Struggle

Docho Roshi, I am drowning in a great ocean. Will I wake up and discover this is a dream?

SR: How did you feel? [Laughs, laughter.]

I can't describe it.

SR: Which do you prefer: to be drowning in the ocean or safe on land? Which do you like better?

[Long pause.] I don't know. [Laughter.]

SR: “Do not know” is right. It is very difficult to decide. If so, you should prefer to stay in a bottomless ocean with some difficulties because you have more possibilities. If you are on the land in this way, there is not much hope. To have some chance to struggle is very good. You feel much better. Even if you have fear, soon you will manage it.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Beyond Word

Docho Roshi, question beyond word, word beyond question.

When you make improvement, you have questions. When you are improving yourself constantly, that question is more than question. So, that is a question beyond words. Words beyond question is even though you are making a question, you know there is no other way to improve yourself. But you need some help or encouragement. So, we discuss something between us, but actually the only way is to improve ourself by ourselves. When you understand this point, your question is something more than words. And your words are something more than the question you have. In this way you should find yourself. Expressing by word how you feel, and trying to know something of what you feel. Over and over you find yourself. To continue this kind of practice is our way.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Drawing by Stan White

More Rob Gove sculpture

at Rob Gove's cuke page

and there you can click on the link to go to Robert Gove Sculpture dot com and see a lot more.

and here's a link to the cuke podcast with Rob.

Change

Docho Roshi, is enlightenment always changing?

It will change always, but if you are enlightened, you will not be bothered by it changing.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

No Questions

Docho Roshi, this mind has no real questions. Why is this?

Yeah, no questions. And without any questions you are practicing our way. That is true practice. Don't worry about having no questions.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Fire

Docho Roshi, how can I behave with my usual mind when my house is on fire?

On fire. [Laughs.] Why don't you get out of it? [Laughter.] Give up your house. You will find a good new house.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Photo from LA Times of 2016 fire at Palo Colorado Canyon in Big Sur

A Cuke Podcast with Rob Gove

Here's a link to the cuke podcast with Rob Gove, early Shunryu Suzuki and Tassajara student and stone sculptor who's been sculpting away in Italy for about half a century.

At the cuke podcast page are links to other platforms where the podcast will be as well - Spotify, etc.

Robert Gove sculpture dot com

Rob Gove cuke page

Featured Cuke Archives page

(click)

 

Teacher

Docho Roshi, you have taught us that everything changes, and that we can rely on nothing. From one day to the next, then, we cannot be sure of a place to practice or a teacher. If this is so, how can we continue our practice forever?

Wherever you go, you will find your teacher, as long as you have your eyes, as long as you have ears to listen. Dogen Zenji says the color of the mountains and sound of the rivers are Shakyamuni Buddha’s sermons. But you should be grateful for your teacher because he opens up your eyes and ears to see and to listen. Then your teacher is always with you. And you can continue your practice forever.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Gyokujun So-on who gave transmission to Shunryu Suzuki

A Poem

 A poem for Tim Buckley and Tracy McCallum by their friend John Balaban

Tim Buckley cuke page

Tracy McCallum cuke page

Mountain

Docho Roshi, big mind and small mind are equally without size. The Buddhist practice is no practice. Can it be that there is any practice which is not Buddhist practice?

When you are involved in dualistic ideas in your practice, that is non-Buddhist practice. That there is no alternative way for us means to sit alone on top of the mountain. Whatever happens in the mountain, that is part of your practice. To sit on the mountain means to be a boss of the mountain. That is our practice. But to try to climb up to the top of the mountain is not our practice. So, you can say various practices are nothing but Buddhist practice because we are boss of the mountain. But for the people who are trying to climb up to the top of the mountain, there may be various ways to the mountain. So, we must not forget that we are sitting in the center of the universe or on top of the mountain.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Composure

Docho Roshi, love is love, and hate is hate, and love is empty, and hate is empty.

SR: There you will have great sorrow or longing—loneliness of emptiness. Until you get accustomed to this experience, you cannot get out of the trouble, or fear, or whatever it is. When you can remain still with some composure in the pitch dark, you will have deep true composure. 

