Sesshin closing comment

We are making progress every day. Even in five-day sesshin you made a big progress. Big, big progress. Thank you very much for your attendance and sincere help. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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.

Ted Marshall's Memorial

will be at Green Gulch on May 19th, at 2 p.m. 

Ted will be honored on the altar he helped build, and that he was among the very first group of guest students at Green Gulch, a Tassajara resident from 1974-1978, a Green Gulch resident again in 1979-81, and a long time Muir Beach resident after that. He received jukai from Peter van der Sterre this January, with many long time Zen Center sangha attending.

Prior post with announcement of Ted's death with article

Facebook page for Ted Marshall

cuke page for Ted

Difficulties

Because of the language difficulty, I have to think and think and think [laughs] to express myself. This thinking helped me a lot. And I'm very much grateful for the difficulty. And I think it is same thing with you. You must have great difficulties in understanding my talk [laughs]. “What he say?” [Laughs, laughter.] At least I gave you chance to think [laughs, laughter]. And this thinking, I think, helped you a lot. I hope it was not waste of time. And it was not waste of time for me too. Anyway, we should be grateful for any problem we have every day. It is not repetition of same thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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.

Changing

Everything is changing. That truth will solve various problems you have. That is, you know, eternal truth. And our practice is based on this truth, so our practice is always true. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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

Tampa Pipet

That means without a straw. That's how I order any drink that might come with a straw. If it's an upscale place I'll say without a plastic straw because some places are using paper or organic tube plant straws or glass. About four out of five times they forget and bring a plastic straw and I gently lecture them on how they don't decompose and often end up in streams and the ocean. There is a movement to get restaurants to stop using them. We're all still doomed but it seems like a good effort to make.

Things as it is

Our thinking is always based on a mechanical understanding, or an idealistic understanding, or sometime an intellectual understanding. But when we see things-as-it-is, it is not difficult to understand. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Subtle

Our teaching is always near at hand, not easy, not difficult to observe. But at the same time it is very strict and very delicate. So our mind should be always subtle enough to adjust our conduct with our surrounding. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Busted

Nyoman who takes care of blind Brit Philip next door mainly by drinking with him, just spent the night in jail for drunk driving. Didn't know that was possible - I think he thought it wasn't. Philip apologized for their conduct the other night. I said it's nothing unusual, like we lived next to a frat house. Meanwhile on the other side the apartment is being used more and more by people in recovery, like just off of a heavy Oxycontin habit and so forth. Our best friend Alice and her mate my best man Danu are overseeing that. Alices little dog ran up on Philip's porch and he told her the stinking dog needs a bath and she does too. Katrinka gently told him she'd appreciate it if he didn't speak to our friends or any people that way around here. Didn't show his face the next day. Landlord is concerned. His house would make a nice addition to the recovery program. I'd miss him and Nyoman. Nyoman's like my private tutor. - dc

Sandokai Chart

Here's a chart on Shunryu Suzuki dot com with links to the various files related to Shunryu Suzuki's lectures on the Sandokai. There are audio for all but one and six transcript versions, Marian Derby's light edits just having been added.  Also, a link to a page for the video and a cuke page for the SFZC published book, Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness Zen Talks on the Sandokai. - thanks Peter Ford

Not to Waste

 But now I understand what he [Suzuki's master, Gyokojun So-on] meant. Not to waste time is not to waste even a grain of rice. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Purnama Kedasa - The 10th Full Moon

Wondered why there were so many closed stalls at the market this morning. Then someone explained. Found the following with the title above on this page date March 23 but heard it goes on for a month.

Location: major temples island-wide [photo of Besakish mother temple grounds]

This special full moon is considered highly significant amongst Balinese Hindus. Known as 'Purnama Kedasa' in the local tongue, the day coincides with many major temples celebrating in festive rituals, attended by thousands of devotees. The famous mother temple, Besakih, holds a special ceremony known as 'Betara Turun Kabeh' on this special day, inviting the gods and deified ancestors for their blessings. A 'melasti' or purification pilgrimage usually takes place on the preceding Sunday, with processions carrying helrilooms and temple objects to sanctified water sources.

