“…you call it rain, but the human name doesn’t mean shit to a tree.”

-Jefferson Airplane, Eskimo Blue Day

Walking up the canyon today on the La Luz trail I was thinking about how a hike, bike ride, kayak trip, can create an alternate chemistry in my mind. The experience of nature is transformative. (“Nature will kill you!” -Werner Hertzog) It’s always a humbling experience if one looks closely. It seems to stop the erroneous thought processes and it brings me back to a perspective that I sometimes can lose track of.

Dogen wrote, “That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion; that the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is called enlightenment.”

So often we become so self-analytical, so self-absorbed, such navel-gazing fools, so full of of Zen sickness; completely and mindlessly unaware of being engaged in our conceptual thinking that we fail to see how desperately we are “seeking” (something) while convincing ourselves that we are not seeking anything. The stories our minds tell about ourselves, about what we name and what we feel and see and desire and find repulsive melt away with the approach of a claret cactus flower and the heat driven scent of Spring sage and the trill of a canyon wren in the pristine sky. At that moment mind ceases advancing and “the ten thousand things” advance as tzu-jan, burgeoning forth of themselves, and confirm our being as “enlightened”.

We all crave affirmation in one way or another. From within or from outside ourselves it seems to be common to most humans. We all ask the same questions about meaning in our lives. We all strive in so many self-deceiving guises to find IT. But there is something else, a mercurial thread that reaches us from deep space, from the smallest fractal geometric fleck, from our deep experiences with nature as-it-is, something that is primal, that needs no explanation or reasoning or validation. When we realize that, even for a moment, that is the experience of “the ten thousand things advancing”, confirming.

We all need to be killed by nature. We need our discursive minds silenced, if only for a moment, so that all that seemed so important, so critical, all that ego-bolstering garbage can disappear for a moment and we can be approachable by what is.

This is why we practice zazen. Zazen alone is the practice. Nothing else needed. No need to stack tiles on our heads that will eventually fall off.

Zazen allows the ten thousand things the space to advance;

and that is…

~Deep peace, Issan

Noah’s Poem

Heart beating 

In this silent room

Wondering if it matters what I do

Tomorrow morning 

Before the sunrise 

What I do upon waking

Or if I just

Wait 

For awakening to wake me

When the ferocity of the melting sun

Shakes me

SCHEDULE  June 4-10

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, SCOTT OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI 

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

Zenkai and Service Training is June 23-24. Please prioritize this event. It’s a rare occasion for the sangha to be together. It is important for folks receiving Tokudo to attend this event. Friday 6-8 PM and Saturday 6:30AM-5PM. Dana encouraged.

Deep Peace & Great Love,

Issan & Zenho

Book of Equanimity Case 67

Attention! In the Avatamsaka Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha says: “As I now see all sentient beings everywhere, they’re endowed with the Tathagata’s wisdom and virtue. But because of deluded thoughts and attachments, they do not realize it.” 

Dream the other night: I am in conversation with a Being of great wisdom and compassion. We are talking about carbon-based life forms and the interplay/interpenetration of oxygen and carbon and carbon dioxide. This “makes sense” to me. And then we come to water, H2O, and I’m baffled. I have a sense of carbon and oxygen coming from the sun. But water? How does water emerge from the furnace of the sun. I suddenly become water – a dropastreamariveralakeanoceanacloudamonsoona…with the entire universe dissolved within.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

And now, my wish is that you are asking “Where does practice fit into this?” The sitting, the bowing, the chanting, the bowing, the koan, the dream-koan, the Dokusan, the sitting, the cleaning the Zendo, the raking the garden, the sitting, the bowing, the eating, the feeding, the bowing.

Water. Water is continuously practicing as water. Warm blue Caribbean water practicing clear and bright. Frigid dark Aluetian water practicing nets and walleye pollock. Turbulent cloudy Philippine monsoon practicing earth moving. Indian tsunami practicing sudden village destruction. New Mexico cumulus practicing raining on the sky. Northern Vermont pond water practicing summer-only bathing. Water wisdom and virtue.

In the joy of sailing and bathing, who says there is delusion and attachment. In the terror and grief of tsunami and monsoon, who says there is delusion and attachment. Fully practicing joy. Fully practicing grief and terror. Fully practicing thoughts and attachment. Water half realized is realizing half practice. We are drowning in it. Quarter, half, full drowning in quarter-realized, half-realized, full-realized. Realization practicing us. Where is this delusion and attachment that can possibly escape this drowning.

