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Saturday, April 29, 2023

Worlds of Desire, Form and No Form

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

Celebration at Sokoji, mid '60s

Friday, April 28, 2023

Double Construction

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

Silas Holm, Niels' son, in reflection

Steve Weintraub is Recovering at home

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

Here's his message

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Bird Flies Like a Bird

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




Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Commenting on the Lotus Sutra

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

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

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

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

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

Go to that post

Thanks Peter Ford

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Attentiveness

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




Gender Stories from Bartenders to Baboons

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

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

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

Monday, April 24, 2023

Attentive Mind

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

Tassajara 1967 in old zendo

Podcast with Lawrence Burns


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

Here's the podcast

Larry Burns cuke page


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

Saturday, April 22, 2023

RIP Len Brackett


Just learned that Len Brackett died on the 17th of April. 

I knew he was in hospice care. He was Virginia Baker's brother and Richard Baker's brother-in-law. Richard visited him recently. I greatly admired Len and his fine carpentry and his relationship with his goshawk. It was always stimulating to visit him in Nevada City. Farewell Len.

Len Brackett cuke page

Wet

Dogen Zenji says zazen practice is like going through mist. If you go through mist, your robes will be wet; even though you don't notice it, your robe will be naturally wet. When you go out in a sudden shower, even though you feel your robe is wet, it doesn't get through your robe. But when you get wet in mist, even though you don't feel it, the moisture will penetrate into your body, even. That is how we should practice zazen. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Photo at Tassajara by Gene DeSmidt

Friday, April 21, 2023

Good Friends

If you want to practice zazen, it is necessary to choose your friends, to have good friends—to be in good contact with your good friends. Then naturally you will have good practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.


Michael Katz and John Tarrant


Punk Monk piece



Punk Monk Enters State of Enchantment

by Willem Malten

Willem's cuke page

(New Mexico state motto: The Land of Enchantment)

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Purify

First of all we have to stop thinking. Thinking—we should not stop, but we should be free from thinking desires and mental joy and physical joy. In this way we should purify our own self. To purify our own self is to purify our surroundings. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.




Nathan and Rick Levine present:


Edward Conze’s The Psychology of Mass Propaganda presents a commentary on the psychology of propaganda during the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. It discusses the conditions which generate vulnerability to misinformation in human societies, and thus offers insight into how propaganda may be "withstood." Completed in 1939, during the period of Conze’s own inflection from Marxist philosophy to Buddhist studies, the original manuscript was never published and is now in print for the first time.

Published by Routledge - they're cheaper than Amazon so far.

Amazon link

Presenting a unique historical perspective, while also appealing to an acutely topical interest in the conditions under which autocracy and fascism arise, the book examines the psychology of mass propaganda through copious contemporary and historical examples. Conze focuses especially on recent news articles and the statements of the propagandists of many of the governments that would go on to participate in the Second World War, including Germany, Italy, the USSR, USA and UK, all of which he interprets through the lens of recent psychological and historical research. The book has been edited and includes a new introduction by Richard N. Levine and Nathan H. Levine, also featuring a foreword by American legal scholar Laurence H. Tribe, and an afterword by actor, director, writer, and Buddhist priest Peter Coyote.

This is a fascinating opportunity for scholars across several disciplines, including political scientists and psychologists, historians and sociologists, to access one of Conze’s previously unpublished works. It will also be of importance to those interested in Conze’s work on Buddhist philosophy, and in the psychology of propaganda more broadly.


Edward Conze cuke page


Rick Levine cuke page


Peter Coyote cuke page


Laurence Tribe Wikipedia page

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Absolute Value

Men and woman are different, but we Buddhists understand them to have the same virtue. We say, because we are not the same we have the same virtue. Each one has their own special value which you cannot compare with some other value. What we talk about is absolute value for each being. So, because we are different we have absolute value. This is an important point. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-A - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Close up from day of Mel Weitsman's shuso ceremony at Tassajara, April 1970. Click for interactive photo with names.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Mind and Body

Without right posture you cannot have right breathing. Without some deep breathing your bodily activities will not be one with your mental activities. When you are one with your mind and body, your physical effort should be controlled in perfect harmony. This is how we practice our way. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

From a tiny, overexposed Polaroid photo of the first sesshin in 1960.


Searching for the Path Within


an updated long excerpt from Chris Miller's memoir, Searching for the Path Within - with accounts of sixties SF Zen Center, Sokoji, Tassajara, Shunryu Suzuki and more. 

Chris Miller's cuke page

Christopher Lennox is his pen name.

Monday, April 17, 2023

Some Effort

In your practice, if you want to make some effort, your effort should be directed to keeping your posture right, or to have deep breathing, or to put some strength in your tummy. This is all that you should do, but as you have experienced, to have right posture and to have right breathing are not different things. It is the same practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.

Shunryu Suzuki at Sokoji during zazen, mid-sixties


Saturday, April 15, 2023

Thank you

If you have a gaining idea in your practice, that is not pure practice. So, whether or not you are aware of big mind, you should say “Thank you” for big mind. Big mind is always with you, so there is no need to seek for it. The only thing you should do is be grateful for big mind. That is actually our pure practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.






Friday, April 14, 2023

Beginner’s Mind

When you practice our way this morning, you should forget all about the practice you have had, and you should practice as if you are starting your practice this morning. That is so-called “beginner’s mind.” We should always be a beginner or else our practice is not pure. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.