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Which Path

Docho Roshi, how are we to know how to behave when a strong dualistic situation arises in our life? It seems as though we can only take one of two paths.

Don’t hesitate to take just one choice. Don’t think which is good or bad. When you do not think about it, you will intuitively know which way to go and which is better. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Attach

Not to attach to any thing, we say. Why you asked this question is because it is impossible not to attach [laughs] to anything. So it means that in your mind you have the idea of attachment and detachment. But true non-attachment means to get free from the idea of attachment or detachment, knowing that attachment and detachment are the two sides of one reality. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Another 1967 Tassajara fundraiser

Program for an Indian and Japanese Music Benefit for the School of the American Society for Eastern Arts and the Zen Mountain Center - June 25, 1967 - thanks Joe Cohen

Posted at Posters & Brochures for Fundraisers for Zen Mountain Center at Tassajara 1966-67

thanks Joe Cohen

Desires Are Inexhaustible

Docho Roshi, if desires are inexhaustible, how can we put an end to them? 

Inexhaustible. To put an end to it does not mean to annihilate it. When you do not try to put an end to it is actually when you put an end to it. An evil desire is not evil any more. Because we treat it the wrong way or try to stop it, it changes into evil, and it will disturb our practice.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Deborah Madison

Another Poster for our Collection

Just received this photo of a poster for a talk Shunryu Suzuki gave titled The Practice of Zen in New York City on March 8th 2027, at the Community Church, 40 E. 35th St. Presented by the Young Adults of Community Church. - thanks to Peter Wolak for sending this along. - DC

Posted on the page for Posters & Brochures for Fundraisers for Zen Mountain Center at Tassajara

Wheel of Dharma

Docho Roshi, the wheel of dharma turns in our life in many ways. It’ll go from sickness to health to sickness and again to health. Should we try to master this dharma? What is its nature?

When the wheel of dharma is turning—means to master it. Because it is always turning it is difficult to tell how it turns in detail. Only when we allow it to turn, or we can keep up with the turning wheel, we can master it actually. But actually we are turning with it. We are actually a part of the wheel. In this way, we should master the wheel without trying to master it.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Merit

Docho Roshi, why does man's work bring so little merit?

Maybe no merit, but when you realize that there is no merit, that is great merit. All the merit accumulated by all people is your merit. That is why the merit is not yours and actually at the same time yours. So, when you forget all about you or others, the merit will be great.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Medicine for This Sorrow

Docho Roshi, you are you, and I am me, and you are not you, and I am not me, and the river keeps moving by. Where is the medicine for this sorrow?

Medicine. The going river and the evanescence of life or ungraspable things is itself the medicine. Sometimes it looks like poison, but actually those are the only medicines we should take.

—Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

RIP Tracy McCallum

 I just got word that Tracy McCallum died. 

Will be adding more to his cuke page tomorrow or making a new one.

He was a good friend of Tim Buckley. I first met him in 1967 at Tassajara where he went to visit Tim and check the place out. He was married to early Shurnyu Suzuki student Fran Keller. They lived in Taos. There he studied with Pat Hawk of the Mt. Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe.

In recent years he's practiced with the NO (North Olympic) Sangha in Port Angeles, WA. (Diamond Sangha/Robert Aitken lineage)

from Tracy's page in Narrative Magazine:where there's a link to a story he wrote.

Tracy McCallum is the author of the poetry collection Fast Associations, winner of the Plumbers Ink Poetry Prize. He served as a librarian in Taos, New Mexico, for twenty-four years and lives in Port Angeles, Washington, where he also paints and turns wooden bowls.

Tracy on the left aftr jukai with Pat Hawk

Correction

On June 5th when the article below was featured, the link to the article was missing. It was still found by clever cukesters who just went to his cuke page and opened it from there. But  now it's there on the post on the 5th and here too. 

Klondike Neurology

by Lawrence Shainberg 

His cuke page

When I open my laptop in the morning, an hour or two after arising, the first thing I do is play a game of Spider 2. Norman Mailer started work that way daily and said it combed his brain. I find it instantly relaxes me, shutting of the thinker from all that nonsense to true pure meta-sense. - DC

Middle Way

Docho Roshi, how can being in sesshin be practicing the middle way?

