58. The sword of attention

Many years ago, when my son was still in diapers and I was a new and inexperienced father, I spoke with a visiting poet about the challenges of fatherhood. Among them was the challenge of pushing a diaper pin through several layers of cloth without sticking it into my son. Gray-haired and world-weary, the poet [...]

Read Full Post »

57. Leaving things alone

“Ah, she was a terror for the flowers,” an Irish widower once remarked of his late wife. “She had no gift for leaving things alone.” Few of us Westerners do, including those of us who practice Zen meditation. “Zazen,” writes the Soto master Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, “enables life to be life by letting it be” [...]

Read Full Post »

57. CB’s list

“Death is certain,” Zen teachings remind us, “but the time of death is uncertain.” What truth could be more evident, one might say, what reality more apparent. And yet that truth and that reality are difficult to accept, even under the most auspicious conditions. And should we learn that our own death is imminent, the [...]

Read Full Post »