A personal note...

At home, ironing my disobedient zagu (!), listening to Keizan Sensei on a downloaded talk, and hearing the voices of my dharma brothers and sisters in Liverpool. Miss you all.

Poem: "The Human Route"

Kevin brought in a poem this evening, and I thought I'd share it here, too.

Coming empty handed, going empty handed, that is human
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, Where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud, which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud, which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing that always remains clear.
It is pure and clear,
Not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one and clear thing?

I said at the time that I thought this was written by Seung Sahn Sunim (founder of the Kwan Um School of Zen), but it turns out its origin is less certain, and perhaps dates back to T'ang dynasty China (618-907CE). Not sure how true this is, or how to evaluate it, but I suspect that Seung Sahn at least wrote the last line.

Thanks, Kevin...

Survey of meditators for sangha member doing MSc...

One of the members of the Liverpool sangha, Martie Kodo Griffiths, is currently doing an MSc at Liverpool Hope University and is looking for participants for his research into the relationship between dissociation, mindfulness, meaning in life, quality of life, depression and anxiety. Participation is of course entirely voluntary, but shouldn't take more than around 15 mins, he reckons - it's just the filling in of an online questionnaire.

If you'd be willing to help out, you can find the questionnaire online, along with a bit more information about the study.

New website for SWZ

It's taken a lot of work (almost none of it mine, it must be said!) but the new StoneWater Zen website is now up.  Have a butchers: http://stonewaterzen.org/

Keizan Sensei to visit in November

Have been organising for Keizan Sensei to come down to Northampton, and it looks like we have a date. He'll be visiting to run a day-long event for Masters students at the university, but we're going to organise a public talk the previous evening.

The date will be evening of the 1st November 2013, venue to be arranged. The talk is likely to be an introduction to Zen practice, and we'll have to have a think about how best to spread the word to get people along.  It would be nice if his lead to greater numbers for our weekly sits, but I'm trying not to pin any hopes on it.

More details in due course.

Bird

This was posted on the Soto Zen Buddhism Facebook group today, and I thought it was fantastic.

The question is:

Where is the bird?

Leave answers in the comments section, if you're feeling adventurous...