In a couple of weeks, I will be attending another 7-day Zen meditation retreat (this will be my 4th).Why the heck do you want to spend 7 days sitting silently on your butt I hear you ask? Well, for one reason, it gives me the opportunity to investigate the illusory nature of my self. To wake up. For, as the saying goes, things are not … Continue reading On having no head.
The following excerpt is from the blog popupzendo.org. It looks at a simple practice of using two hands to embody mindfulness in day to day activities and encounters. “……. there are always opportunities to practice intentional embodiment in the midst of everyday activity that we still haven’t mastered. Two handed practice can be included as a kind of anchor that can hold our intention even while … Continue reading Two handed practice.
I’m going to talk about my zen practice for a bit. Most mornings the birds call me to it.The dawn chorus of magpie and crow call. There are other songs I can’t identify by instrument but know with deep familiarity their place in the orchestration nevertheless.First light, everything just beginning to stir. The world waking up in a trillion fresh increments. This is the time … Continue reading Zazen, is that like a Zen thing?
So I have just returned from spring sesshin with Black Mountain Zen Group. Traditionally, an individuals experiences during sesshin are not discussed in public (although I have written about my first sesshin in detail here). Its a private time so I won’t say too much about the whole thing. Except perhaps to say… that its not what you think ( a little zen humour there … Continue reading Spring Sesshin 2019.
I am just about to head off to sesshin for the next week and will be totally off-grid for the duration. This will be my third consecutive year of attending a sesshin retreat.I will, as they say, see you on the other side….. “To preserve the silence within–amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the … Continue reading Off-grid for next 7 days.
I have absolutely no idea when it comes to sewing. Re-attaching a button is usually a frustrating excursion into mangled, tangled knot-craft, and repairing anything more complex than that is immediate white flag defeat. Usually there is blood on the white flag from multiple finger pricks. Despite all this, I will soon be attempting to sew a Rakusu. I’ll explain what this is in just … Continue reading Rakusu Pt 1: The Hadron Collider
That human beings are the only species (so far as we know) that can know it is a manifestation of the entire cosmos opens up a possibility that may need to be embraced if we are to survive the crises that now confront us. We can choose to work for the well-being of the whole, to make that the meaning of our lives. “The well-being … Continue reading Meaning
Chapter 1. Standing up was tricky, but I steadied myself. It felt like someone else’s prosthetic leg had been left propped up under my hip, but otherwise I was good. Along with the others in the group I did a small bow from the hip. A gentle turn to the left. It’s going to be OK. I felt it rather than thought it. But on … Continue reading Black Dragon Seat
I have noticed lately how each of my days have become inextricably opened and closed by the passage of the sun. Always a morning person I guess, apart from a couple of years spent vigorously exploring a more nocturnal emphasis to my day that (strange as it may seem) coincided pretty much exactly with moving out of home and into a nurses quarters. This newfound … Continue reading learning what to make of it
