A Special Message from Cuke Archives

May you have an excellent New Year's Eve. - dc

Vehicles

[Suzuki tells a story from the Lotus Sutra where a man finds his house on fire with his kids playing inside so to entice them to come out and save them he has there carts below waiting for them with various treasures inside and led by a deer, a sheep, and a white bull which stand for the vehicles of the sravaka, pratyeka, and bodhisattva.]    

Actually, they are different vehicles, but the purpose of providing those vehicles was just to save his children. So we should not say the third one is best, and the second one is second-best and first one is worst. This kind of understanding is was not the point.

The people who recited this sutra over many hundreds of years in India, in China, and in Japan, had confidence in the meaning of this parable, which is for the Buddhist, whichever the teaching is, they are the same. But if you attach to some special teaching, it is not our way. --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-24 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Kobun Chino and Jim Harrison

Kobun and writer Jim Harrison - lots on the Internet about this connection. Here's a page with results from a Google search for their two names. It would be neat to go into each link and take out the relevant material. I can't get to that right now but it's good to do before stuff disappears off the web. Got the idea to do this when bud Gregory sent a couple of Jim Harrison poems and I remember Kobun disciple Bob Watkins talking about how Harrison would hang out there. - dc

Kobun Chino cuke page

Dudespaperphoto from 

Fire

[In this lecture which isn't fully transcribed because of  recording problems, Suzuki is telling a story of a house on fire and a father figuring out how to get his children to come out right away. In mid-story he paused and said the following.] Actually this world is on fire, but as we do not see this world thoroughly and as we do not know our former karma and future karma, we enjoy this world. So we are not interested in true teaching of Buddha.      --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-24 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Taste

If you want to practice our way, we should free our mind from intellectual or conscious activity in terms of right or wrong, or good or bad. Whatever it is we should try it and we should have taste of it through direct experience. Not just feeling or thinking, but direct experience. That is zazen practice.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Cuke Archive's Fiscal Sponsors

PZI, the Pacific Zen Institute is the principal fiscal sponsor for Cuke Archives. Head teacher John Tarrant has been a long time supporter of and advisor to Cuke Archives. Here's their year end Letter.

Nine bows to John Tarrant and PZI.

The Institute for Historical Study was Cuke Archives first fiscal sponsor starting a couple of decades ago when I, DC, first became a member. These days the IHS (or TIHS) mainly serves to be a fiscal sponsor when a non religious fiscal sponsor is called for. 

Nine bows to TIHS.

Donate page for Cuke Archives - preserving the legacy of Shunryu Suzuki and those whose paths crossed his - and anything else that comes to mind.

Fill in the dot dot dot

So many people are here practicing our way. I feel a great responsibility as a teacher. If I am not here maybe you will not come here. If I am here you come here and spend all day in our practice. But if you have misunderstanding in our practice, it will not work at all. It is quite natural for us to expect some result or effect as long as we do something, but our practice is something different from that kind of activity. We just practice our way just to have...        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Mel Weitsman in Hospice Care

And Alan Senauke's Mountain Seat Ceremony postponed

A message from the Berkeley Zen Center

Dear friends,

We made the decision this week to postpone the Mountain Seat Ceremony in order to fully attend to the changes in Sojun’s condition. We are rescheduling it to Sunday January 31, 2021 (instead of this coming Monday, December 28th), and fervently hope this does not change your ability to participate.

Sojun Roshi is in the last phase of his life. Two weeks ago he began hospice care and started to receive oxygen; during our Rohatsu this last weekend he shifted again, and is now confined to a hospital bed, eating and drinking very little, and is continuing to weaken and continuing on oxygen. There is no way to know when death will come, but most likely it will be before the end of the year. The proximal sangha has begun sitting with him, and we invite his wider sangha to sit with him in spirit.

Thank you,

Gassho,
Mary Duryee,
BZC President

Hozan Alan Senauke
Acting Head Priest   

Sojun Mel Weitsman's Caring Bridge page

Mistake

We sit in cross-legged position, but if you think just cross-legged position is just Zen, that is a big mistake.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Everyone

Our way is not just for Japanese or Chinese or Indian people. This is for everyone.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

A Christmas Letter

Today's mini podcast on Cuke Audio, rather than the usual vignette from Zen Is Right Here, is a 1962 Christmas letter from Alden Truesdel, 1971 founder of the Christ Truth League in Fort Worth Texas. Here's a PDF of the letter. See if you can read past the old fashioned approach and language. 

