“Sponsoring your shadow” is a term coined by the psychologist Stephen Gilligan. With luck, you learned to do this somewhat in childhood. My grandson couldn’t sit still when first in school. And as with all children of that age, he had no language or other sponsorship skills for feeling states (such as being tired, hungry, lonely, or angry). Over time he learned to recognize and "sponsor" his own feeling states, and he became "re-spons-ible." And he became even more re-spons-ible when he was able to understand, with his teachers and parents help, what “dysgraphia” meant and talk openly abo ..read more

The goal of meditation practice is to see beyond so-called “conventional reality” which we create through filters. Filters are necessary and important to living a meaningful, well-balanced life. However, the memories and beliefs which make up these filters cloud our ability to see and act from a spaciousness and freedom far beyond their limitations.   We develop constellations of memories and beliefs over time which create and solidify certain sub-personalities. Through our meditation practice we learn to open and close each filter, so we no longer experience constipation of thought, feel ..read more

Regardless of our past wounds or traumas, we can each tap into a quiet joy which is not of time or space; a joy which is just as present even in a year like the last one as it was when Buddha tapped into it more than 2500 years ago.   As a Zen teacher, my goal is to help you open up to this quiet joy, sometimes called “enlightenment.”  Buddha’s teaching about a path to do this has three simple parts: understanding/wisdom; and the two legs of ethical behavior and meditation.  We begin with our initial understanding that the small self is a component of a huge, interconnected web ..read more

As practitioners of meditation, our goal is to enable our chattering mind to slow down and sink into our hearts, so we are no longer imprisoned by a single point of view or feeling. I call this opening up into Heart-mind or Buddha Nature. Any time we are experiencing a di-lemma, we are caught between two thoughts, beliefs, or points of view. In tetralemma practice we first move beyond a single point of view to experience its opposite.  Then we embrace both, and finally, we let go of both.                   ..read more

During my years as a psychologist/counselor, I helped many people who were in distress both set boundaries and maintain them once they were set.  As a Zen teacher I help people move toward healthy boundarylessness, which means increased intimacy, a feel of connection with the world around them.  But this really can only happen when we establish and maintain good boundaries.      I began a serious meditation practice at a time when meditation was considered weird within mainstream society and by my family.  I had to continually set and reinforce my boundary with my ..read more

 As William Blake says, “In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every band, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear” and, as many of you know, he urged us to break out of these manacles, and clean the doors of perception, so we can see everything as it is, infinite.  Dogen gives us his advice about how to do this: “Examine walking backward and backward walking and investigate that walking forward and backward never stopped since before form arose.” Instead of thinking that you are a “stubborn person,” an “anxious person,” or “depressed person” or even an ..read more

At the height of Chinese Zen’s primacy from about 650 to 1100, monks and nuns traveled on foot from one monastery or teacher to another, which is where the verse "To drift like clouds and flow like water” comes from. And, of course, clouds and water do not know where they are going or what will happen to them; they just move. And a little over a hundred years later, the Zen teacher Dogen broadened this emphasis by saying that external travel is not necessary at all because the true nature of pilgrimage is within, and our original place is always right here, even though all of our thoughts and ..read more

During the years before the pandemic, (can you remember that far back?) pilgrimage was on the rise worldwide, even while church attendance was in decline.   Many people were (and still are) in search of authentic experience rather than the tired truisms and stale ritual of churches.  Instead of supporting institutional religion, many have been bringing alive two archetypal figures, one from Greek mythology, Hermes, the God of Travel and one from Buddhist mythology, Jizo, the earth womb bodhisattva who supports our pilgrimage through nature to return to the earth, our ground of b ..read more

This is my third piece on what I have been calling our pilgrimage through “don’t know” into intimacy.  We get disappointed when we think our pilgrimage, or any important endeavor isn’t going well.  But as any real pilgrim knows, part of being a pilgrim means, not saying, “Yuck, this experience, sucks, get me out of here”, but instead being curious about and acutely aware of whatever negative sensations, feelings, or thoughts we are having as we continue our journey. Is it possible for you to simply notice all the thoughts and opinions busily vying for attention in your chatterbox ca ..read more

This is my second piece on a pilgrimage through “don’t know” to intimacy. Here’s a story that takes place in 9th or 10th century China during a break in a Zen/Chan practice period:  Three pilgrims, including two monks who have been practicing in a monastery on one hill and a nun, who has been practicing in a nunnery on a hill not far away approach a swollen stream on foot.   The taller monk picks the nun up and carries her across on his shoulders, so she can proceed on her practice period break as they continue on theirs.  After they leave her, the shorter monk then exclaim ..read more