May 1, 2015 Happy May Day! The next three days hold a number of chances to get together with your practice community: for meditation, conversation, party, koan inquiry, sutras, Dharma study. Packed! Here’s the scoop: Tomorrow, Saturday: 6:30 to 8:30…
Category: Koans
Postings regarding Koan Gatherings or Koan Study
Essence of Insight; or, Who Swallows the Moon?
April 4, 2015 Blood moon—– a brief total eclipse before dawn this morning in the brisk, fresh air, our brief snow melted and the green things springing up. Pasque flowers are blooming, forsythia, too. And with Passover and Easter, we…
For Monday, March 30 5:15 Discussion:
March 30, 2015 For your enjoyment, and for tonight’s 5:15 discussion: from Acequias and Gates, p. 39 Our lives are the creative medium of the koan; they help us see how to participate in making the world. They also…
Spring 2015 Koan Series
March 25, 2015 Spring 2015 Koan Series Dear Bodhisattvas, Andrew and I have had a wonderful weekend meeting with the two other senseis of the Open Source: Tenney Nathanson, from Tuscon, and Megan Rundel, here in the Bay area. We…
Yunmen Says Something in Response
January 21, 2015 Yunmen Says Something in Response…. And Yunmen Says it Backwards Koans for Sunday, January 25, 3 to 5 PM Blue Cliff Record Cases 14 and 15; Joan Sutherland & John Tarrant transl. and notes A student…
Faxiang’s Recognition
January 16, 2015 Koan for Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015 3-5 PM, 7528 Jenkin Place The nun Faxiang often shared her clothing and food, giving the best to the nun Huisu. The other nuns admonished Faxiang, saying, “The nun Huisu is…
Zhaouzhou and an Infant’s Sixth Sense
January 9, 2015 For this Sunday’s Koan Gathering ( 3 to 5 PM, Creek Bend Zendo) we’ll return to the koan and poem we took up together last Sunday. They seem to keep flowing…. and you can jump in where you…
Happy New Year! and Koans for this Sunday, Jan. 5, 2015
January 1, 2015 Manjusri and Guanyin Dear Bodhisattvas, It seems a particular blessing to end and begin a year in Colorado Springs with a fresh, days-long cover of snow followed by days of keen, clear, unobstructed sunshine in midwinter cold:…
Revisiting Layman Pang
November 26, 2014: Revisiting Layman Pang KOAN FOR SUNDAY, NOV. 30, 3 TO 5 PM Dear Friends, The koan group last Sunday spent a rich time with Layman Pang, and….didn’t come close to exhausting this rich koan. So we’ll…
KOAN FOR SUNDAY, NOV. 23, 3 TO 5 PM
November 20, 2014: KOAN FOR SUNDAY, NOV. 23, 3 TO 5 PM Dear Friends, This week’s koan is a bit longer. It’s from The Sayings of Layman Pang, a text I’ll be taking up with you in depth in…