Middle way? When you forget all about the middle way, there you have middle way.

 —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Selver on Suzuki

Up to now there's been a link from the Charlotte Selver page to my scribbled notes of an interview with her. Now, thanks to the excellent transcription skills of Wendy Pirsig, we have a readable transcript of Charlotte Selver talking about Shunryu Suzuki and a little bit other.

Charlotte Selver cuke page

Echo

Oh, echo. Everything is an echo of your mind or of your activity. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Stan White's Zen Ink Drawing

Tim Burkett podcast

Tim Burkett, early Shunryu Suzuki student and retired abbot of the Minneapolis Zen Meditation Center, talks about his new book,  Enlightenment Is an Accident: Ancient Wisdom and Simple Practices to Make You Accident Prone. This is Tim's 2nd podcast

Tim Burkett cuke page

The podcast link above is to the podcast host, Podbean. It's also at other platforms - spotify etc that are linked to from the cuke podcast page.

Silly Problems

There was a big dispute whether a shrine which is located on the top of Mt. Fuji belonged to Shizuoka Prefecture or Yamanashi Prefecture. And at that time the Archbishop visited the shrine, and he said, “Yamanashi Prefecture is the landlord of Mt. Fuji. I support you as the abbot of Eiheiji.” But people worried about that statement because they were in a terrible dispute, and asked him, “If you go to Shizuoka Prefecture, what will you say to them?” [Laughter.] “That is quite easy,” he said. “I will say that Shizuoka Prefecture is the landlord of Mt. Fuji. I support you as the abbot of Eiheiji.” —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Bell

Every morning we hit our bell when we practice zazen. That will encourage our practice. Sometimes it may be a disturbance, but when your practice is filled with true spirit, it will encourage your deep feeling. That feeling is dao or everyday mind in its true sense. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Deeper Feeling

This morning, when we were sitting, perhaps you could hear many birds singing. In your practice to hear it, what you feel or what you hear is not just birds. It is quite different from when you usually hear birds. Instead of being disturbed by the birds, you will feel a deeper feeling of your practice. If you do not hear anything, it is like breathing without a mouth or nose [laughs]. No problem, but no feeling. Something which will come into your practice will deepen your feeling of practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Everyday Mind Is Dao

You may say, “If everyday mind is true mind, whatever we do doesn’t matter; that is dao. To sneak into some other’s field and get a sweet melon, and eat it in hot summer weather is dao [laughs]. Whatever you do, that is dao.” You may understand it that way, but actually, what it means is to feel big mind through our everyday practice. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Other Pain or Problems

Many times I said that even though you feel you do not make any progress in your practice, and even though you have many problems in your practice, it may be better not to quit sitting because if you quit sitting you will not have the pain in your legs, but instead of that pain you will have another pain [laughs]. So this pain in your practice will be much better than the pain or problems you will have in city life or in some other way. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Chicago

Problems

If you can accept yourself completely, then you are not in this world any more [laughs, laughter]. That you have problems means you are still alive. That is our way. And even if you make a trip to another world, [laughs] you will have same problems, as long as you have your body and mind. That is how things exist in this world. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-04-23-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.

Sides

Dogen Zenji says, “When one side is described, the other side is dark.” We cannot describe both ways [at once]. That is why we describe just one side of the Truth. But if you have ears to listen to it, eyes to read it, you should be satisfied with one description, because you know there is the other side. —Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 68-02-00-F - 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.

Photographs by Judith Keenan

Another article by Lawrence Shainberg on his birthday

Klondike Neurology

by Lawrence Shainberg 

His cuke page

happy birthday larry!

The 6th Patriarch Sutra in Tibetan

 Introduction to The Platform Sutra in Tibetan

Ken Ireland wrote:

After more than 3 years of work, interrupted by Covid but continued by means of the internet, Kempo Kunga Dakpa and I are pleased to announce that The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is now available in Tibetan for the first time in over a thousand years. We have completed a meticulous draft of one of the key texts of Zen practice. Dakpa and I are currently looking for scholars to check the manuscript before publication.

Ken Ireland cuke page

Enter

Ken