New Errata for ZMBM

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice - by Shunryu Suzuki

More careless errors revealed after forty-five years.

Thanks again to Victor Sergeyev, Secretary, PH Ligatma, publisher of ZMBM in Russian, for sending this.

That's Gyokujun So-on Suzuki, Shunryu's master who figures in one of the errors through no fault of his own.


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Not Struggling

If your determination is not strong enough your mind will be in agitation. Zen is not struggling. 

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-11-00B as found on shunryusuzuki.com

Bird Sounds

There are some distinctive bird sounds around our place her in Sanur.


That's a plaintive cuckoo and, though it's native to Bali, it is probably not one of the birds mentioned below

Acquiring the Beginner's Mind Draft

DC Remembers. - In October of 1995 I interviewed Toni, an early student of Shunryu Suzuki. She was one of the original group that sat zazen in Redwood City at Tim Burkett's, the group which soon began meeting at Marian Derby's home in Los Altos. Toni often picked up Suzuki at his temple, Sokoji, in San Francisco, drove him to Los Altos on Thursdays early for zazen, his lecture, and informal coffee and treat get-together afterwards.

Beyond Joy

If you come to think that you understand Zen and that there is no need for you to study or practice Zen any longer, that is a big misunderstanding. Zen should be our whole day and whole life work. We should follow this way without any idea of gaining. It does not mean to ignore the encouragement and joy in your practice, but true practice is beyond our joy or understanding.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-11-00A as found on shunryusuzuki.com - verbatim version not available.

Questions

Indonesians are most friendly and tend to ask questions. Where are you from? Where are you staying? They don't ask your religion but it comes up in conversation and Katrinka says I have a tendency to tell strangers waiting in line next to me the story of my life. So it comes up sometimes that I say we're Buddhists. I don't really think of myself as a Buddhist or as anything but it's the best answer that isn't too drawn out and confusing. And when I say we're Buddhists, the most common next question is, "Are you vegetarian?" Or even, "So you're vegetarian." Lots of Hindus are vegetarian and the Buddhism they know about is pretty strictly vegetarian. My answer tends to be, "When we eat vegetation, yes."

ZMBM original and 2000 edition Comparison

Comparing the original Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice with the 2000 edition which corrected a number of errors. Preface to be included soon. 

Thanks Victor Sergeyev, Secretary, PH Ligatma, publisher of ZMBM in Russian, for sending this.

That's the original ZMBM cover. The comparison and other covers on the Read more page.

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Buddhism Not Buddha's Invention

These teachings are not just Buddha's invention. The teachings are based on eternal and universal truth.

Neighborhood Legong

Legong is to me the most exquisite of the Bali dances. That's a Legong dancer in the image. In performances I've seen there are one, two, up to eight women at a time and probably can be more. There's a group of women who do Legong at the local bale banjar, neighborhood meeting hall, a stage with a roof held up by pillars and a back wall. As we walk by we can see if there's a meeting or if these women are practicing or performing their Legong. Maybe they're in a Legong club. There might be thirty or so of them and they do it to the gamelan music in sarongs and even Western clothes. We could go in I guess but just stand on the sidewalk for a while. There's no charge except I get one out of watching.

Not Just for Humans

Buddha's teaching has two faces. One is practical and the other is philosophical. The Four Noble truths and the Eightfold Holy Path are practical teaching. The teaching of interdependence and transiency are the philosophical side. The practical side of the teaching, or the teaching based on value, is for human beings. But the teaching that everything changes and is independent is not just for human beings, it is the teaching for everything.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-11-00A as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC 

Beach Story

Scott, whom I will see on the tennis court tomorrow morning early, told me about being in Phuket on the morning of December 26, 2004.

That's a local sign.

Brought 'We Shall Overcome' to civil rights movement

Guy Carawan dies at 87. - LA Times

Don't Know Why

We don't know why we practice zazen, why we have been practicing for such a long time, thousands of times practicing zazen in this way. No one knows, but we just did. There must be some meaning. That is why we practice zazen. But while you are doing it, you will find out for yourself, you cannot stop the practice of zazen. This is the so-called true practice from Buddha to us.


Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-10-16B as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC 

No Water, No Bali - an island in a global problem

From the Bali Advertiser (a good source of local news and comment) -thanks Katrinka.