Portrait of Shunryu Suzuki by Mike Dixon


Going Nowhere Fast

Going Nowhere Fast - another article by Lawrence Shainberg from the NYTimes archives 

Lawrence Shainberg's cuke page

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Renewed Every Day

Even when we continue our practice for a long time, we tend to lose the point of practice. We don’t know when we start wrong practice, but if you are not sincere, or faithful enough, or if you are not careful, your practice will go astray. If you continue your practice for one year, you should be careful about whether you are continuing because you have been practicing for one year. In that case your practice is not pure—because the reason why you continue your practice is based on past practice. You have a substantial idea about the practice that you have had. But pure practice should be renewed every day. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.


Fall 1971 Tassajara Practice Period


First podcast transcription

 This April marked the beginning of the fourth year for Cuke Audio Podcasts. These days I'm only putting up one a week, almost always with a guest. Quite often I wish to refer to one of them but that's too much trouble with audio still. To search quickly, we need transcripts. I've transcribed many many audio tapes and files but I wasn't going to start transcribing podcasts. I knew there were voice recognition programs that did that and I knew they'd become more and more accurate. So I did some research and tried transcribing a podcast I wanted to get to with Mac Whisper. I got the pro version for $17 and opted for the biggest version I could get, big here meaning bigger file, slower, but does a better job. It did a good job fairly quickly. I'm not sure it's the best because I don't see how it learns. It might not learn - like iPhones and Dragon Naturally Speaking type voice recognition learn our voice. I ran the transcript through Word spell check and got through 20 pages in half an hour. Then I spent a couple of hours getting the whole thing somewhat presentable. One problem is that all the podcasts up to now I've mixed down to one mono file so I had to separate the guest and my lines. From now on I'll save them stereo, the way they are recorded, with the host on one track and the guest on another. Mac Whisper can then be told a name for each and the transcript will reflect that.

So here's the first one, still a bit ragged but good enough. 

Yehudah Alan Winter - with subsequent emails

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Our Mind Helps Us

Our relatives will not help us completely, but our mind will—it is always with us. Here, by mind the scripture means big mind. Although we have it, we do not realize it. However hard our mind helps us, we do not even say, “Thank you.” —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-18 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Joan Halifax just spoke at Eiheiji

 Amazing.











Upaya at Eiheiji, April 2017. Roshi Joan Halifax, center, with Kyodo Andi Sinclair, Jose Shinzan Palma, Sensei Irene Kaigetsu Bakker, Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi, Roshi Yokoyama, Al Kaszniak, Genzan Q Quennell, Brian Joshin Byrnes, and Kigaku Noah Rossetter on Upaya's annual pilgrimage to Japan. 

She wrote here on her Facebook page: 
The teaching at Eiheiji seemed to be well received. Grateful that the Godo and Tanto were there and a hall full of young monks. Spoke about Hotsu Bodaishin (Dogen), socially engaged Buddhism, and Buddha's teaching on the Four Noble Truths and Three-fold training and why practice is important; also actualizing the way in everyday life as service. This morning, attended early morning liturgy and offered incense. A few photos from the talk might be posted, and we need permission to share.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Mudra

“Don't lose your mudra,” means you should practice our way with all of your mind and body. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.


Monday, April 10, 2023

Posture

To put some strength in your hara means to take natural, deep breaths and to have a calm mind. There are not so many points—pretty many, but, in one word, to keep your posture right, and when your posture is right, your mind is also right. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.


From a Wind Bell cover by Paul Reps


Saturday, April 8, 2023

True Zazen

Even if you cannot count your breaths properly, you should not be worried about it. Just do it. That is our way. Even though your posture is not perfect, it is all right as long as you are practicing hard. You should not criticize your practice. Even though I recommend some particular way, it does not mean if you cannot do it, that is not zazen. Even if you can do it almost perfectly, it is not always true zazen. When you limit the true meaning of zazen, or when you become critical with your zazen, or when you are proud of your good practice, that is not true zazen. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Friday, April 7, 2023

Be Yourself

Student: From time to time you emphasize a different recommendation for how we do zazen. Breathing, watching our breath, or concentrating our power in our hara, or last night you referred to shikantaza. When you change your recommendations, do you think that we as a group should change our way of practicing according to what you say in the lecture?

SR: Yeah, that is a good question [laughs, laughter]. You know, the point is, whatever practice you do, practice your way without expecting anything. Just to be yourself, you practice zazen.
—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Thursday, April 6, 2023

Help You

Zazen doesn't help, you know. But your true nature will help you. If you practice zazen because zazen will help you, it will not help you [laughs] because that is not true zazen. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Substantial

First of all, when you want to be a Buddhist, you should understand emptiness—or you should give up the substantial viewpoint of life. But you should come back to substantial explanations of the world. When you say something, you should put it into words. When you put it in words, it is already substantial. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Offering of Our Practice

I am very grateful to you for making various offerings to the altar. Sometimes wildflowers, sometimes stones or candles. These are true offerings I think. And this is true practice—offering of our practice—which should be continuously practiced. And when we practice in this way, there is buddha and we are also buddha. In this way, we should understand these bodhisattva’s vows. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Monday, April 3, 2023

The Spirit of Making an Offering

If you understand this kind of spirit of making an offering, as Dogen Zenji says, it should be like offering a flower which blooms in remote mountains to the Buddha. It should be like this. In spring, in Japan we have cherry blossoms, and to offer those cherry blossoms to the Buddha is kuyō--is offered to make offering. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.



Saturday, April 1, 2023

As Things Are Going

We practice our way to solemnize this dharma world. Because of our practice things come to have some meaning. If you understand how things are going completely, you should continue your practice as things are going. This is the point of practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-01-12 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives or cuke.com/ig for links to the full Shunryu Suzuki lecture and the source of the photo.