“Where does practice fit into this?” You must meet that wise Being face-to-face yourself.

A dear friend of mine since 7th grade died today, His name is Paul Peduto. He lived with love and grace and good-humor for all he met. Please embrace him in your practice.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Attention This Wall-Eyed Pollock. Carries the full ocean Onto trawler deck Flopping and gasping for water.

King crab had no idea Its skin could rainbow So completely This sea of suns

            Zenho

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Noah’s offering:

Wandering weekend in 

Sun filled

Haze

Do I 

Push or pull or 

Something else 

Maybe I 

Wait

And watch whatever unfolds before me – 

The cars the waiters the women with sunglasses

The dogs on the sidewalk

The men in sneakers

The dogs in bags

Lint in air

Ladybug on tree

Hand with melting ice cream

Ant crawling on calf – 

As the happening within

Unfurls 

Unfurls

An ancient war

An ancient celebration

Something I don’t understand

______________________________________________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  May 28 – June 3

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, SCOTT OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI 

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

8 DEEP BOWS

Zenho & Issan

The Ten Grave Precepts conclude with

(10) I take up the way of not slandering the Three Treasures. (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha)

I ask you, “Why is this the culminating precept?”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Case 33 of The Book of Equanimty

Sansheng said to Xuefebg “The golden carp is out of the net! Tell me, what will it feed on?

Xuefeng said, “When you have got out of the net, I will tell you.”

Sansheng said, “The renowned teacher of fifteen hundred monks cannot find even one word to say about this topic.”

Xuefeng said, “I am the chief abbot and have much to attend to.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

My house is torn up right now. Water got into two bedrooms destroying the carpet. A leak detection service came and determined that the water was coming from cracks near the bottom of a walk-in shower. I met with three different shower replacement people, and decided on a local company. They came and ripped out the old shower tiles. And found black mold surrounding the shower. I called and met with an adjustor for the insurance company. I called a mold mitigation service. There guy came out and assessed the damage; he then removed all the black mold, and found that the rugs in the two bedrooms could not be salvaged. I went to Home Depot and met with a woman there to replace the carpet. That night, while the mold removal man was there working, there was a huge puddle of water in the bedroom – clearly not coming from the shower. I dug a trench outside along the wall and found no water accumulation. A plumber is coming tomorrow. We still have no idea where the water is coming from.

What I experienced was meeting a group of hard-working people. It is clear that they have each had lives that were not easy. And here they are helping me. Probably living paycheck to paycheck. I enjoy their company. Digging the trench is hard work. And I enjoy it.

I had a dream the other night. “I am being driven by someone in some kind of unusual vehicle. We are traveling across fields and meadows and rivers, no roads. I am aware that change is about to occur. After a while, we turn and head back. I think it is the way that we came. The fields and meadows are torn up, revealing earth and rocks. The underbrush in the forests has been cleared out. I jump to the conclusion that some people have recklessly torn up the Earth. And then I realize that I see no other humans, no digging equipment. I settle in and am immediately in a new realm of consciousness. Not knowing.”

Slandering goes hand-in-hand with “knowing.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________

BETTER TO DRINK TO OBLIVION

“Ocean Green” carpet, smelling vaguely of a treasure

Of Saturday Evening Posts left (by who) on the mossy 

Field stone foundation of a Vermont barn as this

Eight year old looks for the best hiding place ever

Puddling water no where near deep enough to hold

Minnows for wading and strangely clear enough to

Drink on a night when the heaves and shakes take hold.

Burgeoning black mold a relative, but infrequent visitor,

To psilocybe and Aminita, so perhaps marketable

In these times as unique Shamanic roots facilitator.

These gap-toothed grins, and Marlboros, and faded ink

Home-made, perhaps jail house tats, warm my heart

With no shower for days, the low angle sun dazzling my vision

As I begin with sweat from head and back and eyes

Softening the Earth to slightly less hard than the red rock

Sentries that watch silently from all around curious as this

Trench digging is foreign to their rigid outcroppings and we

Both know the sweet dark odor of this earth thumping 

Beneath feet and ledge and serpentine root the yielding

Metamorphosis glacial comparing with an over-winter

Crysalis or seven year Colorado River toad emerging with

Change for a dollar on its back

If you call this a net, come and sweat with me and

The toads and the jail house songs drowning you

With roiling ocean water

If you call this no net, greet these grizzled souls

When eyes spark upon returning home with meager paycheck

And too many mouths to feed

Impossible to feed one, without feeding all

And slander one, without slandering all

Better to drink to oblivion

                                               Than to slander the Three Treasures

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  May 21 – May 27

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI 

THURSDAY, 6:00 PM, Tokudo Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84887771423?pwd=a05lejNqWXJKRUpZZlpUc2c4bllFZz09

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

8 DEEP BOWS

Zenho & Issan

The Perfection of Wisdom

Mother of All Buddhas

Happy Mother’s Day!