That's Lake Batur in the photo - in a volcanic crater.

Wasteful use of water can be seen everywhere. Hotels water the sand where there are tables and chairs. Stores and homes water sidewalks and streets in front. I think they need a good PR firm to whip up public awareness and support to implement more education and action. Foreigners I think should emphasize that water conservation is a world-wide urgent problem and Bali and Indonesia could become good examples, leaders in the movement, waking up from their suicidal nap to help wake the rest of us up- dc

Universal

We have finished sesshin with unusual results. We have practiced in our own way and our Patriarchs' way, expressing our true nature, transmitted by Buddha to us. Our responsibility as Buddha's disciples is to manifest his way according to time and age, according to circumstances. Although how we express his way is not the same, that which is expressed is one true nature, which is universal for everyone and every existence.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-10-16B as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Not edited by DC - Think this was already minimally edited, maybe like Trudy Dixon like the one before it.   

Prayer Answered

At Renon Immigration office today extending our visa for another month.

Meg Gawler Analyses ZMBM

It's fixed now - can see PDF.

Another Title

Christopher Hitchens wrote a well-known book entitled God is Not Great which, as far as I can tell from scattered knowledge never left the realm of the literal and so-called fundamentalist in terms of what the word god stood for. From glancing at the book a few times, reading some articles, and hearing him interviewed and so forth, what I've gathered is he wrote mainly about bad things institutions have done in the name of an imaginary god.

Cleaned Up

As I've complained about recently, a storm brought a lot of trash and other debris up on the beach in Sanur not long ago and the major stuff was hauled off but then it was time for a nap and so a bunch of plastic crap was strewn along the hi tide mark every day. I complained to several hotels, one of them, the Bali Beach Hotel which has a giant long stretch. Anyway, it's pretty much all gone now. Just a tiny cosmetic take on a serious global plastic problem. Do you know about the International Campaign against Microbeads?

Taigen Dan Leighton on the meeting of Buddhist teachers and leaders at the White House

Go here to read it.and see this and other photos larger at Taigen's Ancient Dragon site.

Taigen's cuke page

Direct Expression of True Nature

I don’t feel like speaking after zazen. I feel the practice of zazen is enough but if I should say something. I think what I shall talk about will be how wonderful it is to practice zazen in this way. Our purpose is just to keep this practice forever. This practice is started from beginningless time and it will continue for the endless future. Strictly speaking, for human beings there is no other practice than this practice. There is no other way of life than this way of life, because Zen practice is the direct expression of our true nature.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-10-14 as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC   

DC Comment: And this practice is included, expressed in numerous other practices of numerous other beings Buddhist and not.

Chogyam Trungpa on Shunryu Suzuki

Chogyam Trungpa talk transcript 12/13/71 at the SFZC City Center on creating a memorial for Suzuki and more. - Wonder if this exists anywhere else. - dc

Chogyam Trungpa cuke site

Chronicles Project [Trungpa archive and oral history] where photo comes from

Buddhist Diagnosis of Climate Crisis

By Bhikkhu Bodhi [Wikipedia page on him]

Thanks Taigen Dan Leighton for sending this and Peter Ford for showing me how to embed it and post it. - dc See other posts on Meeting of Buddhist Teachers at the White House from yesterday and the day before on cuke's What's New May 19th and 20th, 2015.

Discussion of First Presidents of USA or not - and not the usual names

Just thought this article was interesting. Read about this every decade or so and then forget it and am surprised when I read it again. I'd say the eight before Washington were more accurately described as presidents of Congress though it wasn't the same as the congress after the constitution.

On the site of the constitution society - read the comments below too

History dot com

Buddhist Teacher & Leaders at White House Statement

Statement from Buddhist Teachers and Leaders in the United States  5-14-15

“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you recognize that your liberation and mine are bound up together, we can walk together.” – Lila Watson 

An Article on How to Behave

From the NY Times: Rather Than Fight or Flee, Take Responsibility by Tony Schwartz with a Shunryu Suzuki quote in the conclusion. - thanks Peter Ford

Gamelan Music Next Door

All sorts of noises come from the middle school next door here in Sanur. The sound of hundreds of kids out of class playing and talking. I'm curious to go over and meet the man whom we hear on the loudspeaker early in the morning at times. There's music now and then, drums especially on Sunday. Sometimes there's band music like in the states.

