Teachers and Initiates    Madhu and me Last weekend, six Boundless Way Zen Temple students received the 16 Bodhisattva precepts from the four transmitted teachers.  David Rōshi and I spent some quality time finding appropriate names that both describe the current quality of the student's practice and hopes for the future -- aspiration names, which we wrote on the backs of the rakusus that were sewed by the students themselves.  Dharma Holders Alan and Michael also helped with coming up with ideas for names and signing and stamping.    Above are s ..read more

 November 2023 sesshin  January 2024 sesshin Since I last wrote in this blog, Boundless Way Zen Temple has hosted three sesshins, in November and December, 2023 and in January 2024.  All three were wonderful in their own ways, as usual.  November and January were entirely on Zoom, which continues to be a platform for deep practice in two dimensions.  Our December sesshin was in person at the Temple, and for the first time since the pandemic began, we suspended our requirement for negative covid tests before arrival.  Sadly, we couldn't have ..read more

I had the great good fortune to be interviewed by Dr. Kasim Al-Mashat, a Canadian mindfulness teacher.  We enjoyed each other's company, and hopefully some of that comes through in this conversation, available on Youtube. The Mindset That Steals Your Joy    May you find joy in the nidst of the darkness and sorrow of this burning world ..read more

Hospital for Hearts Broken Open August Sesshin Kindness and Compassion October Sesshin   ..read more

My dear friend Dosho Port, Rōshi found the following text in his garage -- an unpublished manuscript probably given to him by his first teacher Maezumi Rōshi -- a collection of translations of Hakuin Zenji's Song of Zazen, the first Zen text I fell in love with myself. It's from Nyogen Senzaki (1876-1958) a great Japanese Zen teacher who was one of the pioneers in bringing Zen to the United States in the last century.  Dosho Rōshi writes on his blog that it's not really a translation, but more of a paraphrase.  I find it inspiring and beautiful.   Here it is: Fr ..read more

  This past weekend we completed our June sesshin, all online on Zoom, and lasting from Friday night to Sunday mid-day, our shortest sesshin of the eleven we offer each year.  This gave a few people who were completely new to sesshin an opportunity to taste the flavor of Zen in the form of intensive practice.  In addition, many of our long-time practitioners got refreshed through practicing together.  Time seemed to be no obstacle, and also no matter. Despite the brevity of our time together, the sesshin sangha, under the leadership of our tanto Rev. Corwyn Miyagishima, an ..read more

2005 sesshin photo at Senexet House in Connecticut Someone sent me this photo recently.  He didn't know where or when it was taken, but I managed to identify it, from the people and the colors of the rakusus,  It was taken 18 years ago at the end of a sesshin at Senexet House, where Boundless Way folks used to meet to have our intensive meditation retreats.  Looking over the photo, I have mixed thoughts and feelings -- the first thought being: "we were all so young!"  A handful of people in the picture are still practicing with David and me in Boundless Way -- you ..read more

April Sesshin May Sesshin On the weekend of April 20 -- 24, 2023, we had an online only Zoom sesshin at the Temple.  Our tanto, Rev. Paul Galvin, named it the "Crying and Laughing Sesshin" after an incident that followed our selected koan: Baizhang's Wild Duck, Case 53 from the Blue Cliff Record.  In the story, Baizhang and his teacher Mazu have a dialogue about a duck, and later, Baizhang expresses his new view of reality with a fellow student, first by crying and then by laughing.  (Or, depending on the translation source, in the reverse orde ..read more

Our first fully in person sesshin (Zen meditation retreat) for quite some time ended this past Monday, and here are most of the participants in a lovely group photo taken by Dharma Holder and Temple Director Michael Herzog.  Michael was also the tanto (head seat/sesshin manager) for the weekend, along with Jenny Smith, who was the registrar and assistant tanto.  The retreat was taught by David Rynick, Rōshi, Dharma Holder Alan Richardson and myself.  We focused on a new translation of a kōan that appears in both the Blue Cliff Record collection as case 24 and the Book of Equani ..read more

A few weeks ago we had our February Hybrid Sesshin, with people from far away joining the Temple sesshin residents on Zoom for a lovely weekend of serious Zen practice and play.  Our theme was a koan about Layman Pang and his famous saying, "Beautiful snowflakes!  They don't fall anywhere else!"  Back in February, we were starved for snow in Worcester, and now we've had one big storm to be followed this weekend by another.   It's deeply true that everything that happens, good, bad or neutral, is simply what is happening.  Nothing happens anywhere else!   ..read more