It's called Holis in India. - thanks Gregory

Wasting Time

I was told when I was quite young, by my master [Gyokujun So-on], “You should not waste your time.” I thought it meant to work hard all day long and all night through [laughs, laughter]. We do not work nighttime, but we have to behave all night through. That was, I thought, what he meant. But it was not so. Sometime he said, “To understand Buddhism is not to waste your time. If you do not understand Buddhism you are wasting time [laughs, laughter]”.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Same not Same

If you go to Eiheiji Monastery you will be bored [laughs, laughter] because you will repeat the same thing over and over again every day. But our understanding of life is very firmly based on the mechanical understanding that we think our everyday life is repetition of same thing. But it is not so. No one can repeat the same thing over. What you do is different from what you do in next moment. That is why we should not waste our time.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Nothing New

Carbon emission release rate ‘unprecedented’ in past 66m years - Just another boring report to be ignored by we humans charging ahead into the wonder of modern life.

West meets East

Hegel⁴ may be later than Dogen, but this kind of deeper understanding was understood by many ancient thinkers. More than 700 years ago, Dogen observed things in this way. And this is, surprising enough, the traditional understanding of things of Buddhism. ----- ⁴Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: 1770–1831. German philosopher who proposed that truth is reached by a continuing dialectic.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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  [If Hegel was so great, then why did he forget to put the E on the end of his given name. - dc]

Mental Health Care in Indonesia

Not the best case for sure.

Mechanical

Daizui was asked, “When the-- this world is devoured by karmic fire, where does it go [laughs]? Where does our true mind go -- true self go?” This is, you know, just a mechanical understanding.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Who are They?

While we strive to ignore time-bound and space-bound, that is the value in its usual sense. They just want liberty. But it is not possible. They say liberty, but that idea of liberty is based on a mechanical understanding. We are not machines. If we are human beings, we should understand that much.   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Climate Changed more last month

Welcome to the climate emergency: you’re about 20 years late -Guardian

These heat records have been variously described as “terrifying”, “jawdropping” and “shocking”.


It’s Official: February Was The Warmest Month On Record - Huff Post

Rules

Our life is both created and controlled by some rules. So where there is no rule, there is no creativity. Where there is creativity, there should be some rules. We cannot ignore rules.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Another Brian Victoria article

A Buddhist View of War: D. T. Suzuki; This essay by Suzuki seems to support the idea of 'holy war'. Written during the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), Suzuki promotes Zen Buddhism as a legitimate path to being a warrior. from The Light of Dharma, July, 1904, Vol. 4. No. 2 pp. 179-182 - from the Zen Site

That article is and many more from Brian and others are linked to from the Zen Site's Critiques of Zen page 

Brian Victoria cuke page

True Mirror - wow

It just occurred to me that mirrors aren't what you look like to others. They reverse the face or whatever they're reflecting sideways - left to right but not top to bottom. I'm a little dense I guess and that made me think but I thought into a wall. Duh. So when I used the webcam on my laptop to take a photo which barely showed the scales that caught the cockroach the other day, I put my hand up on the right side and there it was on the left in the image I was looking at. It was a true mirror. I knew I couldn't be the first to think of that and found True Mirror dot com and a Guardian article on why mirrors go L to R but not top to bottom. 

A Poem

Is and Isn't
 or
 A Clarification to that Material Only Fellow Who's Putting Down Religion and Spiritual Stuff while Just Seeing the Superficial Literal Side not Taking to Heart the Bard's Well-penned More Things that are Dreamt of in your Philosophy

Known

Our inmost desire knows intuitively where we should go.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Brian Victoria new article

The Zen of Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) - in Japan Focus

That's a photo of a Hitler Jugend visit to Eiheiji in December of 1940.

Brian Victoria cuke page

Over the Counter Reaction

When someone is striking a drum in southern country, in northern country someone will dance [laughs, laughter]. Many things happen in the world of counter-reaction. In the realm of counter-reaction many things become possible to work or to act. And whatever we do, when we realize we are working in the world of counter-reaction, our life is not only creative life but also unfolding of our inmost desire.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

May the best meditater win!

Meditation Olympics - perfect followup to yesterday's big bucks in meditation post. - Thanks Tony Patchell 

There or there.

Wherever you go there is dynamic stream of change.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Big Bucks in this biz

Fortune Mag article and video on the current lucrative meditation and mindfulness biz

We here at cuke with cuke.com, shunryusuzuki.com, zmbm.net, and cuke-annex are planning on doubling our charges as a result of reading this article.