Prajnaparamita means the (paramita) perfection of (prajna) wisdom. The manifestation of parajnaparamita is the Goddess known as the Mother Of All Buddhas. In Mahayana Buddhism, wisdom is considered the supreme paramita. The ancient and volumonous Prajnaparamita Sutra dates back to 100BCE. The Diamond Sutra was excerpted from this immense volume of writing.

There are endless variations of the manifestation of the Goddess in the human psyche and heart. She is regarded as mother, lover, protector, compassionate helper and embodied wisdom. In Christianity she can appear as Mary-Mother-of-God. In Dream psychology she is the “anima”, Latin for “soul”. As a mother her universal appeal is primal and is paramount.

Regardless of our relationships with our mothers, in our essential hearts we seek the unconditional love that the archetypal, yet sometimes spectral mother offers her child. To be a child in relationship with one’s mother is at first, experienced as a blissful state. As psychic maturity slowly begins and an awareness of autonomy arises in the child and separation begins. And yet, throughout our lives the deep desire for mother-child relationship never retreats. Perhaps this is our earliest earthly experience of dukkha. Some people spend years of their lives coming to terms with their relationship with their mother. Myriad types of psychological neurosis can be traced to the relationship with one’s mother. The foundation of an actualized, confident life can also be credited to the strong and unfailing bond nurtured by mother in childhood. Is it any wonder that we reach out to the spiritual mother with such hope and reverence?

In our sangha, Jitsudo Roshi, Zenho and I have a special connection to Green Tara. It is both reverential and practical in honoring the Divine Feminine in ourselves and in all beings and creation. Tara came into existence from a tear shed over the suffering of all beings by Avalokiteshvara, which fell to the ground and formed a lake. Out of its waters rose up a lotus, which, on opening, revealed the Goddess Tara. Like Avalokiteshvara, she is a compassionate, Mother-Goddess who helps by any means necessary. Her mantra is “Aum-tare-tutare-ture-soha”.

The practice of zazen is one way of realizing our non-separation from the unconditional, primal love we associate with mother-child. It seems as soon as we are able to allow the ego to retreat and we can slip into an open state of awareness, we realize the unconditional love effortlessly and obviously manifesting from all beings; tree-beings, bird-beings, plant-beings and human-beings. It’s always there. It’s just that frequently the experience of it is obscured by our own sense of self.

It’s important to practice. Practice is the touchstone of an awakened, compassionate life. So often life’s travails, attitudes and attributes intimidate us, infuriate us, upset us and depresses us. Yet, I believe, in our hearts we desire, more than anything, that mother-child relationship of unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves and in relationship with other beings. But sometimes it seems so far away.

Practice can help us to reimagine the connection that is always present. In the imagining of the Goddess, her energy enters through our hearts, soothes and comforts us and we begin to sense that it is possible for this compassionate wisdom to be reawakened in ourselves. How to think, how to act, how to let go of self and then imagining Tara with her outstretched leg ready to jump down and help or like Mother Goddess Prajnaparamita, with multiple arms offering endless possibilities for helping beings. It is then that we realize that we have confidence in our own wisdom and courage and in our own compassionate action to help alleviate the dukkha of all beings.

And then, we begin to see buddhas everywhere.

~issan

SCHEDULE  May 14-20 

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

Here’s Noah’s poem:

It is quiet this Sunday evening

And I’ve been expressing 

Myself 

With my breath

And my walks

And then I sit at my desk

with mint tea

And wonder what will I do next

Which has become somewhat a koan for me

What do I do what do I do 

Bringing me back to me 

Wondering if that is enough

Or if I should write some more or if I should just choose a book to read already 

Or will it just unfold 

Itself 

Amidst the what do I do what do I do 

Sitting at my desk sitting on my cushion eating breakfast

Eating lunch

Cooking dinner

Walking in the Spring 

Deep peace & great love,

Issan & Zenho

Tuesday May 9, 2023, is the third anniversary of Jitsudo Roshi’s death. I can’t possibly express my gratitude and love for my dear friend and guide in a Blog post. So I won’t try. There will be a memorial service on Tuesday morning at 6:30. Two periods of sitting, followed by Identity of Relative and Absolute Service. Please join.

