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

  About a month ago, I resigned from the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, a group of ordained Soto Zen priests.  My letter of resignation, which follows at the end of this post, is self-explanatory.  I noticed that as soon as I pressed send on the email, I felt an enormous sense of relief.  My ordination is in two Soto Zen lineages, and in Boundless Way Zen, we have found a way to be priests that matches my deepest sense of what it means to commit whole-heartedly to the Great Way of Zen.  Our style has drifted away from the SZBA style in many respects, especially in our ..read more

Some of the attendees at the January Sesshin Our first sesshin of 2023 was completely online thanks to the magic of Zoom, and we will continue to have sesshin this year almost monthly: some on Zoom, some hybrid (on Zoom and at the Temple) and some at the Temple only. Our sesshin schedule is here: 2023 sesshin dates and information David Rōshi was still recovering from his pre-Christmas car accident, but I was ready to teach after the trauma of his accident and my brother's unexpected death began to fade a bit for me and was ably partnered in teaching with Dharma Holder Alan Richards ..read more

  About two months ago, I fell from a high stool, and landed on the back of my head, smashed into a cast-iron radiator.  A visit to the emergency room was a journey through grace -- so many people, including a sangha member who is an EMT, helped me through this wildly unexpected event.   And then, the Friday before Christmas,  my husband David Dae An Rynick, Roshi,  was in a car accident in New Jersey during a powerful storm, as he was traveling from Pennsylvania where he had been visiting his mother.  He has a fractured sternum and some bruises, and our car ..read more

photo by Michael Herzog, sculpture by David Rynick Blue Cliff Record Case 42 begins:  "Layman Pang was leaving Yaoshan. Yaoshan ordered ten of his Zen students to see Pang off at the temple gate. Pang pointed to the falling snow in the air and said, 'Beautiful snow-flakes! — they don’t fall on any other place.'" This is just the beginning of the koan, and is followed by a dialogue between Layman Pang and a Zen student who challenges him.  But before the objecting mind of that student enters the story, we can relish Layman Pang's words by themselves.   It's snowing ..read more

 We had our annual Rōhatsu sesshin this past weekend, celebrating the day 2600 years ago that our founding teacher, Shakyamūni Buddha, had his great awakening to the true nature of reality.  We worked with kōan 6 from the Gateless Gate collection, where the Buddha twirls a flower and his first Dharma heir, Mahakashyapa, smiles and is recognized as understanding the great matter of our Way.  it was the first sesshin taught by Dharma Holder Michael Herzog, who assisted David Rynick Rōshi and myself, and the head seat (tanto) was Assistant Teacher Adam Monty, with Senior Assistan ..read more

 This past weekend we celebrated the arrival of fall and Indigenous People's Day with a three day hybrid sesshin -- around 20 people participated online on zoom, and 20 people were in residence at the Temple.  We explored a koan case from the Blue Cliff Record, in which Zen master Changsha goes off wandering in the mountains.   We are finding ways to continue to deepen and widen our Temple residential practice, while including people from around the country and the world, through zoom.  We are truly blessed that the strength of the Dharma has supported our sangha p ..read more