Buddhists Go to the White House

A report by Hozan Alan Senauke —16 May 2015 - on his Clear View Project site.

No Obama there. But it's still significant. - dc

This photo and one with more folks inside, same as on Alan's report, larger after Read more.

Perfection is Imperfection

Buddhism exists because of each particular existence. It is not absolute. It is temporal, impermanent, imperfect. We find perfect existence through imperfect existence. So perfection is imperfection. The eternal exists because of non-eternal existence. So if you seek for something besides yourself, it is an heretical view. In Buddhism we do not seek for or expect something besides this world. 

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-09-16 as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC   

An Immodest Suggestion

Ran into a film of the first Earth Day made by Michael Katz and Chris Bamford (guessing about the latter) and wanted to see what Alan Watts had to say but it's one of those randomly censored videos. Found it on YouTube now and can see that one so no big deal. As I mentioned a few days ago, that random censorship just seems so characteristic of how this place, Indonesia, gets administered.

One hundred and eleven years ago today, Shunryu Suzuki was born.

Our mind should be free from traces of the past,  just like the flowers of spring.

High winds blew across the green hillside, driving rain into the storm doors of Shoganji, an obscure Japanese country temple, when on May 18, 1904, Yone Suzuki gave birth to a baby boy. Her husband, Sogaku, the priest of the temple, gave his first-born son the name Shunryu, using the written characters for Excellent and Emerging, a rather formal Buddhist name full of high expectations. It was the year of the dragon, the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Emperor Meiji.

 - Opening lines of Crooked Cucumber: the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki

Note: Weather report for Chigasaki, a small area, which I understand to be or include the hill where the temple was located. On the 18th of May, for three four hour blocks there was rain and strong wind giving the opening line a 50 % chance of being correct. Thanks to Toshikazu Yasui for obtaining this information and sending it to Grahame Petchey seventeen years ago.

Read Crooked Cucumber Comes to America, a 3300 word story of his life. Enjoy. - dc

This is being posted with the full article on Sweeping Zen as well.

This Morning

It was really cool this morning before the sun came up and not hot on the court. Heat = tiredness.

Forcing

As Zen master Dogen says, the teaching which does not sound like it's forcing something on you is not true teaching.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-09-16 as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC    

[Now there's a quote to drive people away. He's talking about how we have a resistance to really accepting the truth that everything changes. - dc]

(not) False Censorship Alarm

This is what comes up when a site is blocked, censored in Indonesia. I'm working on an article on Alan Watts and found Alan Watts dot com is blocked by Internet Positif. Trust Positif. It protects you. (Messages like that rolling by). Just posted about Vimeo being blocked here three days ago. Now Alan Watts?

Two articles to finish

Tomorrow is no-online Sunday. That's good. Need to finish two articles - One for Shambhala Sun on Alan Watts and a freebie for Sweeping Zen on Shunryu Suzuki for his upcoming 111th birthday on the 18th. Haven't started the latter but I'll put something together. Have been immersing myself in Watts for the last ten days or so. Very impressed. What a guy. What an enormous legacy, much of it in the substrata. Hey - maybe I'll use that. - dc

Contradictory

Unfortunately, although this is true, it is pretty hard for us to accept. We do not want ‘everything changes’. Also this can be interpreted as the teaching as to why we have suffering. Because we cannot accept this truth, we suffer. So we have a kind of contradictory nature to the truth.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-09-16 as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC    

Tribute to Gail Mueller on CTR Chronicles

The Chronicles project of Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche featured Brigid Meier's piece about Gail Mueller that was put here on cuke a few days ago along with photos sent by Beverly Armstrong - some new ones this time. Gail's cuke memorial page.

