Same

There may be various dualistic ideas in our thinking, but practice and enlightenment, mortality and eternity are the same in its true sense. The same applies to other dualistic thinking. ----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Updated

Katharine Cook cuke page.

On Local Mass Murder

The Act of Killing, a unique documentary (IMBD) 

Links to other articles such as the Nation's It's Our Act of Killing Too from the film's Wikipedia page where we learn that the Indonesian release is named Jagal meaning butcher and the following two: 2012 Article in the Jakarta Post on the film which came out in 2013. 2014 Article in the Jakarta Post - focusing on US involvement (CIA giving a list of 5000 people to kill for instance). What Indonesians really think about The Act of Killing 

RIP

Oliver Sacks obit NYTimes "The poet laureate of medicine."

Wikipedia

Oliver Sacks dot com

Suggestions for Zen Mind Beginner's Mind

Good points here. 

Once again an insightful contribution from Victor Sergeyev with Gvido Trepsa, from Secretary, PH Ligatma, publisher of ZMBM in Russian.

Really?

it is impossible for us to be diverted from enlightenment.----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Most Cool Place to Stay

Lumbung Damuh after Padangbai before Candidasa going East in Bali, right on the water run by Tania and Lempot. She's Dutch extraction, born in Hong Kong, raised in Jakarta, school in Singapore, seems like she's a hip California back to the woodster, he's from this area, Buitan is the Banjar or neighborhood, Manggis is the village and district.  He's a mellow landscape gardener, long black hair. She's a goddess worshiper. Bamboo thatch-roofed bungalows in a wild jungly setting, funky, communal kitchen, kids, neat other patrons and visitors, sort of wild. Will ask Katrinka to write something. Their kids were delivered by Robin Lim featured yesterday. We're here for three days. - dc

Robin Lim

Robin Lim's Bumi Sehat Foundation

about Robin Lim

who's a CNN Hero.

Here

The truth is directly here on this moment right here. Don't look around [laughs, audience laughter]----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Great review of a Great Book

Steve Silberman reviews “Crowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen,” by David Schneider - in Lion's Roar.

Variety

Because it is unconditionality, it takes various conditions. It accepts various conditions. If so, there should be innumerable variety in its form and color.-----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Bothers me some

Illegal cock fight on the beach at the government resort. See rooster basket cages all over Bali. Not something I plan to learn about.

Vipassana Retreat Report

As mentioned earlier herein, late June I went on a ten day Vipassana retreat in Singaraja, the big city to the north of Bali in a Buddhist temple named Brahma Vihara Arama. It has a number of retreats a year with visiting teachers, solid financial backing so they only accept contributions - nothing required but one's presence and commitment. We were even told not to ask for a suggestion as to how much to give as a contribution to the teacher or temple for the retreat.

Not a theory

Truth is not some particular, you know, thing. If I say truth you think it is some special theory [laughs] or mathematical or scientific theory. But we don't mean such concrete, static logic by truth. Truth is unconditionality or eternal reality. Reality does not take any form.-----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Knowing

Bodhidharma's “I don't know” [laughs] means there are many things to know.-----------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts.

USD to IDR

The US dollar is now at a super high against the Indonesian rupiah. Today it is over 14,000 rupiah to a dollar. I can remember a year ago it getting down to 11, 500 to a dollar and in 2011 I see it almost hit 8,000. What this means is that now we pay 71+ cents to get 10,000 rupiah, which is like their dollar, whereas last year at this time it was closer to 85 cents. When you're on a tight budget (and spending money on the archiving etc) that makes a big difference.

Tai Sheridan's books

Tai Sheridan's website has his many books listed, described, and review quotes. See Tai's page on cuke.com for more. Tai's an old Tassajara student from the Suzuki days. - dc

Squares or Quarters

in our study of all things we must appreciate that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans or mountains are infinite in variety, and universes lie in all squares. It is so not only around ourselves, but also directly here-- even in a drop of water.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-D as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts.

Kite Competition

There were about 700 kites Saturday and almost a thousand on Sunday. That's a good photo of one from the Internet. That's one type. There would be like twenty or more of them at a time. Each kite was built and flown by youth from a neighborhood from all over Bali. Elders advised and watched. Sometimes I counted twenty people on one "string." New kites in the air about every thirty minutes.

From a lecture on precepts

Buddha was quite wise to accept both sides. Half and half. Because of his mercy, he emphasized the negative side more than the positive side [laughs]. There is no need for us to emphasize the positive side. We are quite positive anyway. This is the structures of the precepts.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-C as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Canine Fact and Scat

Check out this interesting page on the Bali dog. It's super pro Bali dog and won me over somewhat. I do remember though, 23 years ago when here, being surrounded by a dozen or so of them snarling and barking at me as I walked through a village or on a dirt road in Ubud.

