Oops

Hi. Gosh. I forgot to post a Suzuki lecture excerpts for two days again. Like I did last week or was it two weeks ago? Trying to get a bunch of stuff done but I intend to post those excerpts Monday through Saturday and it's not like I don't have time to do and am working around the clock. Let's see if this continues. In the meantime, I've got all the podcasts in queue through July 15. Have got the last 30% of Thank You and OK! left to record and prepare for an audiobook. Maybe it's all downhill from here but whichever way I'm headed it's onward! - dc

Seventy-five years ago today

The US dropped a nuclear bomb on a civilian population. Today we have much larger ones ready to launch as does Russia, enough to eliminate all higher forms of life. Other nations have joined this club and more are in line. We, all of us, don't have time to deal with this issue now and most don't even realize it's much of an issue. World Suicide. 

Spent my Spare Time at Tassajara 1970 on doing stuff like this

Four Bodhisattva Vows - notes - dc

Tokudo prep sheet from way back

DC priest ordination ceremony prep pages fall of 1971 - what I was given to read to explain ceremony and prepare me for it. That word "faith" hasn't been used much in translating like here. - dc

Labyrinth

Got a donation today to Cuke Archives from a person in Burlingame. I recalled Burlingame. I stayed at the Mercy Center there twenty years ago. Not in the convent adjoining. Gave a talk. Sat zazen with Father Hand who had studied Zen in Japan for a long time and created a zendo and a labyrinth for walking meditation. There are a lot of images of it online. Here's one. I'd like to go back and walk that labyrinth. I'm into walking meditation these days and back then I liked to walk. I still like to walk. - dc

Sunday is a day off

To take it easy - and answer emails.

I = you et al

Brad Warner's video linked to yesterday makes the point the his I and all other Is are the same I. That I thing really unites Hinduism and Buddhism too, found in the insight types like Zen and Advaita Vedanta which focuses on that point - and in other traditions as well. To me it's in the core of the perenial philosophy. The Who am I? koan goes way back in India.

Wishing you

[place appropriate image for your holiday greeting here]

Holiday greeting of your choice.

And many more.

dc

Getting up and Moving

at least every thirty minutes and you'll live longer - from this article on BBC site. This isn't new information. Good to repeat. Ariana Huffington has made this one of her causes. But what I always wonder is what about is what about ones posture when sitting. I sit much more with legs up, some in half lotus for zazen but mainly taylor style or comfortably crossed in several ways including an occasional one leg down for I mainly sit with legs up on something where I can put my legs down when I want. I like the Japanese horigotatsu where one sits on cushions on the floor but can drop the legs into a hole under the table (horu, to dig, plus kotatsu, the low table).  I do a little seiza now and then or sitting on the shins and have had to do way more of that "correct sitting" than I wanted to.

Oft Quoted Phrase

Decarte's "I think therefore I am" is one way to look at it but the Hindu and Buddhist way that I've gathered is just "I am"  with the "I" not standing for a separate being but our door to the absolute or whatever. The Advaita Vedanta folks especially emphasize that all beings have the sense of I am and that it is pre thought. Ramana Maharshi said that the an ultimate spiritual statement was the Bible's famous "I am that I am" which god says but god of course is not someone else and not even every man but every sentient being. - dc 

A Favorite Quote from Shakespeare

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

Or "our philosophy" from another version. I see it as all thought and belief. Hamlet speaking. I recall this especially when I hear thinkers or scientiests expressing great and profound things yet revealing limitaions in their views and beliefs. - dc

Ahimsa

Adding this post minus Aussie image to the Fauna Ahimsa page on cuke.com. (doing as little harm as possible to animals)

Thinking about this section because we're getting a dog for our new Sanur home. Too vast to do more than suggest subjects to investigate.
Do a web search for key words in the following - much to choose from. The list could go on and on

A little piece named

Leftovers

Ask not for Who the Bell Tolls

Something I think about and am a fence-sitter on depending on situation. Maybe I use too much whom. It's obviously going the way of fewer but at least we can still comfortably use the latter.  - dc

Kelly Walks Away

At the age of five. - My eldest son called me up and asked about this yesterday and here's what happened. - dc

DC Answer to a Query

And yes - why am I doing this? Good question. Actually I think all this is pointless, just a way to say hello. I agree we have to erase our past - it is truly nothing. I like the Diamond Sutra where Buddha sort of erases everything he says after he says it.  I do get a lot of people telling me that they get inspired by reading about others on the path including a lot of info surely off the path, Some say they get more from them than the lectures. Been posting a Suzuki lecture excerpt six days a week for a few years and there some who like that. But I don't really think about it. Sort of like making a big sculpture. The way I see it, everything is in the past, some seeming to be further in the past, but really it's all just like a cloud floating by and all there at once, the past another name for phenomena.

Until

We're always helping each other but we can't really help people until we realize we can't really help people. - Kabumpkan

Happy

New Year.

-dc

Poem

The countless number of ways to say
That nothing can be said
Is another endless game to play
Until the day we're dead.
- Kabumpkan

Congratulations!

For some of us anyway, like Japanese Buddhists. Anyway, it's a day to remind us who we are.