The After Firing
Roshi Jishu Holmes was my teacher. It is hard to grasp that she has been gone for 25 years. And yet I hear her words as clearly as ever....
top of page
BLOG
IN THE BARDO
The Bargain
It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed. My father died as I turned 30. Mom lived thirty years longer, although she was only a...
Relative Privilege
In some ways, it seemed that I had always felt poor, always knew that there was stuff that others had that I didn’t. It took me longer to...
Oh, Dirk.
In Zen funerals, we talk directly to the departed. I am at a loss for words. I am hoping that words will come. I am picturing you....
Bringing to the Societal Table Those Who Have Been Excluded
This has been the expression of my vow since I found the words in Bernie’s Instructions to the Cook. “Bringing to the societal table...
Visionary Leadership
This has to be the Zen practice. I love the story of the Golden City which the Buddha tells in the Lotus Sutra. It has inspired me. It is...
Magic
Catching the magic is sometimes not so easy. Stumbling into the magic of success is not something to be taken for granted. It has always...
What is Social Action?
The selflessness of social action is not self-neglect just as self-care is not self-neglect. There are four phrases that come to mind,...
No.
What is my “No!” When do I shout it? Do I really shout? “No!” Jesse and Theresa Peterford first met at ICS. Theresa, star teacher, chief...
Infinite Onion
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them. When I was doing koan practice with Jishu, very briefly in the last year of her...
Infinite Circle
We were serving special needs students at double the district rate. As we have built our schools, I have been guided by, anchored in an...
Mother's Day 2020
Zen’s relationship to mothers has always seemed a bit strange. Mother’s Day, 2020 is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of Maezumi Roshi’s...
Zen Budgeting Through the COVID-19 Pandemic
No one likes budget cuts. They are always painful. This was shaping up to be our most painful budget. Business people say when they are...
The Zen of Budgeting
Coming Soon, a case study in Zen Budgeting: Budgeting through the Covid-19 Pandemic. I am too grandmotherly. The Gateless Gate is the...
Oh, Richard
At a Zen funeral, we talk directly to the person who has left us. Oh, Richard, thinking of you, I smile. We had so much more to do. So...
ARCHIVES
Search
Ken Byalin
- 5 days ago
- 5 min
The After Firing
Roshi Jishu Holmes was my teacher. It is hard to grasp that she has been gone for 25 years. And yet I hear her words as clearly as ever....
28 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Mar 9
- 5 min
The Bargain
It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed. My father died as I turned 30. Mom lived thirty years longer, although she was only a...
13 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Mar 2
- 6 min
Relative Privilege
In some ways, it seemed that I had always felt poor, always knew that there was stuff that others had that I didn’t. It took me longer to...
9 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Feb 23
- 8 min
Relative Poverty
I went from being a privileged kid in the projects — I had the most toys —to what I experienced as Great Neck poverty. In Great Neck, my...
45 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Feb 7
- 4 min
80
This Evening Gatha is chanted during a sesshin at the conclusion of each evening sitting. Let me respectfully remind you Life and death...
49 views3 comments
Ken Byalin
- Feb 2
- 5 min
Rabbi Don
In Zen funerals, we talk directly to the departed. Oh Don, this morning I am hearing chanting in my head. Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate....
75 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Jan 25
- 5 min
Mommy Was a Complicated Woman
I had a small, private psychotherapy practice, from 1979 when I bought the brownstone in Park Slope until Morri was born in 1998. I have...
53 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Jan 18
- 7 min
My Hardest to Pass Koan
Bernie was my hardest to pass koan. A long time ago, perhaps at the same moment that Johann Sebastian Bach was composing the Brandenburg...
56 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Jan 12
- 5 min
And Again: “You’re Fired”
I have been fired three times, although they didn’t always say the words, at least not that I can remember. Over the years, I have had...
35 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Jan 5
- 4 min
“You’re Fired” Again
I have been fired three times, although they didn’t always say the words, at least not that I can remember. Over the years, I have had...
41 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
- Dec 22, 2022
- 5 min
Walking Into Winter
I have been here before. Before the Pandemic, I was walking every morning, or five mornings a week, before work or on weekends and...
17 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
- Dec 15, 2022
- 5 min
My Cup Runneth Over
We have two blue teacups, gifts which Jishu and Bernie brought back from a trip to Japan. Jishu is gone now almost 25 years, gone much...
60 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
- Dec 6, 2022
- 8 min
“Call Me Jim” Fugue
Daddy never told me the story of how he became “Jim”. He left it to m e to invent my own story. I have always imagined an outline:...
15 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Dec 2, 2022
- 7 min
"Call Me Jim" Prelude
Daddy loved Bach. I hadn’t remembered this. I remembered his collection of 78’s, Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five, Bix Beiderbecke, sadly...
34 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Nov 27, 2022
- 4 min
How Do You Step Into a 4-Foot Hole?
Shih-Shuang famously asked, “How do you step from a 100-foot pole?”[1] This is one of the koans I have been working on and talking about...
30 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Nov 18, 2022
- 11 min
Yellow
" Yellow” was the worst thing you could be as a kid. I was always on the verge of yellow. I was kind of a frightened kid. But I had a...
33 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Nov 13, 2022
- 5 min
Oh, Linda
Linda Breslin 1942-2022 In Zen funerals, we talk directly to the departed. Oh, Linda. You were supposed to outlive all of us. The last...
120 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
- Nov 6, 2022
- 6 min
Sisyphus Redux
Take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me — Robbie Robertson, “The...
49 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Oct 30, 2022
- 5 min
Listening to God
[A] koan [is] a Zen paradox, not to be solved by intellect, that may bring about a sudden dissolution of logical thought and clear the...
32 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
- Oct 22, 2022
- 7 min
Thinking Like a Grandmaster
At a recent meeting of the Staten Island Bucks Business Network, my friend Glen Cutrona made a presentation on Your Next Five Moves:...
65 views0 comments
bottom of page