top of page
BLOG
IN THE BARDO
To Tell the Truth
How do you tell the truth? How do I tell the truth? I’ve been working on this question a long time. Francine Prose quotes Hemingway’s...
Birthdays
It bothers me that I still can’t remember my mom’s birthdate. I don’t have any childhood memories of her birthdays. What I remember from...
Going Gray
Two years ago, filling out my passport renewal application, likely for the last time, I stumbled on my height. I’ve been getting shorter...
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...
ARCHIVES
Search
Ken Byalin
Oct 1, 20244 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 25, 20244 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 17, 20244 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...
42 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Sep 10, 20245 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 4, 20244 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...
37 views1 comment
Ken Byalin
Aug 27, 20244 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 20, 20245 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 13, 20245 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....
71 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Aug 6, 20245 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
Ken Byalin
Jul 30, 20245 min read
Dragon Taming
It must have been early in my days with Roshi Bob Kennedy, at one of my early sesshins with him at St. Ignatius in Manhasset, that I had...
33 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jul 22, 20245 min read
A New Koan Practice?
When I was working with the I Ching, I often had the experience of the Sage answering not the question which I had consciously posed and...
26 views3 comments
Ken Byalin
Jul 9, 20244 min read
My Jishu Koan
During the pandemic isolation, Roshis Paco Lugovina, Chris Panos, and I kept busy by putting together The Bernie Koans. We reached out to...
30 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 30, 20245 min read
My Inner Max
Before Bernie and Martin Buber, I had my Max Weber practice. In July, 2000, I’d left Morrigan’s second birthday party early to fly to...
27 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 28, 20246 min read
I am a Patient
It’s the first few weeks of summer. I’ve missed the entire spring and most of the winter. It wasn’t so long ago that I was blogging, “I...
53 views2 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 28, 20244 min read
Dokusan and Daisan
The Japanese have two words for the interview with the teacher, daisan and dokusan. In many traditions, “dokusan” is reserved for...
43 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 14, 20244 min read
I Am Ken
“I am Ken, and my practice is counting my breath.” For years, I said these words when I entered the dokusan room, first with Kyudo...
35 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 11, 20245 min read
Peacemaking
A bunch of thoughts began emerging this morning prompted by the discussion in the Southern Europe Peacemaker group which Barbara...
25 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
Jun 3, 20244 min read
Nostalgia
The recent student protests on campuses across the country have broken through my news barrier. Wave after wave of nostalgia rolls over...
28 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
May 6, 20245 min read
Zen and Psychotherapy
In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. -- T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock To practice Zen is to...
15 views0 comments
Ken Byalin
May 6, 20245 min read
Let It Be
Let It Be was released on May 8, 1970. That’s crazy, 54 years ago. It still sounds so fresh. When I find myself in times of trouble...
30 views1 comment
bottom of page