Maybe I got the idea first from Andrew Weil . He called it a “news fast.” He was describing an aspect of my sesshin experience. One of...

Bernie had a way of creating conflicts with family obligations. Maybe that was something he inherited from Maezumi Roshi : Zen before...

Beginning Zen students are often told to silence the mind. It’s a misleading instruction. As Bernie used to say, “The brain secretes...

Compassion was never my strong suit. During my Jukai ceremony in which I publicly took refuge in the Three Treasures of the Buddha,...

The American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, famous for his “hierarchy of needs,” placed safety near the top of his pyramid. We’re all...

It’s the beginning of summer, the fateful moment when the days begin getting shorter. I exaggerate my dread. But I can’t believe this...

Matthew was working on the rhinoceros fan, had been struggling with it for weeks. I wasn’t much help. It’s one of those koans in the...

Yesterday was Father’s Day. I’m thinking about my dad. My Zen practice is rooted in my childhood, and, as far as I can see, there was no...

I was in a strange place: my cardiologist didn’t want to see me for six months. My audiologist didn’t want to see me for three. I wasn’t...

I came to Zen with my Adlerian analysis under my belt and with years of training in psychoanalytic therapy. I had these tools for dealing...

Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, was never on my list of go-to places. There were plenty of other places I was hoping to visit. And yet, I...

We talked about two alternatives, dive deeper or walk away . There’s a third. I call this the lesson of the beard.   I grew my first...

We’ve talked about the first step, admitting to yourself that you’re involved in a toxic relationship and you’re suffering. You know...

Do you know them when you see them? Do you believe it when you feel it? When you do, it’s a breakthrough moment. Then you can begin to do...

If you are reading this blog, you’re important to me. What are you interested in? When you come to a new blog post, what are you hoping...

This morning, because I’m part of a Zen teacher email group, I received a missive from a Dharma sister, a wonderful teacher from whom...

I have always wanted acclaim. I have always imagined the applause. What a craving.   Craving is Greed. The Buddha warned us. Greed can...

I get together with old friends to share a meal – I try to see each one at least once a month – or if they live too far away, to talk on...

It took me a long while to make two of my Zen students “Dharma Holders.” That designation means that I think they’re on the path to...

Bernie talked all the time about Indra’s Net, the Buddhist representation of the interconnectedness of all things. It was a metaphor for...

What’s an elder? “Elder” wasn’t in my vocabulary until Bernie made Peter Matthiessen and Bob Lee “Zen Peacemaker elders.” He used 80 as...

I have been telling people for years, when I talk about the Three Treasures, that Sangha is not my strong suit. In those moments, I am...

The original Buddhist teacher, Shakyamuni, called it the middle way, to steer a course to peace by avoiding extremes. My teacher, Bernie...

I had initially thought that I might hold this blog back until Mother’s Day.   I was horrified – as soon as I came upon them – by the...

I spent 12 years as founding president of Integration Charter Schools, building a network of schools which provided opportunities for the...

It took me a while to become the Unforgiving Buddha. It wasn’t easy. I was in Jishu ’s precept class, working with non-anger, and my...

Succession is a big deal in Zen and in most organizations. Recently, I acknowledged at lunch with Theresa and Ron that I had made...

How do you tell the truth? How do I tell the truth? I’ve been working on this question a long time.   Francine Prose  quotes Hemingway’s...

It bothers me that I still can’t remember my mom’s birthdate. I don’t have any childhood memories of her birthdays. What I remember from...

Two years ago, filling out my passport renewal application, likely for the last time, I stumbled on my height. I’ve been getting shorter...

When I invited the teachers who’d told me that they’d already found their dream job to put down on paper what it was that made our...

Listening to Bernie and Genpo  talking about what, if any, were the absolutely essential ingredients of Zen, it disturbed me when they...

I am listening to a decade-old conversation between Bernie  and Genpo , their reflection on forty years of friendship and Zen practice. I...

It has never been easy for me to talk about kensho, the big “I’ve Got It,” the direct experience of the oneness of life without at least...

“When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” I have been intrigued for years by the notion that when the teacher is ready, the...

Last week, Dr. Gala put in my third and fourth stents, nine months after he’d done the first two. He’d expected to do them last spring,...

The account of Bodhidharma ’s meeting with Emperor Wu, the first case in The Blue Cliff Record , is one of those koans to which I return...

When I have talked about koan study, I have often noted how little instruction I received in how to actually work with a koan. The advice...

It’s almost two years now since I ventured back into fiction writing. In high school, I fancied myself a fiction writer. In college...

It has been 52 years since my father passed, three days after his birthday, in 1972. I had just turned 30. His birthday, December 8, was...

We are told as beginning Zen students to notice our thoughts and let them go. As a beginning Zen teacher, I repeated that instruction. It...

The Zen Center of Los Angeles  occupies a special place in the history of American Zen and a very special place in my Zen iconography. It...

Even before I began to sit regularly, I was attracted by the image of the Bodhisattva, the heroic – to me -- Zen figure who defers his...

On the end table in Vinnie’s waiting room, opened, waiting for me was a magazine story about Alice Munro. The evening before, eating a...

There are koans that I keep returning to. Gutei’s one-finger Zen is one. Maybe it is wasted on most students in our lineage because we...

Only about once in 7 years does September 10 occur on a Tuesday. This was one of those years, the 22nd anniversary of the second coming...

So much of Zen practice is about working with our attachments. I’d caught a glimpse of the danger of attachments before I got to Zen. My...

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, doing deep Prajna Paramita, perceived the emptiness of all five conditions and was freed from pain. With...

Bernie  taught me atonement. It was one of his many gifts to me. The first time I heard him talk about atonement as “being at one with,”...

Michael O’Keefe wrote a beautiful piece on disrobing for Tricycle . Zen monks get their robes during Tokudo, the first step on the path...