RIP BB King

Whatever pop music was comin out, never had to worry too much if I liked it or not cause there was always jazz and the blues to listen to and always BB King. Till now. BB King has died at the age of 89 in Las Vegas. The BBC obit mentioned King was #3 on a list Rolling Stone list of greatest guitarists of all time. Here's a story about King from a recording engineer friend of mine - Ricky Sanchez who now operates Post Haste Media

Change

The basic teaching of Buddhism is the teaching of transcendence or change. Everything changes is the basic teaching and this truth is eternal truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth. All the teaching of Buddhism can be condensed into this teaching. This is the teaching for all of us and wherever we go this teaching is true. This teaching is also interpreted as the teaching of selflessness because our self nature, that of each existence is nothing but the self nature of all existence.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-09-16 as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC   

Trash on Beach

Decided today there needs to be a trash/pollution report for beaches and areas of Bali modeled on the lines of the daily tide table on Magic Seaweed. Here's the page for Sanur. It also shows when there's sunrise and set. Right now it could give a moderate trash on beaches concentrating on the high tide mark, some plastic trash and organic material in the water. It could report on which areas were cleaned up etc. There's such poor management here and most people don't care or if they do have defeatist attitudes. Talked with a Javanese friend and told him it had to be Indonesians doing it. Might suggest it to a local youth organization working toward the elimination of plastic bags. Other ideas. I'm just going to suggest stuff to locals and do nothing. - dc

Farewell Don Koue

My brother-in-law, Don Koue, husband of my sister Susan and father of my niece Camille, died yesterday morning, May 12th, at six in the morning. He'd been in hospice for a month. I talked with him recently. His hospital bed was sitting in front of their Oakland Hills picture window overlooking the Bay Area. He said he had that great view, wonderful music, good care, and Susan and Camille, and felt like he was the most fortunate person in the world.  He was assistant head of PR for UC Berkeley for years. He was in his eighties.Good man, smart as heck. A really good artist and writer. - DC

Diana Mukpo on Shunryu Suzuki

In her biography, Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, Diana Mukpo, Trungpa's wife, writes about their meeting with Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara - on the  Chogyam Trungpa cuke page.

Big Activity

Sometimes we talk about our clothing. Sometimes we talk about our body. But body or clothing are not actually we ourselves. We ourselves are big activity.

Vimeo Censored here

Pointless, irritating. Vimeo meets Censorship in Indonesia

Blocking sites in Indonesia - Citizen's Lab

Brigid Meier remembers Gail Mueller (+ photos)

[photo Gail on her birthday 2012 sent by Beverly Armstrong - more at end]

Gail Mueller and I were like sisters with all the contradictions that implies. At our best, we supported each other and sparked off each other. At our less-than-best, she exasperated me with her spacey-ness. I annoyed her with my willful ambition. Our styles could clash but they evaporated as we reconnected this past year while she was dying.  When I first learned she was in the hospital, I called immediately. After the nurse told her my name, I could hear her say, “Oh, that’s my sister!”

Knowing Water and Self

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism but to study ourselves. It is impossible to study ourselves without some teaching.

Marigolds for Katrinka

For Mother's Day, bought a kilo of these for Katrinka and wrapped in a scrap of velveteen a guy in store gave me on the way home so they could be presented to her better than in a plastic bag. She posted on her Facebook page They use them here for offerings. Wasn't much open Sunday noon. Asked the woman in the stall off the road nearby for the whole bag and she said it would be expensive. How much? 30,000 rupia - about $2.25.  Two days later they're still on our dining table - and some other places. - dc

Tim Buckley Poem

John Bailes writes: Up in Maine with Jorunn, Tim's wife, going through stuff. Found some good poems.

this

the tumble

insects

sweet magnolia

heaving breath

kaleidoscope

ocean of peace

jumbled heart

red

swamp maple leaves

falling

zenshin tim buckley

20:ii:2015

from Cancer Poems

Tim Buckley cuke page

Ornament of Life

Student D: Problem-solving does not necessarily have to be a dualistic activity. Is that right?

An interesting Wikipedia page stumbled on

Neo - Advaita is the page. I am not as critical as some quoted on this page who take the point of view that Neo-Advaita, contrary to traditional Advaita Vedanta, promotes the idea that no practice or discipline is necessary to awaken to reality. Maybe that's true but most people aren't interested in much discipline. At last this gets them in the door and then if they want to devote themselves wholeheartedly they can. I see these varied non theistic approaches as a breath of fresh air amidst all the literalism and clinging belief that's so prominant. - dc

Drums Roll

Sunday yesterday, as often, drumming from the school next door. And it's cool drumming like listening to the group of conga and other drummers in Golden Gate Park in San Fancisoco on a Sunday - just going on and on, jungle fever. Next week think I'll go over and get a visual.

To you and all the mothers in my life and everywhere:

Thanks loads! - dc

Accepting Small Mind

Immediately following yesterday's Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpt:

Student C: Could it just as well to mean accepting our small mind too?