8 Deep Bows,

Zenho and Issan

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Jitsudo’s Smile

Battered butterscotch-smooth

Antelope leather suitcase

Lined with Celtic shearling, 

Clasps of antler worn and grooved

The gold lettering worn

And worn til there is just

A faded “I” and an even less

Distinct “m” the gold wisped away

By the packing 

And unpacking

Of my hands

And my mothers’ hands

And fathers’ hands stretching

Back before the antelope 

Itself was stretched across

A savannah painted green and brown

And yellow by a déjà vu brush

Unknown in these modern towns, modern times

This packing the past

To seek the future

Purchase of more antelope and lamb

And elephant and deer 

To quell the rising risen fear until

At the cusp of outside and inside

A gap appeared in the fabric of

Space leather and 

Shearling time 

Acquiesced to and from

An emptiness pouring into a realm

That unfolds beyond limit

Brim-full with activity of antelope and lamb

And elephant and deer and Sujata

And Shakymuni and Yeshe Tsogyal and

Roshi’s biggest smile that swallows me

So completely that thought of

Getting something out of this

Are abandoned with that old old bag

Zenho

_______________________________________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  May 8 – 15

Zenho will be out of town from Tuesday afternoon through the following Tuesday morning, so there will be no Zoom after Tuesday

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JITSUDO ANCHETA ROSHI. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEAHOUSE 

When I came out of my hotel on Monday morning at 4:30 AM at the Wyndham Garden Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio to drive back to Albuquerque I went out to the parking lot to my car and

there it was,

gone.

It’s the first time my car had ever been stolen. I even got to watch the instant replay of it happening on the hotel parking lot security video. I felt mostly disappointed because I had gotten out of bed so early to have an easy escape from the awful San Antonio morning commuter traffic. Guess not. Went to the airport and while waiting for my flight the SAPD called to tell me they had found my abandoned vehicle and apparently it was still drivable. I canceled my flight, took a LYFT across town and there it was. Parked in a mud puddle. Like it had been waiting for me. Naturally, everything was emptied out of it, including all my precious Zen stuff, and my art show display units, jewelry cases….you get the picture, everything. It was vandalized. The rear window had been smashed and the ignition ripped out. I drove 10 hours home with the back window booming and shrieking at 85 MPH all the way. With plenty of solitude to reflect on this occurance.

Don’t freak out… til it’s freak out time. It was one of those things. One of those BIG things. You know, the kind of thing that’s so BIG you don’t even freak out. You just know you’re gonna be dealing with it. Despite the irritation, aggravation and inconvenience of it all, you just know, down deep, that this BIG THING really isn’t such a big thing and you go ahead and deal with it.

I remember something I had read recently by Trungpa Rimpoche about how things become workable. How our meditation practice allows us to be able to work with things that come up. In our lives, in our practice and in our feelings. Sometimes it BIG STUFF. Sometimes its just perception. Sometimes it’s the news we don’t want to hear or a circumstance that is devastating. But what we learn through practice that whatever it may be, it is indeed, workable.

What we often work out is not so much simply the circumstances themselves, but we are able to bring a lens to the situation that allows us to view our inner workings. Our reaction, our emotions around these circumstances. Our attachments and aversions and our feelings. There is a mistaken notion that as a result of Zen practice that we become calm, we react with equanimity in all situations, we’re centered and grounded. But this is simply not so.

What our practice brings to us is the notion that circumstances we encounter in our lives are workable. From the inside out. Reacting spontaneously, anger, frustration and sadness do come up. We may express them quite vigorously. Being in them fully. But we return to calmer waters quite naturally and realize quite readily that there is something here that can be worked with. We can examine the obvious and not so obvious aspects of ourselves as the result of these circumstances.

Zen practice is recognizing that it’s all workable. Sometimes it’s best to just leave karma, enlightenment and emptiness out of it. Don’t get tangled. Whatever happens, recognize that it’s workable.

And get to work!