Cuke Audio Podcasts

Christmas day Podcast

A Xmas chat with Father Stephen Frost 

Stephen Frost cuke page

That's his 1985 ordination photo

Why we Celebrate Christmas and so forth

 Because we are so intellectual being, it is necessary to-- to be free from our reasoning or our intellect.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Christmas Eve Podcast

 

A special Xmas Eve podcast with old Fort Worth buds Warren Lynn and Jerry Ray who studied with founder of the Christ Truth League, Alden Truesdell. 

Lose

When we live in the realm of good or bad, right or wrong, we lose our meaning of life. Only when we do something we practice, with right understanding, whatever we do that is our practice.       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Helping

We have various Buddhist philosophy, and we have a lot of teaching to study, but Buddhism is not actually philosophy or teaching. Buddhism is always within ourselves and always helping us. But when we don't realize it, then that is so called suffering.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Discarded Zen

 Thanks for alerting me to this timely message Gita Gayatri who passed it on from another Facebook post.

Check it out here on the Books by Shunryu Suzuki page

What's Going On

There is no other way to say it so we say your buddha-nature seeks for buddha. Buddha seek for buddha. This is very mystic way of putting it, but there is no other way to say it. So we say buddha-nature seeks buddha-nature.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Sunseed movie with Zen in America film at Tassjara

 Sunseed: The Journey

@SunseedMovie  · Movie 
A reminder of the 2020 rerelease of the 1973 film with a section called Zen in America that has footage from Tassajara filmed in 1970 with Shunryu Suzuki speaking and playing - now with narration by Peter Coyote.

Official Trailer
Sunseed dot org
IMDB page

Suzuki paraphrases Lotus Sutra

In Lotus Sutra, as you know, Chapter Three, Buddha told Shariputra: You may not know what you have done before. You will not remember what you did in your former life or even in this life. You may not remember all of it, but,” he said, “you have been practicing our way for so long a time. That is why now you have attained enlightenment. I know that, but you may not know why you have attained enlightenment. I ask you why you came here so many times. I think you don't know why you came here, but there is some reason why you came here. You didn't come here just by curiosity. Why you came here is, I don't think possible to figure out. But there must be some reason.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Filed in Others Contribute

 Somewhere Between Prophet and Drunk by Mark Blacknell, who studies Zen with Peter Coyote

Brother David Steindl-rast

Sends an Advent message

Brother David's cuke page

Digesting

I think you may not like zazen so much, but you think this is good, so you may practice it. But you may not realize how much progress you made in your zazen practice. Some may, but most of you don't, I am afraid. But that is all right. This kind of experience is not just reading or listening to lecture but something which you experience, both physically and spiritually, without thinking about it. Without trying to find out the meaning of it, beyond our intellectual understanding, to practice our way without any gaining idea. To practice our way is valuable and you will have real power of digesting things.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Lots of Kanji

Rinso-in's page for Shunryu Suzuki. That's his temple in Yaizu, Japan.

Put it on the Shunryu Suzuki info page

thanks Bill Redican

Deep

Recently I asked you and I want you to reflect on why you study Buddhism. If this point is not fully understood, it may be difficult to put whole physical and spiritual power in our practice. Usually without thinking about our life more deeply you try to solve your problem by means of practice or teaching. But if you think about whether your view of life is right or wrong, whether you are trying to obtain something which is possible to obtain or you are trying to accomplish something which is not possible to accomplish, then you will not be sincere enough to practice our way because you are always fascinated by some teaching or chanting. What we study in intellectual way is very shallow, but what we actually experience is very deep.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Podcast suggestion

Last Saturday's guest for a Cuke Podcast was Liz Wolf Spada. 

