In the early Ninth century the renowned Chinese master of both Zen and Huayen, Guifeng Zongmi, spoke of five styles of Zen. In the Twentieth century the Japanese Zen master Haku’un Yasutani adapted this list to express his own observations about the various ways people engage Zen. That adaptation […]

        Jan & I’ve just completed a three-day sesshin with the Empty Sky Sangha in West Cornwall, Connecticut. The leaves are turning, but it’s been a warm and wet season and there’s not a lot of color, many leaves simply falling to the ground. Even so this rural Connecticut area is astonishingly […]

        Over the last couple of years I’ve found a shifting in my interior life. As a Zen practitioner I’ve been focused for many years on the profound and subtle pointing expressed succinctly within the Heart Sutra: Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. It is an approach to that religious perspective generally […]

      One of my absolute heroes is the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. He walked the mystery between Christianity and Buddhism in ways that have called to my heart over the many years. He has been a companion, a guide, offering correction and encouragement every step I’ve taken. He counts in my life as […]

    So, today, Jan I took our pretty regular stroll down to the beach in Long Beach. As we walked past the big Life guard central station we were taken aback to see that it was now the headquarters for “Malibu search and rescue.” I’d long had my suspicions about Malibu, but that they […]

        Many years ago I ran across a book describing a visit to Japan sometime before the second world war. I don’t recall a lot about that book. Well, except, for one thing. The writer described encountering a small Buddhist society whose members were following an adaptation of the rule of St […]

          The Indian spiritual and political leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on this day in 1869 in Porbander, a town in present day Gujarat. Later called Mahatma, or Great Soul, a title bestowed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi would become a singular figure on the twentieth century public stage. […]

        Annie Wood was born on this day in 1847. At 20 she married an Anglican priest, Frank Besant. They would have two children together before their marriage collapsed. Apparently spurred on by Annie Besant’s increasing distaste for organized religion and equally increasing devotion to the work of justice. In 1877, as […]

    Today within the Christian liturgical calendar is Michaelmas. Or, and actually my preferred name, today is the Feast of the Saints Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael. Or, if you prefer, the shorter while still more accurate version, today is the Feast of the Archangels. An archangel is a chief or principal angel. Angels […]

  My Facebook friend John Harrison just posted Gary Snyder’s poem For All. I thought it something perfect in the moment. And, so, here I am sharing it, as well… For All Ah to be alive on a mid-September morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, holding boots, pack on, sunshine, ice in the […]

    This past weekend we were deep in sesshin, an intensive Zen meditation retreat. As we practice with koans as part of our project we have frequent opportunities for spiritual direction, a practice called dokusan. So, I was meeting with the sesshin participants when someone came into the interview who is a long-time Zen […]

        PEACE THROUGH A BOWL OF TEA A talk delivered on the 19th of September, 2018 at the first Annual Dr Genshitsu Sen Lecture Series at the Huntington Library Glenn Taylor Webb (Professor Webb is both an ordained Obaku Zen priest and professor emeritus  of Japanese culture at Pepperdine University, where he served […]