SCHEDULE  APRIL 30-May 6 

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

Issan is out out town Thursday -Monday, offering his easy to steal vehicle to the Dark Side in Kansas City.

Deep Peace & Great Love,

Issan

& Zenho

Here’s Noah’s poem:

Agitation 

Into the 

The storm of the 

Universe

Tornados scouring the land 

Plowing towards me

But I 

Stand

And meet it all 

Rising and rising 

In my

Aliveness 

Every moment a chance to yell 

I am 

Every moment a chance to yell 

I am

Earth day earth Day Earth

I went for a hike today with the Sandias at the ski area. No one but me and Dobby (my house elf doggie) and trees and sky and grasses and rocks and sparrow and Sun and hawk and a deer that Dobby caught scent of before me and chased into the depths of the woods. Hiking after him, snow cascading into my boots, cold and sharp. Inhaling every step of uneven rock and rolling fallen branches and thigh deep snow playing the game of “support you here and here and not here ahhhhh” until Dobby returns empty jawed and winded and smiling, rewarded with a cricket treat for having returned on his own. His serpentine plunge into the forest has brought us back a different non-path to the car. We share a drink of water, giving the extra to the late winter grasses. And then collect a trove of empty beer bottles and cans, Miller and Marble and Santa Fe Brewing, and an empty Old Grand-Dad 80 proof pint and a pair of orange plastic thinthin flipflops that are given out at places like 10,000 Waves and a single blue dog bootie size small.

I shared a dream this week in Dream-Koan practice: I’m an 8 year old boy. I’m with a 4 year old girl and a huge Bobcat, the Bobcat sitting is taller than me. Sometimes I’m the 8 yo boy and sometime I’m the 4 yo girl and sometimes I’m an amalgam of us. The Bobcat has a huge open wound on its back, right behind it’s heart. As the 4 yo girl I am shivering (do you know the way that some 4 yo shiver with intense pleasure and/or pain?). As the 8 yo, I feel immense hurt and sadness and I am applying an antibiotic salve, knowing that I must try. As the Bobcat, I feel the immense pain of the wound in a different way. This wound, this wounding is never-ending. This wound, this wounding is raw and immediate. This shivering is without defense. And never-ending.

Today, I am seeing the Earth as this giant Bobcat, with multiple open wounds. Never-ending wounding. When viewing the Earth from outer space, I get a taste of the dharmakaya interconnectedoneness. Offering a perspective so much bigger than I-me-mine, I don’t even see this Zenho being. Perhaps I don’t see/feel the never-ending wounding, or the action that I can take with this never-ending wounding. As the 4 and 8 yo right next to the Bobcat, the wound/wounding becomes COMPLETELY personal. And of course picking up bottles and cans and flipflops and………

___________________________________________________________________________________________

THE THREE MARKS OF EXISTENCE

The gash in your back

Ragged and red

Is the gash in my back

That shivers in agony

As the otherwise gentle breezes

Of “How?” and “Why?” and “Who?”

Probe nerve and tendon and bone.

Allow me your wound

And I will apply this salve

As carefully and gently as I can

For I too feel the jaw clenching necessity 

Of its gritty presence

Zenho

____________________________________________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  APRIL 23- APRIL 30 

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI 

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

8 DEEP BOWS

Zenho & Issan

Out on the river the past two Sundays. Feeling the roll and flow beneath me in the boat, breathing in the pristine blue sky. The heat -driven scent of water and mud. Burbling and tickling sounds of the flowing water’s riffles and eddies. Feeling the silky water, cool and soothing. Staring in awe at the mountains, the bosque, the new leaves, lime green on the trees and bushes, the birds and intense light reflected off the water. Aliveness. The exuberance of IT ALL.

Have you ever felt that whatever it is you’re doing that you’re somehow watching yourself? A discomfort in this, a disconnect? Minor sometimes, but you’re aware of it, right? There is the sense of an observer that you’d like to dissolve so you can have the pure, right-now experience as its actually happening. Some part of the psyche seems to be always watching. Do you feel like you’re a split-second behind the experience, getting a filtered sense of it?

Tom Wolfe, in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test wrote about the Merry Pranksters attempt at dissolving that “synapse-lapse-gap”. That moment when the observer interprets the experience then “reports” it to “you”. They tried to eliminate this by taking copious amounts LSD so the nano-second of mental processing of an experience might disappear completely, and immediate no-gap, spontaneous consciousness results. (They felt, in the end, that they were less than successful.)

