Buddhism

Why is it that when I read the original commentators like Bodhidharma or Hui-neng or Dogen or even the poets I understand Buddhism, but when I read modern Weste...

Detachment

Detachment as a spiritual or philosophical state is dependent upon one’s station, what could be called an “existential context.” The ancient C...

Bears are back!

The bears returned from “the north” yesterday. They spent a while, the three cubs climbing a pine tree to an enormous height (50, 60 feet?), while m...

Barn’s Burned …

I looked up the little Zen poem about the burned barn and the moon. It is by Masahide: “Barn’s burned / now I can see the moon.” Well, forest&...

Bears …

About two weeks ago, a family of black bears appeared, perhaps winter residents of the woodland behind us. Mother and three cubs. I wrote something about them o...

Fire!

It has been a week now since a harrowing fire on and around the property devastated 30 acres of woodland. A lightning strike at about 4 in the afternoon was the...

Moonlight

Not yet a full moon but the brightness of night is wonderfully evocative. At midnight, the dark house glows in the moon’s silver light, and outside the sh...

Bears!

Over several days now, both parent black bears (mother and father) and their three cubs are visiting repeatedly — just when the bird feeders and sources o...

“He shall live alone”

One of the starker decrees of culture is expressed in the biblical Leviticus 13: 46, concerning anyone with leprosy: “He shall live alone; his dwelling sh...