may 2007

so here i am

So here I am on a Monday holiday afternoon, listening to Nashville Skyline, thinking about a certain new friend of mine and coming across another quote from Taigen Dan Leighton, writing about Dylan & Dogen:

“In “I Threw It All Away,” he comments “Love is all there⁄ It makes the world go 'round⁄ Love and only love⁄ It can't be denied⁄ No matter what you think about it⁄ You just won't be able to do without it⁄ Take a tip from one who's tri‐i‐i‐i‐i‐e‐e‐e‐e‐e‐ed,” holding the vowels seemingly forever as a forlorn expression of loss.”

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

form and emptiness

Reading Taigen Dan Leighton, found him quoting these lines from the Heart Sutra:

“Shiki fu i kū, kū fu i shiki. Shiki soku ze kū, kū soku ze shiki.”

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

emptiness and form

Reading Joanne Kyger, found her quoting Philip Whalen:

‘EMPTINESS IS THE THING WE ARE FULL OF’

‘AND EVERYTHING YOU SEE IS EMPTY, FULL OF IT
   PACKED FULL OF EVERYTHING EMPTY

AND WE ARE IN IT THAT'S WHAT WE EXPERIENCE
THE GREAT AND MANIFEST AND UNBORN LIVE CHAOS

OKAY. THAT'S ENOUGH. THANK YOU. ’

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

popcorn day

Yesterday, tried to catch up a little bit on my movie‐going promises to the grandson. We made it out of the house early & over to San Franciso where we saw Shrek the Third & Spiderman 3. Both enjoyable, the latter much more enjoyable than I was expecting given the underwhelming reviews. Yes, the grandson got his surfeit of (over‐priced) popcorn & yes, I ate some too.

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

three days

After all my thoughts about holding off on sitting another sesshin this year, here I go, leaping into it again and looking forward to it...the ‘it’ being the upcoming three day sesshin, led by Shokan Jordan Thorn, who also led the class on the Heart Sutra I had been attending on Thursday evenings.

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

walker percy talking to robert coles

Via the ever remarkable wood's lot a link to this site brings forth the following quote:

“I tell you, the crazy thing about a lot of us in this here and now is that we sure as hell know how crazy a lot of others are, but we're not on to how deaf, dumb, and blind we can be to ourselves, about ourselves--how lost we sometimes are, no matter how clever we think we've become.”

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

do buddhists pray?

Do Buddhists pray?

[ 28 May 2007] link? →→→contact me

reading detour

Taking a little detour from reading the Dalai Lama's book on the Heart Sutra, I found this line from Dogen in Taigen Dan Leighton's new book:

“Grasses and trees, fences and walls demonstrate and exalt it for the sake of living beings; and in turn, living beings, both ordinary and sage, express and unfold it for the sake of grasses and trees, fences and walls.”

The ‘it’ that is being exalted is the wonderous dharma. I am moved by this quote, which I first came across in my reading of Dogen's Bendowa for the last practice period at Zen Center. According to Taigen Leighton, what Dogen is pointing out is that "there is a clear and beneficial interrelationship between the practitioner and the environment".

[ 6 May 2007] link? →→→contact me



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