Eternal Present

So whether you attain enlightenment or not is a secondary problem. First of all you should stop comparing this world to another world, this moment to the next moment. We should live in eternal present.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

The Southern Cross

This smallest of all the 88 constellations is a big deal in the lower half of the globe. It's on flags. There are other images could link to that show it better but this is what it actually looks like looking up in the sky from a remote place without city lights like Amed or Gili Air. It's those four stars a little to upper right of the center of the image that I think of also as the Bali kite.

Lion's Roar Shunryu Suzuki section

Suzuki Roshi and his Legacy

So far this section is SFZC oriented. It's a good start. - dc

August 17th - Indonesian independence day

Went to the Bajra Sandhi last Saturday with driver Nyoman, the monument for the people's struggle in Denpasar at Puputan field. Its name comes from a hand bell Hindu priests use here which it resembles. It's got a great museum inside with lots of photos, many from 1906 when the Dutch were pressing in. Lots of photos of where we live, the beach here, and streets or maybe street. And on the 2nd floor of the monument, round and tapering in, there were still-life depictions of Bali's history from 3000 BC.

of Enlightenment

Even though you do not have the experience, it is better not to try to attain enlightenment somewhere else [laughs]. You will be lost. -----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. (not) Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Bali babies

Mary next door must be half a year old by now. Someone is always with her, holding her or carrying her in a sling, or walking around the grounds here in a stroller. I've never seen her touch the ground. Remember when I was here with Clay when he was a year old, that people often offered to hold him. We'd walk into a restaurant in Ubud - and there weren't many then - and one of the employees would take him from us while we dined. I heard then that the tradition here is not to let babies touch the ground till after they're one year old. I'll have to ask about that, see if it's something on their minds now. [Bali baby photo off web.] - dc

A Single

Met dearly departed Bob Johnston (see posts from yesterday and day before) through Chris Rand, Yvonne's son. Chris was friends with Bob's late son, Andy, and arranged for me to play Bob a tape of two songs I'd just recorded. He liked them the way they were but arranged to have them re-mixed by Tom Flye (who was working with Rick James) at the Record Plant in Sausalito. They're listed, at his suggestion, as the executive producers of Freeze Please/World Suicide put out during the Californians for a Nuclear Freeze campaign which I was working on. Here's a page for that single on my music site. Can read more about it there and listen to the songs. That's Kelly at nine and me. - dcA

Evil Spirits

First Suzuki lecture excerpt post in this series from 12-13-14 - Some people believe in evil spirits, you know [laughs]. But no evil spirit can exist in the same way forever. They are changing. Whatever existences may be, they are changing. There is nothing that does not change. To believe in some permanent one deity is also based on the idea of existence. That is not spiritual life. It is another form of material life. - Shunryu Suzuki (edited by DC) from 68-01-11B in shunryusuzuki.com - That file name will change to 68-01-11-B. - Suzuki Lecture excerpt page. Since I'm reading through Suzuki's lectures, thought I'd post quotes here regularly. Will start a page for them tomorrow. - DC

Bob Johnston and the IRS

Yesterday posted an RIP for Bob Johnston and said would write more today. My old Zenbook in the shop and getting a new one in order so not time for much, but here's something - the last paragraph (reproduced below) in a post about the IRS from May 21, 2013 called Cruel and Unusual Tax Collecting. Bob was having a heck of a time with the IRS early eighties so this was something to amuse him.-dc

Back in the early eighties I wrote and produced at home a song about the IRS dedicated to music producer Bob Johnston. It doesn't take the reserved tone of the above post. It's called, Pigfuckers.

Suzuki plays freely with physics

Time has no length. It is smallest particle imaginable. So we can imagine how small it is, but [laughs] there is no such thing. You say the atom is smallest particle of material imaginable [laughs]. That is just a theory. No such thing exists. If so, we do not exist. What exists is unconditional being. Is exists. One unconditional being exists.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

jungel birds and bugs

At the Vipassana retreat last June-July in Singaraja, I'd sometimes gaze down at the dense foliage - some really giant leaves - a neat jungle scene. One animal down there was dominant - the chicken. Chickens and roosters. They weren't wild. People lived around the temple They served a little meat and fish at the retreat and the only meat was chicken.

Now for bugs. In our apartment here in exotic, tropical Sanur, there's one little critter that is most common - the cockroach - big ones - in the US they're classified as American and the little ones as German. I catch them and put them out. Got three yesterday.    

