April 9

With respect,




Good Morning All,







It is quiet here in the Mesilla Valley. Other than an occasional car, birdsong is all that breaks the silence. We have just concluded our Hanamatsuri Sesshin and just afterwards, Soku Shin and I took the Hugger to Hatch and back. The Hugger is our Harley Davidson Sportster. It is the 883 version, but still packs cool power as we took the secondary road to Hatch where we ate green chilli at Sparky's.







In honor of this new addition to our family, I bought still another copy of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, that wonderful book by Pirsig that asks us to slow down and pay attention. Pirsig offers a slow, delicious ride into the everyday while on a long distance ride with friends and his son. He calls these lessons Chautauquas and asks us to explore our world deeply. This exploration, however, is not esoteric or exotic, it is based in the everyday.







What can we know about anything without directly experiencing it?







Be well.

Mountains and Birds

With respect,


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning in the Mesilla valley

Amid the mountains and the trees

And, before the sun came up,

I sat outside and listened.

Birds greeted the dawn.

The air was crisp and the chatter raucous.

Flying and perching, flying and perching.

Their little bodies

Were full of themselves.

Hallelujah.

As for me,

My voice is not so raucous

And my body not so vibrant:

But I could sit still and join

The mountains and the trees.

Hallelujah, sun,

Here I am.

______________

This evening at 6:00 PM we resume our Hanamatsuri sesshin. Please consider joining us!

Courtyard Zen

With respect,


Good Morning Everyone,



The morning light has not yet made its appearance in the east. I am barely awake myself. Today we will practice Zazen with the elders at Golden Mesa at 11:00, and later, Street Zen at 4:00, and still later, Zazen in the Zendo at 6:00. In between, a few private interviews.



Lately, I have felt myself feeling adrift. This feeling seems closely associated with a waning interest in painting, writing, and other creative efforts. What I seem to want to do mostly is sit in the courtyard of our house looking up into the depths of the New Mexico sky.



This practice is not unlike Zazen. It is certainly, “just sitting,” but without the benefit of robe and zafu. Thoughts are barely perceptible and float in and out of my awareness without much of a trace. I could not tell you what I am thinking most of the time, because it seems to me, most of the time I am not thinking.



When we loosen our grip, and let go of any attempt to control things, life seems to do just fine. The grass does, indeed, grow of its own accord. We are Buddha-Nature’s witness to itself.



Be well

Sweeping Zen

On the front page of Sweeping Zen:  http://sweepingzen.com/

Schedule Changes

With respect,


Good Morning Everyone,

Today at Clear Mind Zen we will practice Zazen at 6:00 PM in the Zendo. We will follow our evening practice with our Zen discussion group. We will conclude our discussion of chapter three of our text and, hopefully, open chapter four.

Please Note: We are making our five day intensives more accessible to everyone by having evening hours beginning Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Saturday will be from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sunday from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Our fees will be $5.00 per evening, $15.00 for Saturday, and $5.00 for Sunday. If you have already paid for the full five days under the old schedule, we will gladly refund your offering. A reminder: Those who are paying dues at the “Great Benefactor” level are not required to pay, your sesshin fees are included in your membership dues. If you are paying dues at the “Sustaining Member” level you will receive a 25% discount.

A further schedule change: We will no longer offer morning Zazen. All of our Temple-based activities will be in the evening. Evening Zazen will be at 6:00 PM on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Lastly, if you buy your books through Amazon, please consider clicking through to Amazon via our website links. We have partnered with Amazon and will receive a portion of the purchase price.

We hope to see you soon.

Be well

Morning Light

With respect,


Good Morning Everyone,



This morning I woke in a slight funk. The painting I was working on is now finished. Our websites are as completed as I have the ability to make them. And, what was my Mountain Refuge has a contract on it. What was once so meaningful, will be no more. I sat outside watching the sunrise with this.



These last three years have been a time of dramatic change in my life. The dust has now settled, more or less. At 65, I am looking at exploring the wilting of the flower of my life. All that has happened has happened and is past, fading now in memory, and losing its significance to any but me, residing as it does, in some recess of my brain. Our lives open, bloom, grow, and turn. All the while others come up, and others fade away. Everything changes always in every moment and it is all here now. As Dogen teaches, ash is ash, firewood, firewood: each day is itself. We are charged to manifest ourselves in each moment as fully as possible. The fading flower lets go.



Soku Shin remarked yesterday that my paintings have a “primordial” quality to them. Yes, I see that, though I am not conscious of it as I paint. As I look at my life I am discovering mystery.



Be well

Spring Comes

With respect,


Good Morning Everyone,



Yesterday afternoon I put the top down on my old Saab. This car is nearly twenty years old and I have grown to truly appreciate her. When the top is down the world is invited in, or shall I say, I have lowered the barriers between the environment and myself. It is a good feeling to be outside in fresh air. It is coming to be spring here in New Mexico.

My hope, now that our websites are nearly completed, is that I will be able to turn my attention to developing our engaged practices and assisting others in establishing sitting groups around the country. Zen is a powerful practice that has the potential to change our lives through internal transformation. We need to slow down and pay attention in this new millennium. Our world has become one vast, instantaneous network of different peoples and cultures. As we come to know in each flash of news what is happening in every corner of the globe we can begin to see our interconnected reality. This reality is our actual life.

This morning we will practice Zazen at the Zendo at 10:00 AM. From there we will go to Golden Mesa Retirement Community and offer meditation training to elders residing there. This afternoon at 4:00 we will practice street Zen at the Federal Building, downtown Las Cruces. A full day of Zen.

Be well.