An edited transcript of a Dharma talk given at Shasta Abbey in 2018. You are perfect, just as you are, but you could use a little improvement.1 This is a rather well-known, and to me stunning, quote from Shunryu Suzuki … Continue reading →
Adapted from a sangha-led Dharma discussion, February 25, 2024. It’s been about a year since I took the Precepts in May 2023. Yes, I had an idea about what I was doing. No, I had no idea about what “taking … Continue reading →
A lightly edited transcript of a talk given online at the Priory in 2020. These are challenging times we’re living in, and we might all find ourselves sitting with strong, persistent, recurrent feelings: fear and anxiety; despair, perhaps … Continue reading →
In a recent article, written to mark the centenary of American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin’s birth, Kenan Malik states that Baldwin: “…had to confront not just the fact of being black in an oppressively racist world, … Continue reading →
An edited transcript of a Dharma talk given to the Priory congregation in January 2023. What I wanted to start with for this talk was the line from the Sandōkai that gets brought up many times, the one where it … Continue reading →
Originally published on the Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple website. Since the old Zen Writings were done in times when people were much closer to nature than we in our urbanized society are, it makes sense that some of the … Continue reading →
Based on a conversation between the author and Rev Master Olwen Crookall-Greening in November 2023. I spent three months as a lay resident at Throssel Hole in the Autumn of 2023, and decided to write about the experience, in the … Continue reading →
My mother recently gave me a cup. It has JAPAN stamped on the bottom. I think it is a pretty common design, I’ve seen it often in second-hand stores. It’s unusual as cups go only because it has two layers; … Continue reading →
I have been thinking about the idea of ‘guest’ and ‘host’ in Buddhism and how it plays out in our daily lives. This is a concept I come across occasionally, and it hasn’t always been clear to me what … Continue reading →
Offered in loving memory of Reverend Master Jishō and Reverend Master Saidō. There is that within each of us which sees what is here with openness and without doing anything with it, adding something to it, turning away … Continue reading →