SR: Yeah-- to accept small mind too, knowing that that is small mind. Big mind watching small mind [laughs]. Yeah. Then small mind will work, you know. Don't you think so?

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC  

Slow that clock down

Aging mechanism reversible - an article in Gizmag. Sounds promising - now if we can just survive as a species, control population, stop poisoning and murdering and exploiting ourselves, that and so much more we're on the edge of - we could spruce this place up. - Thanks to Gregory Johnson who wrote, "Sign me up!!"

Little Lizards Running Round

The organic and inorganic debris brought in by the storm and high tide has been cleaned up from where we go in Sanur anyway. It's been so cool recently - below eighty - and now there's a strong breeze - feels like seventy. Meanwhile back at the homestead, we've got some new critters.

Accept Ourselves

The purpose of practice is to accept ourselves.

Sandy Eastoak - Painter

Here's her site: www.sandyeastoak.com 

Sandy's in my old haunt, Sebastopol. 

Fish Rap is her newsletter - contact her through the website to get it. - dc

Sandy's Facebook page - Painting spirits, cycles and waters

Malaysian Human Rights Violations

Why Obama wants to torpedo a plan to fight human trafficking - Nothing makes the Malaysian government look good these days.

Photos from Vigil for Tim Buckley

Jeff Broadbent photos from the vigil with dear Dharma brother Tim and his family, including Jorunn and Jesse on the deck of their tiny inlet cabin and the rock garden they made on the hill behind his home and zendo.

Find them here at the bottom of Tim's cuke page.

Satisfied with Ourselves

Our practice is not like some intoxicating liquor, you know. Many people will get mixed up on this point-- will mix up way-seeking mind and gaining idea. We do not rely even on teaching. We want to be ourselves. And we want to be satisfied with ourselves. To be satisfied with ourselves is why we should practice.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC  

Another, longer, article on Tassajara

From the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard, At Zen retreat, stillness resonates

Mango Disappointment

Can't get mangos at the local morning market here in Sanur, haven't been able to for a while. They tell me to wait for August. Why? The seasons here aren't that different. It's an important part of our food pyramid. There were tons of yummy mangos in Malaysia. Will see what the imported ones cost at Hardy's, the supermarket mini department store.

RIP early Tassajara alum Gail Mueller

Just received word from Barbara Wenger and Beverly Morris Armstrong that Gail Mueller died this morning in hospice care in Hawaii. 

That's Gail in 1975 from a photo off her son Quinn's Facebook page. He did the Gofundme page for Gail featured here on cuke a few times.

For more on Gail, photos, and links go to the memorial page for her on cuke.com

Peter Coyote new interview

Pacific Sun Interview with Peter Coyote by Steve Helig in Marin County, California. - thanks Katrinka

Peter's new book featured here a few days ago: The Rainman's Third Cure: an Irregular Education

Peter Coyote dot com and Peter's cuke page

Storm and Trash

Mentioned that huge wind and rain that came up so suddenly the other night that forced us inside. The next morning, yesterday, there was a super high tide that brought in tons of driftwood and plastic trash. Many people were out collecting it and carting it off. Only time that's happened in the time we've been here - over a year. They get a lot of plastic trash mid December to mid February, as has been mentioned here, over in Kuta and Seminyak, but only a little bit here now and then. The plastic in the ocean problem has yet to be taken seriously enough worldwide. It is having much more than cosmetic consequences and needs to be reversed ASAP.

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans. - Jacques Yves Cousteau (from decades ago)

More on the same line as the day before yesterday's Suzuki lecture excerpt

Because you have some other purpose or aim, you become critical of yourself. Not by your inmost request, but by some gaining idea. In this case, to be critical of your practice is not good. But if you accept your practice even though it is not perfect, to try to be perfect is your inmost request. If so, to be aware of your imperfect practice is itself an expression of your inmost request. If you understand in this way, that is right understanding.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Barely edited by DC 

NY Times plugs Tassajara guest season

In the Travel section, short. About the guest season. 

Hope there's that much water in the creek. - dc

  - Thanks Tom Silk


Tassajara page on SFZC site

RIP old friend Johnny Clarke

Johnny died on the morning of the 3rd of Cancer. Our father's were business partners and we grew up seeing each other quite a bit. Just had a nice long phone chat with him a week or two ago. Really good guy.

