Worlds of Desire, Form and No Form

The world of desire is the world of attachment. The world of form is the world as it is, including desires. We have desires; everything has a kind of desire. But if we observe desire as it is, that is also the form world, not the desire world. The world of no form is easily obtained in your deep zazen. When you do not feel your body, you're deep. That is the world of non-form. Those are the worlds where every being exists. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-B - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Celebration at Sokoji, mid '60s

Double Construction

You can think, and thinking will help you, of course. But you should know, at the same time, that answers will not be definite. So you think, but you are free from thinking. To have what we call a double-edged blade. So double-edged: don't think and think. It works two ways. This is the double nature, the double construction of Buddhist philosophy: thinking construction and non-thinking construction. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-B - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Silas Holm, Niels' son, in reflection

Steve Weintraub is Recovering at home

What a relief to know Steve is back home and mending after his bicycle accident. Praying for a speedy recovery for you Steve!

Here's his message

Bird Flies Like a Bird

We say, “Bird flies like a bird, fish swims like a fish.” That is that. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-B - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Commenting on the Lotus Sutra

After they went begging, in mid day, when it was very hot, they rested for a while in someone’s garden. It is very good to rest, to have something good which is offered by the owner of a house or garden. So, this may be a kind of afternoon recreation, or afternoon rest. It does not mean resting and having a good time all day long. Rather, after the practice of begging, for a while, only when it was hot, they would rest at someone’s home. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-B - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Present were Andrew Atkeison, wife Rosie, and their friend Michelle, Mary Cunov, Andy Ferguson, Howie Klein, Katrinka McKay, Deb Saint, Joyce Pointe and her friend Mike, Dennis Samson, Todd Springfield, John Tarrant, and DC, 6-08-2010.

Yesterday's post missing a key part of the opening sentence.

 Here's how it should have read (bold words those I left out) - DC:

Working on Tassajara Stories, I decided to do a fact check on Nancy Roscoe's assertion that when the Roscoes and the Becks bought Tassajara in 1960, she said that she and Anna couldn't tend bar because it was illegal for women to do that.

Go to that post

Thanks Peter Ford

Attentiveness

Does someone know what meditation means? To meditate looks like to contemplate on something, but I don't know what meditate means. Someone said it can be translated as “to be attentive to something.” So, if we understand meditation, and if we use the word meditate in that sense, I think it is a good translation, but usually by meditate we mean to dwell on something, or to concentrate on something. Contemplation is also meditation, but the more fundamental attitude or practice, is attentiveness. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Gender Stories from Bartenders to Baboons

Working on Tassajara Stories, I decided to do a fact check on Nancy Roscoe's assertion that when the Roscoes and the Becks bought Tassajara in 1960, she said that she and Anna Couldn't tend bar because it was illegal for women to do that. She added that she should know because she's a lawyer, or she was at the time of telling this during a 2007 cuke interview with her and Anna Beck. Nancy passed the fact check. Here's an article on tending bar and women where I learned, among other things, that women in California could not legally tend bar (with possible family ownership exceptions which were common in other states) till the California Supreme Court overturned that law in 1971. 

Right after reading that article today. son Kelly sent a video message about a tribe of primates that shifted from being an abusive male dominated culture to a peaceful matriarchal culture. I knew that story but decided to look into it so as to guard against passing on false information. Found it in a NYTimes article. It was baboons.

And I read another article in the Atlantic about primates and other animals and gender and our assumptions and prejudices and so forth.   

Attentive Mind

Attentive mind is very important. From the beginning it always has been an important point for our practice. Counting breathing is a very old and traditional way to always have an attentive mind. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Tassajara 1967 in old zendo

Podcast with Lawrence Burns

Lawrence Burns is a professor of clinical psychology and personality  at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. As a kid, he and his siblings went to Tassajara with their mother who, after ten years of research, made a scrapbook on Tassajara history that we turned into a book named A Brief History of Tassajara - published by Cuke Press.

Here's the podcast

Larry Burns cuke page

I usually forget to plug the podcasts on What's New. Look back at the older ones on the cuke podcast page.