding at the place where you are right now. Do you understand? You should forget this moment, and you should grow to the next—you should extend yourself to the next one. That is the only way. I think you must have understood our practice.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

Right Here

You can’t stop at the top of the pole, and you can’t jump off. That is the problem. That is why you should practice, and you should forget all about the top of the pole. If so, where we should forget or throw our misunderstanding is right here. Not this way or that way or past or future. Right here.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

Featured Cuke Archives page

Don't Worry (Excessively) - DC riffs on not worrying excessively about undocumented immigrants and the ongoing election. Listen to the podcast here.

No Top

When you have some experience of enlightenment or something, you think we can rest here observing various sights at the top of a pole, forgetting all about continuing climbing. Usually, we think in that way, but actually, there is no top for anything. Things are continuously growing or changing to something else. Nothing exists in its own form or color. So actually, there is no top. When we think, “Here is a top,” that is already misunderstanding.

—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.

An Unusual new book

Bear and Forbear: Zen in “The Art of Living"

by Lucien Samms

Paperback and ebook available exclusively at Barnes and Noble

Epictetus’ Stoicism (particularly The Discourses) and Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism (especially Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind) have been my guides to living for the last 35 years. 

The attached text is my attempt to show the inescapable and profound compatibility of the tenors of these two ways of living, a compatibility so often hidden by their distinct vehicles of presentation. Western students/practitioners of each (or both) of these ways of life will benefit, I believe, from better understanding my approach to Epictetus’ and Suzuki’s compatibility. 

Though the immediate audience for the book is persons interested in Stoicism and Zen Buddhism, my hope is that the book will eventually appeal to a much wider audience, one interested in bearing and forbearing as a path to peace of mind and to living peacefully.

If time or inclination prevents you from providing feedback or from otherwise responding, I understand, and I wish you all the best.  

Lucien Samms

Top of a Pole

There is a very famous koan. A man climbed up to the top of a pole. If he stays there, he is not enlightened. When he jumps off from the top of the pole, he may be an enlightened one. How we understand this koan is how we understand our practice. Why we have something which should be taken out from us is because we stay here. Because you stay at the top of a pole, you have problems. But actually, there is no top for a pole—for actual pole continues endlessly forever. So, you cannot stop here, actually. —cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-20 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.