Not Knowing

"In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness, as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure about who we are - or who anyone else is either."

- Pema Chodron

Solstice Garden

summer solstice

winter solstice

A Taste of Heaven and Earth

This is my favorite cookbook for three reasons ... the recipes are good, it's vegetarian, and there are lovely brush paintings scattered throughout

There are contemplative essays and ink drawings to heighten the sensory experience in the kitchen

Since my two years of working in the kitchen at a Zen Center in Hawaii, I appreciate the author's approach to cooking and eating. The kitchen is a place of transformation. In the Zen tradition, serving as Tenzo (head cook) is considered an excellent opportunity for practice. The literature of Zen is filled with kitchen anecdotes and stories of enlightenment coming through simple daily chores.

There is so much more to cooking than meets the eye. Friends think I'm nuts when I say that I enjoy washing dishes and sweeping the floor.

I couldn't decide whether to put this post here or in my book blog. What do you think?

There's another small and lovely book I want to write about ... Sweeping Changes by Gary Thorp, a lay monk who emphasizes the intent surrounding each housekeeping activity, not the end result of cleanliness. Lawns should be mindfully mowed "with every fiber of your being"; dishes should be washed with particular, single-minded care. "Your life and all that's in it are simply on loan to you and are clearly precarious," cautions Thorp, encouraging readers to use certain chores (raking dead leaves, recycling and mending clothes, for example) as occasions to reflect on the transience of life.

There is a Crack in Everything

Starting Over

cleaning the altar

lighting the candle

starting again

Soen Nakagawa

ENDLESS VOW
The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa

Into the twilight zendo

maple leaves

come dancing

Zendo no naka nimo mai nu yumomiji

Crane Lady

On most Saturdays we meet at the Men's Prison for a meditation group. M is a nun in the Tibetan tradition .... we meet in the dining hall with a small group of prisoners. Guards look on, but as yet none have joined us.

We meditate, drink tea and talk ... and fold paper cranes. We started with very large pieces of newspaper because it's easier to fold a large one when first learning. Many of them were set in flight about the hall ... like paper airplanes. We laughed a lot and ate all the cookies.





Over a few weeks, we gradually progressed to smaller and smaller models until the guys became familiar with the folds. They hung the cranes in their rooms when they went back. They don't live in cells here, but in blocks of duplexes scattered about the grounds.

Eventually I became known as "the crane lady"