Podcast    -  her cuke page   -   Cuke podcast page

He means at the same time of course

A view of being and view of non-being is not is not possible to accept. We can accept one of the two, but we cannot accept two of those viewpoints. And here there is another problem for us. When you face this second problem, you will be said to be Buddhist. And you will give up relying on your intellectual understanding of teaching and you will start our practice -- to accept this kind of paradox.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

A brief account of her teachers

Shunryu Suzuki, Jaksho Kwong, Sojun Weitsman, Yvonne Rand - from Wende Micco

When you understand everything changes and everything is changing, like electric light or fire, we call this kind of view, a view of non-being. No such thing exists, so non-being. If someone who has the view of seeking for happiness, it means that he is seeking for something which is impossible and if you have the view of non-being you will not care for anything. If you accept things in that way, your way of life is very empty. And you will not find out any meaning of life at all. Our way of observing things is based on view of being and non-being, both. And we know that view of being is too naïve, and view of non-being is too-- logical, or too critical. A true view of life should be both a view of being and of non-being. This is our way.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Grateful for Reported Errata

Dear reader. Please feel free to point out any error, no matter how tiny, in these posts. I make mistakes of various types all the time. Like I can't spell but usually catch those - and I know that's not a complete sentence and that the use of the word "like" is subject to question. A.M. has been pointing out little flaws and misunderstandings back to the beginning of time, sometimes accompanied by links to articles or explanations of usage in Tibetan or some other language. I love it. I dare you - try to find some minutiae I'm not interested in. Like that word - minutiae - it looks Latin so I can't recall my Latin and frequently use a singular instead of a plural. I do not correct others with little corrections unless they ask for it or it seem to matter to them for some reason - like they'll loose money or get arrested if I don't tell them. But whenever I hear someone using the subjective case of a pronoun in the objective position I refrain from expressing how it offends my ears - and it's becoming so common, it's going to become correct. The way less is now commonly used in cases where fewer used to be correct. So thank you Heidi Wilson for pointing out: You might have a typo in the footnote at the end of"  the lecture excerpt that was posted recently on What's New. "The lecture date was 12-21, not 12-12." Wow - that means she went to that lecture in the archive which she said she did and downloaded it. I especially appreciated that correction because I'd just started posting excerpts from that lecture and the info on the excerpts that follows is copied and pasted to the next day's post so I only had to go back and change the date on three other posts. - dc

He's trying here to get something across. What is it?

This incense bowl is bronze, but even so it is changing, and you sense it always changing. In ten minutes there will be no more incense, but if it is very good incense you will feel as if something exists-- not forever-- you may not think in that way, but at least you think this incense exists and fire exists in that way, but the fire is not exactly the same fire as you are observing now with this fire in this candle. It is constant repetition of combustion-- like this-- there is electricity but the current goes back and forth but we see there constantly electric light. But that is not true. So we Buddhists call this a kind of naïve way of observing things as an aspect of being because we think everything exists in this way, in this aspect of being.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Grace and Hugh McLeod

Grace and Hugh McLeod were early Buddhists who lived in Seattle. Shunryu Suzuki visited them in Seattle in 1960. Forgot all about them but stumbled on to my notes recently when Ted Pirsig wrote about Grace. So here's a cuke page for Grace and Hugh McLeod 

Changing

To observe things as it is in a usual sense and to observe things as it is in our way is not the same. This point is not truly realized even by Buddhists. Things as it is, way as it is. What is way as it is? Usually things as it is means to observe things as if something exists in that way, constantly, forever. We say-- here is an incense bowl. But this is already mistake. No such thing exists. It is always changing.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

A Unique Holiday Gift Suggestion

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  

*
*  And this is our the last of the Cuke Press books.

*
*  Amazon link
*
* 80 whole pages and only $7
*
*
* cuke-annex page for The: the book
*
*
* The, the Book, with one word and a hidden message.
* 
*
* Go to the Amazon link above and look through the first pages 
* of the book. Then all will be clear.
*
*
*
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 

THE is great -- have you seen Rory MacBeth's Alphabetical Bible? or the minimal poems of Aram Saroyan? Two of my favorites which this reminds me of. I dig the austerity of the book as well, from the cover to the type. Oh, also check out Craig Dworkin's PARSE. Blow your mind. - Kenneth Goldsmith - (wikipedia page for Kenneth Goldsmith)

This book expresses my deepest understanding of life and so forth. - DC

As it Is

If we want to have composure of life, we have to change our view, our way of observing things. To observe things as it is, we say.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Even Another Holiday Gift Suggestion

 from Cuke Press of course

Amazon link

Andrew Atkeison did a series of illustrations for the DC novel, To Find the Girl from Perth. They were so great a little book was made with a line from the book on the facing page of each image. 