When we are observing ourselves, I say, it’s because we’re doing, rather than being. A common state of ignorance. This discursive mind separates everything mercilessly. Mind constantly proceeding to a conclusion rather than resting in intuitive cognizance. When mind arises as such we are engaged in doing rather than being. Doing in this case, is preconditioned acting by the observer.

Being, is drifting and dreaming, flowing and floating, effortless. No aversion or attraction, no “self-making” stories being told. Being arises unnoticed, naturally and unselfconscious, because, no-you is there to notice it. The observer has disappeared. A moment, just then, and not noticed until after it passes. Then we deeply, viscerally recall the blues and greens, the sound of water rolling, the sky and wind, the sound of trees. The Being of IT ALL. Thusness, tathātā, free of conceptual encumbrances. Relax now.

Thusness is Prajna Paramita, the transcendant nature of things as they actually are, the wisdom-law of Being-ness. Have you seen it? Have you felt it? It cannot be approached, it must approach of itself. Be still.

Zazen and the experiencing of the living dharma are opportunities so very rare and precious because they realize Prajna Pramita in our living lives.

Actually living, actually being.

~Issan

SCHEDULE  APRIL 16- APRIL 22 

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

TUESDAY, 6:30PM, Tokudo Meeting, at the Tea House OR ZOOM. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89738637937?pwd=S3ViQ2dubGpoQzBURktqUjlaeExCdz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE, ANDY OPENING (Issan out of town Thursday-Tuesday)

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

Happy Earth Day on Saturday April 22nd!

Deep peace & great love,

Issan & Zenho

Here is our poetic gift from Noah this week:

Pulling down spirals of 

understanding

into my own relationship with 

this

this

‘go to sleep’

this

‘feel’

this

‘presence’ 

concepts 

that whisper of revelation

that beckon and beckon 

to the non-conceptual

I know is 

here

Blue Cliff Record, Case 52

A monastic said to Zhaozhou, “The stone bridge of Zhaozhou is widely renowned, but coming here I find only a set of steppingstones.”
Zhaozhou said, “You see only the steppingstones and do not see the stone bridge.”
The monastic said, “What is the stone bridge?”
Zhaozhou said, “It lets horses cross over and donkeys cross over.”

Happy Easter. Happy Easter. This story of birth death rebirth is really wonderful. We are all experiencing birth death rebirth death all the time. Now this is all well and good as an idea. What does it feel like?! The agony of the cross. Swallowing a hot iron ball. To really experience that intensity is, hmmmmm, difficult for most of us. We prefer the steppingstones. Excellent. How do you feel? Even the steppingstones allow horses to cross, donkeys to cross.

On Good Friday, the Catholic Church has a ceremony in which the Host (the bread that represents the body of Christ) is removed from the altar tabernacle (they take it to another side altar, not willing to experience the full ramification of the ceremony; a steppingstone perhaps). The tabernacle door is left open – EMPTY. Horrific really. Yet this was my favorite part of the Catholic ceremonies. A mystery that still calls out from me. EMPTINESS BIRTH EMPTINESS DEATH EMPTINESS BIRTH EMPTINESS DEATH EMPTINESS

Are these stories theistic or nontheistic? How do you feel?

In interviews recently, I’ve been asked about the difference between theism and non-theism. Are you engaged with this question? A steppingstone? 

I suggest that if you are engaged with this question, you may have the wrong end of the stick, the wrong end of the bridge. The other end says “Who or what or when or why or how is asking this question!” Engaging directly with the intensity of this may lead directly to Zhaozhou’s stone bridge. Or it may swallow stone bridge and steppingstones and horse and donkey whole! Or a bit at a time.

It’s up to….you? WHAT WHAT

_________________________________________________________________

A child

Perhaps tiger

Skipping across

A giant

Rough hewn

Skipping stone

Upon this

The ocean

So cold

And blue

And wet

My skin

Goosed flesh

Plunging donkey

And horse

Direct through

Zenho

8 DEEP BOWS

Zenho (auteur) and Issan

________________________________________________________________________________

Noah Seltzer’s offering this week

I keep on trying to get to where I already seem to be

this I am

I am 

beckoning myself to the 

overwhelming matter-of-factness

of the day

and the night

but the tiger still needs to bite my shoulder as I sleep

so I can know my true

rage 

at God

and my mom

_______________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  APRIL 9- APRIL 16 

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE WITH ISSAN 
DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI

Emptiness<– –>  Potency

“He’s back on that!”

