ZenLife Blog
“No High Seat” by Brad Hunter
Some folks like the high seats,
Floating with angels and dragons,
Far beyond the trembling troubles
Of ordinary flesh and bone.
“waking up” by Ann Ehringhaus
I had a dream in Krakow.
I was sharing acupressure points
with a Zen meditation group
as we travelled to Auschwitz.
They were the points of grief . . .
Monk’s Reflection
I walk through the gate
wrought of iron and complication
Not a saint nearby to claim
my unformed simplicity.
Just Pick it Up
Marni Curtis is a ZLMC Sangha member and also a member of our Earth Steward Circle. She describes in this video her practice of picking up plastic. The Earth Steward circle also sponsors a plastic collection program that turns plastic into park benches which they donate to non-profit organizations in our community.
38 + People Comment on the Benefits Meditation Has Brought Them
This is a collection of stories and comments people have sent us on the wonderful benefits meditation has brought them, published with the hope of inspiring YOU to try meditation for the first time (or pick it up again if you’ve just been lazy with it 🙂 ).
Stop!
You have not been listening.
It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives.
But the foundation is giving way,
buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.
We will help you.
We will bring the firestorms to your body
We will bring the fever to your body
We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs
that you might hear:
We are not well.
Interview with Roshi Eve Myonen Marko
I was born in Israel in an orthodox Jewish family, and came here when I was 7. Both of my parents were Holocaust survivors, and I know that affected me from a very young age. As a small child I was aware of terrible suffering that people could inflict on each other. It’s a dimension of life that has never left me, and even defined me for many years. It was why I was so attracted to Bernie’s vision of Zen and social change.
Bearing Witness to the Oneness of Life by Roshi Bernie Glassman
Dogen Zenji says of the first pure precept, “Ceasing from evil is the abiding place of laws and rules of all buddhas.” This abiding place is the state of non-duality, of not-knowing and non-separation. The Sixth Ancestor of Zen defines zazen as the state of mind in which there is no separation between subject and object—no space between you and me, up and down, right or wrong. So we can also call this precept “Returning to the One.”
Pathways to Violence
"We live in a world in which distrust and greed and violence masquerade as common sense and in which the pathways of distrust and greed and violence are rapidly becoming self-validating. . ,
Hope, Optimism, Cynicism or Engagement
"Hope is not the belief that everything will turn out well. People die. Populations die out. Civilizations die. Planets die. Stars die. Recalling the words of Suzuki Roshi, the boat is going to sink! If we look, we see the evidence of suffering, of injustice, of futility, of desolation, of harm, of ending all around us, and even within us
Your Three Feet of Influence
Few people are powerful enough, persuasive, persistent, consistent, and charismatic enough to change the world all at once, but everyone has the ability to affect the three feet around them by behaving more ethically, honestly, and compassionately toward those they meet
Message from the Hopi
You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell them this IS the Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living? What are you doing with your life?
Stop Separating Immigrant Families – Buddhist Statement
As Western Buddhist leaders, we unreservedly condemn the recently imposed policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexican border.
How to be a Friend Until the End
It’s important in the beginning to remember that we already know how to care. We’ve extended a helping hand hundreds of times in a thousand meaningful and loving ways. Caring is a natural expression of our humanity. We can trust our good hearts to be reliable guides.
Hippos on Holiday
Hippos on Holiday is not really the title of a movie
but if it was I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Mindfulness: Mystery and Not Knowing
In Foundations of Mindfulness, Class 4: Living a Life of Openness, we speak about the first of the three tenets of a Zen Peacemaker: Not Knowing. What it is to not know something? In this culture of quick response time that technology demands, we react fast and faster.
An Empty Day
I snuggle in the warm, clean
sheets of routine
and sigh to myself, "ah! an empty day
to count the colorful threads of
my blessings
to court and woo the many
happinesses that are my life.
Saved from Freezing: the Spirituality of Art
I’m in my car, on the highway. I turn off the news reports and the baseball game I’ve been listening to and switch to a Beethoven violin sonata that’s loaded in the CD player. Listening to the music, my mind gradually starts to release, like a hand that had been grasping something tightly and is beginning to let go
Mindfulness Road Map
At the Zen Life and Meditation Center we speak of mindfulness meditation as intentional awareness that is embodied and non-judgmental.