RIP Bob Johnston

Billboard obituary for Bob Johnston

Wikipedia

More on Bob tomorrow. - dc

Now

Strictly speaking, there is nothing called now. Now is always going. To live in now means to live in eternity. In our practice, we do not think anything. Just let ourselves go as we go [laughs]. That is our way..-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Unger is the Missing Link

Brian Unger sends this news from Missing Links Press including an announcement that his illustrated novel, San Sebastian, will be out soon. 

Q and A bout our wedding priest

Andrew Main wrote:

You write that the wedding was performed "by a Buddhist priest in the Theravada tradition." This is the first I've heard of a Theravada priesthood; so far as I knew, the Theravada community consists of monastics (bhikkhu, bhikkhuni – though there've been none of the latter for some centuries – and several junior versions of same – samanera, mae chi, etc.) and laypeople, but no priests as in Zen and other Mahayana schools.

Two Shores Post works now

Yesterday's PDF excerpt from Jiryu's Two Shores of Zen of Tangen Harada's zazen advice is now fixed and you can see it. Forgot to make it Public in Google Drive so I could see it in my computer but no one else. Thanks Andrew Main for alert alerting. - dc  

Life

Life is a conditional expression of unconditionality.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts. 

Dinner

Eating half a kilo of shrimp bought at the Sindhu Pasar, morning market (in photo). Shrimp not so large - (about three bucks US). Used to get the woman to clean them which she'll do for no added cost but we've learned - from Malay Lai Mun - that the flavor is better if cooked before cleaned. So mainly now we clean them while we eat using newspaper between our plates to put the shells etc on. Katrinka steamed them in filtered water (we filter our own - don't buy it which the Indonesians I know also do), steamed with lemon grass and basil.

Tangen Harada on Zazen

Excellent advice on teaching zazen from Tangen Harada at Bukkokuji in Obama, Japan, to Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler from two pages of his book Two Shores of Zen: an American Monk's Japan.

A Glimpse of Bali

Mention an article in the Bali Advertiser here now and then. It's really excellent - know that sounds funny with a name like that. But the Sanur Weekly is good too. Just wanted to feature one article, the one on page 40 titled Water Source Choking on Plastic. It's by far the most important item in the issue. But their website only gives the option of viewing the whole thing and didn't want to go to the trouble of extricating it. So here's a link to the whole issue.

Wherever You Are, Enlightenment Is There

This is an edited version of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture published on Lion's Roar August 11th. It's from Not Always So, p.127. Here's the verbatim lecture 69-09-00-A on shunryusuzuki.com - also there are links there to a minimum edit, Wind Bell version, and the audio. Here's an excerpt from the verbatim:

So enlightenment will be attained in easy time and in adversity. Wherever you are, enlightenment is there. And if you stand upright where you are, that is enlightenment. Try to stand up-- up-- upright. There is our practice. It means that to accept things as it is, to accept yourself as you are. 

Shunryu Suzuki links.

Posts on cuke blog (cuke archives and suzuki lecture excerpt labels) automatically go to Cuke Archives on Facebook.  SFZC has many of his lectures and their Suzuki Roshi page on Facebook. shunryusuzuki.com is the complete (almost) archive. Cuke.com's Shunryu Suzuki Index has tons of links and resources. - dc

Soen Nakagawa brush painting

I have to sell this treasure from my meditation room inorder to send to my daughter to an out-of-state university.

N.J. Pierotti - a long time cukester 

See it larger on this page for it on Etsy.

Thank You and OK!

Since plugged Zen Is Right Here Yesterday, thought would plug this book today - published 21 years ago as a Penguin book, now Shambhala.

Thank You and OK cuke page

Labor Practices

The tradition here is for people to work everyday and take off when there's a ceremony and there are a lot of ceremonies. But still it seems to me they get taken advantage of. Blind Londoner Philip next door has Nyoman who's with him all day everyday. Philip's wife Rini has a helper named Ilu who's with her and her baby, Mary, all the time. She's living there.

"Le Zen Est Juste Ici"

Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is now in French as the title to this post demonstrates. link to cuke page on this book

1st entry: One morning when we were all sitting zazen, Suzuki Roshi gave a brief impromptu talk in which he said, "Each of you is perfect the way you are…and you can use a little improvement." ------------- p. 3 - Ed Brown, Tassajara, circa 1968

Feel

If you actually feel or emotionally feel this present moment in your practice, you have no more intellectual anxiety and emotional anxiety. Then you are perfectly free from the problem of birth and death.-----------Excerpt follows yesterdays from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-06-19-B as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on cuke.com - from there links to much more. - Go to cuke.com What's New [now at blogger] to see more daily posts.