One of my favorite Zen kōans is about a monk named Qingshui (pronounced Seizei in Japanese), who asks his teacher, Caoshan, “Master, I am alone and poor. Help me to become prosperous.” Caoshan responds, addressing …

As we enter the 2012th year of the western calendar, which is also the Year of the Dragon in the East Asian cycle, we are made aware from many fronts that we live in troubled …

Buddha Volume 1-Kapilavastu by Osamu Tezuka
Last November of 2010, arriving early on the final night of MKZC’s Tuesday night sit at the Crow Collection, Joni and I wandered upstairs to the sitting/reading room that’s above …

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Since we are social beings we ourselves are in communion: ontologically, relationship, fellowship, with others. There is actually no living person apart from others. So we discover ourselves, realize ourselves only in the meeting with others; the deeper the meeting, the more we find ourselves and blossom into persons. From a Christian perspective we are even more so created to be in communion, reflecting as we do the very “being-one-together” of the divine Persons in the Trinity, that ultimate secret of God’s life, as shared with us by Jesus.

Here’s Hakuin again: “Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes. This earth where we stand is the pure lotus land! And this very body, the body of Buddha.” And this, this very practice, is where I come to meet myself-in the morning.