Tongue of a Crow

 Peter Coyote at Book Passage - video

Peter Coyote cuke page

Tongue of a Crow is Peter's recent book of poetry gathered from a life of writing poems. I just heard him read a number of them when he was a guest on Jon Joesph's Zen Luminaries series.

Reading and commenting on a famous story

Now, Bodhidharma, when he came to China, he visited Emperor Wu or Wuteng  and there were famous questions and answers. This is the first subject of Blue Cliff Record. "Attention: the Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great teacher Bodhidharma, 'What is the first meaning of holy reality?'" What is the first principle? "Bodhidharma said, 'Emptiness. No sacredness.'" No holiness. "The Emperor said, 'Confronting me, who is it?'" Who is here? Aren't you a teacher or a holy person?. "Bodhidharma said, 'I don't know.' The Emperor did not accord. Thereupon Bodhidharma crossed the river and reached the land of Wei." "I" in Japanese.    --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 68-07-23 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

How to treat a scroll

And we should not hang same scroll all the time. If you do so, the color will fade, or it will become dusty. So we have to change once in a while, and change it for something else. And we should once in a while, we should hang it. If you don't, scroll will become moldy. So it is pretty difficult to treat it. That is why old scrolls -- even the old ones looks like quite new, if it is good one and well-treated one.   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 68-07-23 - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

DC note. I gave up on66-01-22N, /There was too much that was not clear and it was too hard to gather anything coherent from it without a lot of work. So I moved on to another of the new transcripts. I'm not sure about this one either. We'll see/ He's talking about a scroll that Dryden Phelps had loaned him to hang at Sokoji or Tassajara. He talks about the type of scroll and the care of scrolls.

Wrong

For Buddha, there's nothing to receive, but he has many things to give us. And if so, what we do, whether it is offering a cake or practicing zazen, this kind of practice is not a matter of to attain enlightenment, or to practice to do some success. When we do something, it looks like we are doing something good, but actually, for Buddha there is nothing which is good. And nevertheless Buddha has many things to do for people. When Buddha produces many things for us, it is true practice. When we think we do something, that is wrong for practice. That way not our practice.   --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-01-22N - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

DC Comment: Poor quality tape. Some guesswork in transcription. Question marks indicating the transcibers are unsure  have been omitted.. 

Peter Coyote with Jon Joseph

A remind that Hosho Peter Coyote is a guest on Jon Josepth's Zen Luminaries series today March 28th at 6PM PST. Go here to the Pacific Zen Inst. site to get Zoomin on it.

If you're wondering why I'm posting this a second time in a few days, I might be swayed by the fact that Peter has asked Jon Joseph to contribute attendees contributions to Cuke Archives. 

Thanks Peter. Thanks Jon. See you there.

Cannot

Present mind cannot be grasped, past mind cannot be grasped, and future cannot be grasped,  --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-01-22N - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

Offer

For Buddha mind, there is nothing to be offered. Buddha mind is the absolute mind. For the absolute mind where there is nothing to offer.  --------------------------- Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki  lecture - 66-01-22N - as found on shunryusuzuki.com, from one of the newly discovered (2021) lecture tapes. 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. Go to https://www.instagram.com/cuke_archives/ for more daily Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts - with a photo

DC Comment - this lecture audio is so hard to understand. Look a the transcript and see the shards of what Suzuki said about Tokusan and the old lady that lead up to these statements.  

RIP Edward C. Johnson III

Edward C. Johnson III, 91, Dies; Made Fidelity an Investment Giant

From the NY Times
March 24, 2022

Read it on cuke.com

Ned Johnson, as he was called, continued his father's support of the SFZC most generously through the years. I met him two times. Once in 1973 when I was Richard Baker's jisha, and the second time in 1999 when he expressed an interest in supporting the digitization and transcription of Shunryu Suzuki's audio archive. We should all be most grateful to him and his family and his family fund for their substantial contributions that have helped significantly to establish Shunryu Suzuki's way in the West. - DC 

refresh for the link

If you got the prior post in an email with no link to Robert Pirsig's pamphlet on Zen in Minnesota or from the bounce to Facebook, it's there now the Cuke What's New Blog and here too.

An Historical Document of Note

Robert Pirsig's Zen in Minnesota - sent by Erik Storlie who wrote:

This piece is a fine example of the huge optimism we all had that we were going to change minnesota (if not the world) by bringing zen here.  notice how bob crafts his message to allay fears that the zennies will be another nutcase hippie group.  rather, we will bring wayward young people into line.

while in negotiations for the country land, bob, nancy, i, and others went down to eitzen and had a meeting in a church or city hall where we had to assure concerned locals that we would not be proselytizing, corrupting the children, and disturbing the peace.

notice the strict schedule katagiri created from the get-go:  two zazens each morning, two each evening--all of which he attended.  and we felt guilty if we didn't!