There is something going on here within this blog space. I’ve written. You’re reading. Some spark of energy is flashing.

I’m with a guy. The guy goes into a room; he may be being bound or is binding himself. The guy apparently has difficulty with intimacy, especially being touched. 3 other guys come into the room and they are licking him. The first guy is in agony. When finished, he is now suing the three guys for inflicting trauma on him. I am feeling sympathetic towards the first guy’s trauma. I go to bed for the night, and one of the three guys that were licking him jumps into my bed and it turns out he is a giant bear and he wraps his arms around me. Feels good, amazingly intimate. I suddenly realize that all the other 3 “guys” are also animals and that the rules of “polite” human society don’t apply.  Zenho recent dream

Emptiness<– –>Potency

“He’s back on that!”

Are you pleased, sensing an opportunity here? Are you irritated, sensing a problem here? Are you bored, wanting to move on or away from here? Pleased or irritated or bored, you are feeling, an emotion. E(outward)motion. Here ripples every(w)here.

Meditation is essential. Experiencing that we don’t actually exist – while there is definitely existence. Ambiguity abounds. Are you pleased, sensing an opportunity here? Are you irritated, sensing a problem here? Are you bored, wanting to move on or away from here? Pesky feelings/emotions. Again and again and again…This blog, not so simple.

Go to sleep, drop it all. What is it! What is it! 

And then thoughts emerge, the offspring of feeling/emotion. Where does this come from. Ambiguity. Are you pleased, sensing an opportunity here, moving towards? Are you irritated, sensing a problem here, moving away? Are you bored, ignoring your moving toward or away from here? Are we even slightly aware of the feeling?

“The tantric approach to emotions is much more disciplined and much more personal. It’s highly personal; that is why this mandala (the mandala of emotion) is called the sacred mandala. It is very difficult to achieve, but it is also very important and extremely sacred. Normally, no one is able to achieve such perfection, or even to conceive of such a possibility. So we should respect the sacredness of the secret mandala.

The mandalas are reality. It is as simple as that. Of course reality is real, but our contact with reality is through our sense perceptions, our body, and our emotions – the three mandalas.”   Journey Without Goal, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Go to sleep….Thoughts emerge.

What happens, is happening, in the moment of change, changing. Something opens in us, accommodating the realization. AND something is opening in the entire Universe, accommodating the realization. A sparking. An irritating intimacy.

Dream koan practice is this accommodating. Working with perception, embodiment, feeling/emotion. Sacred practice. Sacred for the individual and our community.

I urge you to renew your commitment to this discipline. Practice is incomplete without commitment of meditation and commitment of dream-koan practice. Are you pleased, sensing an opportunity here? Are you irritated, sensing a problem here? Are you bored, wanting to ignore this calling? Asparkin! Irritating intimacy.

8 Deep Bows

Zenho (auteur) and Issan

________________________________________________

SACRED

Rain

And Snow

Late winter

Roof leaking

Carpet sodden

Wall blackening

Juniper orchard

Plush yellowing

Rosy finches

Dusting bathing

Achoo Achoo

Murky pond

Swallowing me 

Whole 

Hooooooo

            Zenho

____________________________________________________

Noah Seltzer’s recent offering:

May all beings know their ease

may all beings know their greatness

know 

their particular 

flavor of

of God.

_______________________________________________________________________________

SCHEDULE  APRIL 2- APRIL 9

MONDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT TEA HOUSE, DAVID KEKANSAN OPENING

MONDAY, 7PM, DREAM KOAN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM

Drag your body to the Zendo, or Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81182899201?pwd=UVU4MnJhMG1ZUGJaOHhaSndwQ2dYQT09

TUESDAY, 6:30AM, ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM, WITH ZENHO. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86265616603?pwd=WHZEQWNDQnZPS1VicDl6VVlEdmxFZz09

WEDNESDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE OR ZOOM WITH ZENHO 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89605039197?pwd=VTVubW5pUnBCNFBqQjBieERvNDd5QT09

THURSDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN AT THE TEA HOUSE WITH ISSAN 
DOKUSAN WITH ISSAN SENSEI

FRIDAY, 6:30AM: ZAZEN & SERVICE WITH ZENHO AT THE TEAHOUSE  DOKUSAN WITH ZENHO SENSEI