Cuke page for Color Dreams - with the whole book right there.

that's the old Spier Publishing cover. The Cuke Press one is the same except for different publisher logo.

Suffering

Buddha taught us the Four Noble Truths and first of all he taught us this is world of suffering. Why we suffer is this is world of fantasy, everything changes. When everything changes we seek for some permanent thing, we want everything to be permanent. Especially when we have something good or when we see something beautiful, we want it to be always in that way. But actually everything changes. So that is why we suffer. So even though we seek for happiness it is not possible to have it because we are expecting something to be always constant when everything changes. So naturally we must have suffering. So far, according to this teaching, there is no other way for us to live in the world of suffering-- that is the only way to exist in this world.         --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Yet another holiday gift suggestion

To Find the Girl from Perth

an illustrated novel  - with songs - set in Western Australia

by DC

at local indie bookstore | on Amazon

 page for To Find the Girl from Perth - at cuke-annex

Possible

Buddha, when he escaped from his castle, he had this kind of happiness in his luxurious life in the castle, he at last forsake all of that kind of life. So we say he started his religious trip because of evanescence, because he felt the evanescence of life. That is why he started the study of Buddhism. I think we have to think about this point more. I think everyone seeks for happiness, that is all right, but the point is how to seek for happiness. But is the happiness we seek for something which is possible to have.           --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Another Hollidays Gift Suggestion

 from Cuke Press

at local indie bookstore | on Amazon

check out the book and Moneyya
at the cuke page for  Moneyya Chronicles

Selected Poems and Musings
by Bhikkhu Moneyya

with illustrations by Bali artists

Happiness

Everyone seeks for true happiness, but happiness cannot be true happiness if the happiness is not followed by perfect composure. Usually happiness does not stay long. Happiness is mostly for just a very short time and it will be lost in next moment. So, sometimes we will think rather not to have it because happiness is usually followed by sorrow and this is, I think, everyone experiences it in our everyday life.          --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-12-21 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Excellent Hollidays gift Suggestion

 

A suggestion to give A Brief History of Tassajara: from Native American Sweat Lodges to Pioneering Zen Monastery for the holidays or, possibly, one of the other books available from Cuke Press such as:

at local indie bookstore | on Amazon

check out Cuke Press books

Shosan Ceremony Closing Comments

 Butei, the Emperor of Liang, asked Bodhidharma, “What is the first principle?” 

Buddha [Bodhidharma] said, “Who is it in front of you?”

Buddha [Bodhidharma] said, “There is no holy person or common person.”

And the Emperor said, “Who are you in front of me?”

Bodhidharma said, “I don't know.”

Cuke Archives News

Coming right now to your door! Check out the latest Cuke Archives News.

Not even a Thank You

Tim Buckley:² [Silence.]

SR: [Silence.] 

        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Retraction of false information

Redid the December 4th post to read thus:

Shunryu Suzuki died during the first period of the first day of a Rohatsu sesshin in December in his bed at the City Center of the San Francisco Zen Center It is traditional to recall him with a memorial service on the 4th of every month. There's also one at some centers on the eve of the 3rd announcing that.  - thanks for reminding me Wendy Pirsig.

This post, hastily made, originally said incorrectly said that he died on this day 49 years ago. - thanks for pointing out that gross error Yehudah Alan Winter

Questions

Bill Shurtleff: Docho Roshi, the sound of the water in the stream seems to wash away all of the questions that I had. The questions still come, but they seem to flow away. Trying to hold a question and to give it a form keeps me from hearing your words this morning and from hearing the sound of the stream. It feels strange for me to be without a question, and so I just like to thank you for your wisdom, and for your kindness in being here with us today.

SR: Yeah. People listen, and talk. In this way, everything is going. Like an electric lamp, the current is always going back and forth. It looks very certain, but it is not, you know. Actually it is not as we see it. So the moment we appear, we vanish. We will still practice always. That is our life. That is everything-- how everything exists, and that is how Sambhogakaya Buddha exists. So when we understand our life in that way, there is no problem at all.