Obituary in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Malay New Age Group

On our seven hour drive back from Penang to Kuala Lumpur Sunday eve, we took turns telling about our lives. One thing Lai Mun talked about was how rewarding her experience had been with a group she belongs to,

Outflows

Student E: Roshi? In the Lankavatara Sutra they described a buddha as one who controls his outflows. Would you say a few words about that? Or they also used the phrase “non-leakage,” which was hard to get.

Back in Bali

Malaysia was good and we loved our hosts - Wai and Vidya, staying in their school, walking to Dim Sum for breakfast, loved the milk tea. Lai Mun and her comfy spcacious home, five hour drive to Penang for three days and seven hours back with holiday traffic - very pleasant company so the time slid by. Came back with some stuff haven't found here - though we haven't gone way out of our way to find. Stuff like zip-lock bags, real Japanese green tea - sencha and genmaicha. We find the former here sometimes but not dependably. Big cue tips like got in Japan that ran out. Puer tea. Got a couple of prayer rugs from an Indian store. We loved the Chinese section in Georgetown. More on that later maybe.

Texas Gov Defends our Freedom

Greg Abbot orders Texas State Guard to make sure US Army doesn't invade my home state. NPR story. Quiz. What do the honorable governor and yours truly DC have in common? More later.

Peter Coyote's New Book

The Rainman's Third Cure: an Irregular Education

click on bookcover to see it larger

Links at Read more. 

Put the links there because they screw up the image here on Blogger I've noticed. Took a while to figure it out. Will research what to do. If I put a link next to the image it erases the image for that line. - dc

Be Aware of Imperfections

If we are quite sincere with ourself and if we are aware of our idle practice and ashamed of it, that's the way. Even though we are not perfect, if we are aware of our imperfection, that is good, very good. That is very good.

Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 65-08-28-A as found on shunryusuzuki.com - Edited by DC   

DC comment: I'm sure some will balk at that use of ashamed. It's really a sort of technical or special term not to be confused with getting all bummed out about oneself. There are positive as well as negative uses of the word. Too much to get into now. 

Wesak

It's Wesak time in much of Asia. Big holiday here in Malaysia where Katrinka and I are briefly. We call it Buddha's birthday in American Buddhist circles I'm around and celebrate it on April 8th like Japan - or the nearest Sunday depending on the group. Here it's May 3rd and 4th - so people can have that Monday off I guess. Also it seems to include celebrating Buddha's enlightenment and Buddha in general. Funny, in Buddhist Japan it's not a holiday but in dominantly Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia it is. Lots of Chinese Buddhists and we're mainly around Chinese here. We're in Penang this weekend which is a tourist spot for Malay and at the cable car up Penang Hill this morning it seemed they were mostly here. That's a stock photo of Wesak in KL.

A recollection of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

Posted the calligraphy by Trungpa for Shunryu Suzuki yesterday and mentioned David Schneider's Skullcup and the Teapot book. This is the piece at the end of that book by Trungpa on Suzuki.

By Chögyam Trungpa

excellent Photo from Terebess site

The venerable Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder and abbot of Zen Center, San Francisco and Tassajara, Carmel Valley, California, died on December 4, 1971. He taught on the West Coast of the United States for eleven years. Personal contact with him, and exposure to his written works, inspired thousands of people to a living experience of Buddhism. The style of his teaching was direct, thorough, and without ambition.

Father Steve Frost again

Paints Seascapes and writes of Non Existence

Penang Malaysia

That's where we are now - for three nights. Great street food for breakfast. Katrinka and Lai bought a kilo of shrimp from a fisherman whom we'd seen come in and were watching his catch be weighed and sold on a sidewalk by the shore. Walked down the street to a Chinese restaurant almost full - open to the street. They steamed it up with ginger.

Eleven Years ago Today

Eleven years ago today, I walked into the Pelican Inn with Clay and some friends. It was a busy Sunday. A familiar face inside the door greeting customers - Katrinka. Knew her from the Sand Dollar in Stinson Beach. Now she was manager of this most English pub and Inn. At the beach told Clay and his buds to find their way back to Green Gulch, walked back to the Pelican Inn, and now we're looking out across a bay toward the Malay mainland.