- A Village Zendo Scrapbook
Since, as I have mentioned recently, Zen is very much an accredited situation, my temple sends annual reports to The Soto School of North America, which itself answers to Soto Zen HQ in Kyoto. It's been pointed out to us that no one wants to [ ... ]
- The Dude, The Zen Master, And Jon Stewart
On Wednesday Jeff Bridges talked with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show about his book, The Dude and the Zen Master, which he wrote with Bernie Glassman. I had several reasons to be excited about this event: Bernie Glassman is a prominent Zen [ ... ]
- Chodo
Last weekend I photographed my friend Chodo, a priest at the Village Zendo, caring for a friend in hospice.
- Hungry Ghosts
Each summer during our meditation retreat, the Village Zendo holds a ceremony to feed the hungry ghosts: all those suffering and unsatisfied. Here's my teacher Enkyo Roshi leading the ceremony. Every mistake I can make in the darkroom I [ ... ]
- The Chuang Tzu
I had a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance moment today at the bike shop, watching the guy fix my tire. He hadn't worked on a Brompton before so he took apart the shifting assembly thoughtfully, then he pulled off the rear wheel and the [ ... ]
- Jukai
August 12, 2012. The Village Zendo's lay-ordination ceremony, Jukai, in which eight students received the Zen Buddhist precepts.
- Shuso Hossen
August 26, 2012. The Village Zendo's ceremony in which Seizan, our practice leader, gave his first talk.
- Floating Lanterns
August 10, 2012. The Village Zendo's annual floating-lantern ceremony to commemorate Obon. Near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York.
- The Fifth Patriarch and the Three Turnings
This winter, the Village Zendo is reading The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, a foundational text of Chinese Zen. It was composed a generation or two after the lifetime of Huineng, and attributed to him. In it, Huineng tells the [ ... ]
- The Whisperers
The New York Times's photo blog has posted a spooky, beautiful project, "The Whisperers" by Kuba Kaminski: In remote northeastern Poland there lives a group of elderly Orthodox devotees who are said to possess special powers. They can [ ... ]