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IN THE BARDO
No Merit
The account of Bodhidharma ’s meeting with Emperor Wu, the first case in The Blue Cliff Record , is one of those koans to which I return...
Working With Koans
When I have talked about koan study, I have often noted how little instruction I received in how to actually work with a koan. The advice...
Rewriting
It’s almost two years now since I ventured back into fiction writing. In high school, I fancied myself a fiction writer. In college...
Oh, Dirk.
In Zen funerals, we talk directly to the departed. I am at a loss for words. I am hoping that words will come. I am picturing you....
Bringing to the Societal Table Those Who Have Been Excluded
This has been the expression of my vow since I found the words in Bernie’s Instructions to the Cook. “Bringing to the societal table...
Visionary Leadership
This has to be the Zen practice. I love the story of the Golden City which the Buddha tells in the Lotus Sutra. It has inspired me. It is...
Magic
Catching the magic is sometimes not so easy. Stumbling into the magic of success is not something to be taken for granted. It has always...
What is Social Action?
The selflessness of social action is not self-neglect just as self-care is not self-neglect. There are four phrases that come to mind,...
No.
What is my “No!” When do I shout it? Do I really shout? “No!” Jesse and Theresa Peterford first met at ICS. Theresa, star teacher, chief...
Infinite Onion
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them. When I was doing koan practice with Jishu, very briefly in the last year of her...
Infinite Circle
We were serving special needs students at double the district rate. As we have built our schools, I have been guided by, anchored in an...
Mother's Day 2020
Zen’s relationship to mothers has always seemed a bit strange. Mother’s Day, 2020 is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of Maezumi Roshi’s...
Zen Budgeting Through the COVID-19 Pandemic
No one likes budget cuts. They are always painful. This was shaping up to be our most painful budget. Business people say when they are...
The Zen of Budgeting
Coming Soon, a case study in Zen Budgeting: Budgeting through the Covid-19 Pandemic. I am too grandmotherly. The Gateless Gate is the...
Oh, Richard
At a Zen funeral, we talk directly to the person who has left us. Oh, Richard, thinking of you, I smile. We had so much more to do. So...
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Ken Byalin
24 hours ago4 min read
No Merit
The account of Bodhidharma ’s meeting with Emperor Wu, the first case in The Blue Cliff Record , is one of those koans to which I return...
1 view0 comments
Ken Byalin
Dec 174 min read
Working With Koans
When I have talked about koan study, I have often noted how little instruction I received in how to actually work with a koan. The advice...
3 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Dec 105 min read
Rewriting
It’s almost two years now since I ventured back into fiction writing. In high school, I fancied myself a fiction writer. In college...
28 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Dec 44 min read
Enlightenment Day
It has been 52 years since my father passed, three days after his birthday, in 1972. I had just turned 30. His birthday, December 8, was...
35 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Nov 265 min read
Practicing Zazen
We are told as beginning Zen students to notice our thoughts and let them go. As a beginning Zen teacher, I repeated that instruction. It...
26 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Nov 214 min read
Imagining ZCLA
The Zen Center of Los Angeles occupies a special place in the history of American Zen and a very special place in my Zen iconography. It...
21 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
Nov 124 min read
Creations are Numberless
Even before I began to sit regularly, I was attracted by the image of the Bodhisattva, the heroic – to me -- Zen figure who defers his...
30 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Nov 65 min read
Oh, Alice
On the end table in Vinnie’s waiting room, opened, waiting for me was a magazine story about Alice Munro. The evening before, eating a...
34 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
Oct 305 min read
Bernie & Gutei
There are koans that I keep returning to. Gutei’s one-finger Zen is one. Maybe it is wasted on most students in our lineage because we...
29 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Oct 225 min read
Manresa
Only about once in 7 years does September 10 occur on a Tuesday. This was one of those years, the 22nd anniversary of the second coming...
23 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
Oct 154 min read
Attachment
So much of Zen practice is about working with our attachments. I’d caught a glimpse of the danger of attachments before I got to Zen. My...
32 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Oct 14 min read
Prajna
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, doing deep Prajna Paramita, perceived the emptiness of all five conditions and was freed from pain. With...
22 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Sep 254 min read
Atonement
Bernie taught me atonement. It was one of his many gifts to me. The first time I heard him talk about atonement as “being at one with,”...
7 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Sep 174 min read
Disrobing
Michael O’Keefe wrote a beautiful piece on disrobing for Tricycle . Zen monks get their robes during Tokudo, the first step on the path...
40 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Sep 105 min read
Householder Zen
I find myself a proponent of householder Zen as the way of practice of American Zen. “Very self-serving of me,” you might say. And of...
6 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Sep 44 min read
The Flower and the Smile
Transmission of the Dharma, the passing of the teaching mantel to the next generation, is at the heart of Zen. It is one of our origin...
36 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
Aug 274 min read
Rescinding
One of my Dharma brothers has apparently rescinded a transmission because his successor’s sexual conduct offended him or because his...
42 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Aug 205 min read
The Unpublished Buddha
Life is interesting. When we went back to the surgeon, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was possible he would say I was done, but my...
26 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Aug 135 min read
Growing Old
This is my first experiment with the I Ching way of koan study. I had this idea a few weeks ago. I’m just getting around to trying it....
70 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Aug 65 min read
Fear of Finishing
I am at a point where Zen Imperfections needs one more clean-up, and it will then be ready to go out in search of a publisher. I can feel...
5 views0 comments
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