Off to a Zen retreat in the Catskills! I'll be out in a monastery meditating with monks and practitioners, putting me beyond the range of most communication. I'll tell folks how it goes, but in the mean time, cheerio! 

The obstacle is the path. --Zen proverb

So paradoxical! 

 To me, something is most beautiful when it can simply be. It doesn't need improvement, doesn't need to pretend to be something else. It exists in its quirks and failures. It doesn't adhere to a model. It simply is ( Read more... )

"...within life, our discipline is the practice of letting go. Letting go doesn’t mean not caring. Letting go means letting go-not holding on. It means loving, it means caring, it means holding, but not sticking, not attaching to people, places, things; not to ideas, positions; not attaching to anything. And so, in a sense, the iron yoke of Guishan ( Read more... )