Zen in their bedside manner - Los Angeles Times

It's not clear in this article if they're actually talking about Zen Buddhism or just Buddhism: "According to the American Hospital Assn., about 68% of public hospitals have a chaplaincy program. But few have Buddhist monks, and none compares with the program at Beth Israel -- where more than 20 Buddhist chaplains and chaplains-in-training offer bedside meditation"

Zen Master Dogen

Dogen was a great reformer of Buddhism, and the founder of the Soto Zen sect of Buddhism. I came across a blog entry about him. A small portion is excerpted below. If you click here, you can read the whole thing.

Dogen speaks clearly of the mind that seeks the way with clarity and how to maintain the intensity of practice over time. We couldn’t ask for a world of more distraction than the one we currently inhabit. To maintain our commitment to practice over 50 or 60 years requires that we find a way to refresh ourselves daily; there is no formula that works for everyone. We each find our own life koans to keep us awake. And we are not in monasteries where the routine is set up for us, responsibilities provided, and practice times reliable. One cornerstone of waking up is meditation and finding the strength of commitment to the Way to return to our practice daily.

However far we “stray” it is always good to remember

The key to cultivating the Way is knowing that your own mind is originally pure, that it is neither created nor destroyed, and that it is free of discrimination. The mind whose nature is perfectly pure is your true teacher and superior to any of the Buddhas of the ten directions you might call upon.

Zen At The Movies - Treeleaf Zen

"'Awakening' though Zen Practice occurs when we come to see clearly that the show is just a show and we see the wondrous timeless light sweeping 'us' in too that arises from some half-hidden projector beyond our view and how the story is largely written by us too thus change the mind and radically change the movie script"

He takes this analogy interesting places. A good read.

The Gangster That Became A Buddhist Priest.

Tadamasa Goto, one of Japan’s most notorious underworld bosses, is to enter the Buddhist priesthood less than a year after his volatile behaviour caused a rift in the country’s biggest crime syndicate.

As leader of a yakuza – or Japanese mafia – gang, Goto amassed a fortune from prostitution, protection rackets and white-collar crime, while cultivating a reputation for extreme violence.

Tomorrow, his life will take a decidedly austere turn when he begins training at a temple in Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper said today, citing police sources.

The 66-year-old, whose eponymous gang belonged to the powerful Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, was expelled from the yakuza fraternity last October after a furious row with his bosses over his conduct.

Wild Fox Zen: The Other Shore Arriving

"Do not think practice leads to the other shore. Practice exists as the other shore arriving as our practice because this practice is always this arriving of the universe."

Tao Teh Ching

"This web site is a tool for the study of how different English language translators rendered the ancient Chinese text of the Tau Teh Ching."

Of equal if not greater interest is the discussion this site sparked on Metafilter.com

Hipster Poem

They run into eachother in the grocery store
by the cauliflowers
they just saw eachother down the street
She says hi, he says hi again
She asks him are you really tired?
He says why? do I look like I'm tired?
You look either really tired or just sad
Yea, he thinks:
It's january, and it's cold and I'm lonely
...but not for long
She has already walked the length of the brocolli aisle.

You and Your Research

Interesting article:

"There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance."

What has this got to do with Zen? Perhaps nothing.

Obama’s Zen State, Well, It’s Hawaiian - NYTimes.com

A bit off topic, but a good read none the less:

"“He gives off a little oasis of calm,” said Mr. Abercrombie, who is spending the Christmas holidays in Hawaii. “He is peaceful water in the maelstrom, which will serve him very well in these circumstances when there happens to be a crisis.”"

Learning to meditate was never so easy, and odd

Well, it's not every day a cowboy/crocodile teaches you to meditate with a song. But this seems to be that day:

Buddha's Path in San Francisco

A BLOCK off Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown — beyond the well-worn path tourists take past souvenir shops, restaurants and a dive saloon called the Buddha Bar — begins a historical tour of a more spiritual nature.

Broken Koans and other Zen debris

If you know your Koans, these will give you a good laugh:

"Not Dualistic
Three Zen students came out of a Dharma talk.
'What did you think of Roshi s talk today ' one of them asked. 'When he talked about true and false practice I thought that was kind of dualistic wasn t it '
'Ah ' said the second 'but your even saying that is dualistic itself don t you see '
'Look who s talking ' said the third. 'I m glad I m not dualistic like you guys '"