“Zero Circle” a poem by Rumi (13th century Persian mystic)
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty,
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we see
No, we don’t see it.
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window into [...]
transformed by grief
mindfulness task #2
Each week one of the novices at my home monastery offers a mindfulness activity to help us became aware of our surrounding and to focus the mind on what’s right in front of us. This gives everyone the opportunity to bring mindfulness into the ordinary everyday and to practice alongside the monastic teachers, trainees, and [...]
learning truth
From a talk by Zen teacher Hogen Bays, co-abbot at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon. Click for full text.
There is an old story about a young man who wanted to study martial arts. He hears of a true master living somewhere hidden deep in the mountains. The hopeful student begins by asking questions about where the master [...]