Bill: Thank you very much.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Tassajara Stories

These days Cuke Audio Podcast Tuesdays am posting pieces from a work in progress, Tassajara Stories. So far ten podcasts in this series have gone up. Here's the menu for them.

That's Shunryu Suzuki and Jakusho Bill Kwong at Tassajara in the sixties.

Forty-nine Years ago in December

Shunryu Suzuki died during the first period of the first day of a Rohatsu sesshin in December in his bed at the City Center of the San Francisco Zen Center It is traditional to recall him with a memorial service on the 4th of every month. There's also one at some centers on the eve of the 3rd announcing that.  - thanks for reminding me Wendy Pirsig.

This post, hastily made, incorrectly said that he died on this day 49 years ago. - thanks for pointing out that gross error Yehudah Alan Winter

Afraid

Alan Rappaport: Docho Roshi, I am very afraid a lot of the time. I am afraid now. Can you help me?

SR: Afraid of what? Afraid of something of which you cannot figure out, you mean?

Alan: I think I'm afraid of being hurt, and then lost.

SR: Lost? No, that is not possible. You are here, you know, and there is no need to be afraid because you are changing. If you are afraid of being always changing, maybe that is why you are afraid. But if you are changing always, why don't you try to change for better? As long as you are making that effort, there's no need to be afraid of anything. Even a little bit, you know-- even little bit of change for the better will work.

Alan: Thank you very much.        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

~ LION'S ROAR AND SAN FRANCISCO ZEN CENTER PRESENT ~

 

Sign up and receive FREE access to 3 sample teachings from the new in-depth online learning series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the classic book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

A Diane Di Prima Poem

A poem by Diane Di Prima that Linda Ruth Cutts sent out when she learned of Diane's death. Went on a search for this poem when Natalie Goldberg wrote and asked if I had it. I didn't. Wrote Jeanne Di Prima and she didn't. Wrote Diane's agent and she didn't. Finally found it. - thanks Wendy Johnson 

Diane Di Prima cuke page

Clock

Craig Boyan: Docho Roshi, who is practicing harder now, me or the clock?

SR: Which? Both. When you practice hard, clock practicing hard [laughing, laughter].       --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

Words

Stan White: Docho Roshi, the only words I have this morning are not words.

SR: Yeah. We are, you know, discussing what is not possible to discuss by words. This is how actual words should go. By words we should communicate something which is not possible to put into our words.     --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC

A Poem

 

Stumbled on Jaan Kaplinski's poem for Shunryu Suzuki today. 

Marriage

Alan Winter: Docho Roshi, how can we make our marriage with Buddha more real?

SR: More real [laughs, laughter]? That is a good question. Marriage is not so real [laughs, laughter]. I agree with you. So if you want to have real marriage, you should polish yourself, and you should try to relate yourself to someone else whether your friend is man or a woman. Your wife should be your lover on one hand and someone who is quite independent from you. That is your wife. Wife is some human being which you don't know, some usual person which has nothing to do with you. And at the same time, she will be your friend, or your best friend, and someone who you love most. Your wife has two sides -- just ordinary an person and someone who you love. Okay?        --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-11-11 as found on shunryusuzuki.com. Edited by DC  - Going through Suzuki lectures and posting anything that can stand on its own. Not looking for zingers or "the best of." I find that following these excerpts daily provides another way to experience Suzuki's teaching. - DC [DC comment - I think maybe Suzuki just heard "marriage" and not "with Buddha."]

Paul Shippee invites you to his new class starting today!

You Are Invited

Introduction To Nonviolent Communication

Free Live Online NVC Intro Classes and Q&A with Paul Shippee

Tuesdays 5:00 – 5:30 pm MT

JOIN one or all of these Zoom dates: Dec 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 

Paul writes: If you’re interested in joining me, please REGISTER at  www.paulshippee.com .

You will receive a confirmation email as soon as you register. After that I will send you instructions and some resources for the class. 

I'll send you the Zoom invitation to join the Meeting on Tuesday morning, and a reminder one hour before each class begins.

I look forward to seeing you there.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me by email anytime: info@paulshippee.com