Judith Keenan's excellent Tassajara Video

Rolling Up Your Sleeves - Tassajara 2010 - with Mel Weitsman, abbot of the Berkeley ZC

Her Vimeo channel with three films

Algebra

”A is A,” “B is B.” This is an appropriate understanding for us. Because of a mechanical understanding of our practice, we become proud of our achievement sometime [laughs]. Or we will become discouraged by what we did. But anyway, you cannot make the same mistake. What you have done is already over. And you are doing something quite new. So there is no reason why we should be discouraged. But what you have done is already over [laughs], so why are you proud of what you have done [laughter]? If you have this kind of understanding, your mind is always wide open [laughs] like a mirror. Then you always have composure without being disturbed by anyone or by past or future. This is, you know, our understanding..  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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 

Another Discovery

Lying in the pool here on my back after yoga found out by accident that if I cup my hands and bring them straight down then under and turn them around, that lots of little bubbles come up tickling my back and neck. I'm not even trying to discover things but phenomena keeps doing its thing.

No Continuity

From our viewpoint, one and many is the simultaneous being. Then one and our life is a succession of events -- each event happens in a dualistic way. In dualism each event happens. This is a succession of events. But there is no continuation - continuity.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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.

Offerings

A song in Indonesian and English named Offerings (Persembahan Persembahan) which opens and closes with the canang sari, palm leaf offering in Bali, and includes a different type of local offering - intentional and destructive - and mythical figures galore.

Youtube video of Offerings 

Origin of this song

Our = Buddhists

From our viewpoint, one and many is the simultaneous being.   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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.

Happy Bali Hindu New Year

Nyepi (see Saunters post from two days ago) at night - really dark - just a hint of light here and there. The whole island still in the day and dark at night. The only place in the world that shuts its airport I heard. Sneaking out we saw clear sky and stars like we were in the wilderness. That's a photo from last night off a friend's Facebook page.

The night before, Ngerupak when the Ogoh Ogoh are paraded was magical. People go out to see them on the streets. There were some around here. There was a late main event we hear which was to be a mile away. We almost didn't go. Walked there at 10:30pm not sure if something was happening there or not. It was. At one point I urged Katrinka and when it wasn't where we'd thought it would be she urged me. Got there. Maybe 25 of these statues were carried to he Matahari Beach grounds where one by one they went to a stage with dancers and gamelan players. Thousands watched. We too watched that and walked around in what Katrinka called a garden of Ogoh Ogoh with their carriers and others sitting around them.  What artistry. Amazing creative creatures based on mythical and other themes. There was one elsewhere of Trump. Another that was elsewhere was banned for its environmental theme but they got around that. Almost all are neighborhood projects. We saw six foreigners there. It went on past midnight. Almost no alcohol. Most people drinking water. Lots of young people. Such a civilized and well behaved crowd. We got lost from each other for a while. Katrinka commented on how comfortable she felt anyway. We went home by the beach walk in the dark. High tide. Waves lapping. 

Dangerous global warming

will happen sooner than thought – study - Guardian - 80% of world energy used for fuel, only 20% for electricity, so alternative fuel most important. Study authors suggest transferring current global 500 billion dollar subsidies for oil and coal to renewables. Predicated population and economic growth plus six-fold increase of energy use per person to lead to two degree rise by 2030 according to model - 1.5 rise by 2020. I find it so weird to watch the business news people talk only in terms of growth good and less growth bad. So deaf and blind. And so representative of what most people in power think. - dc

Nyepi blackout

This Nyepi notice preposted because we can't open computers today. See yesterday's, March 8th,  Saunters post. Om Swastiastu. - dc

RIP Ted Marshall

Just learned that dear Zen friend Ted Marshall has died from cancer. Gyate gyate.

Condolences to his wife Sharry Mullin

There's a great interview with Ted in the May 2009 Muir Beach Beachcomber focusing on his role in the volunteer fire department. - DC

Photos of Ted and Sharry and with Muir Beach fire truck from that article (which calls her Sherry).

Duality or nothing happenin'

So for us, one and many, that dualistic pair of duality is the unit of existence. Here I am a, you know, speaker, and you are audience. The speaker and audience is the relationship -- duality in this case. Because of this duality, there is some activity going on now. If there is no duality, nothing will happen [laughs] to us.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-08-19-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.