Buddhist-Based Resources for Relief and Social Change
Tag: Zen
Reflections in a Viral Age2—Hopelessness
Posted on April 26, 2020 by Alan Senauke
4.26.2020
Plagues and natural disasters appear regularly throughout human history. No times, places, or people have been immune to these occurrences. During Japan’s Kamakura period a series of plagues and famines burned across the country. During the Kanki Famine in … Read more
In the Winter of Our Discontent
Posted on December 28, 2016 by Alan Senauke
Nyogen Senzaki was the first Japanese Zen master to live and teach on our shores. Along with one hundred twenty thousand Americans of Japanese ancestry, he was interned as an enemy alien, confined at Heart Mountain, Wyoming during World War … Read more
A Soto Zen Buddhist Climate Statement
Posted on April 19, 2016 by Alan Senauke
The statement below is a unique collaboration among Soto Zen Buddhists in the west. With roots in China and in the 13th century teachings of Eihei Dogen, Soto Zen is one of the largest of Japan’s Buddhist denominations. This practice … Read more
Tangled Up in Blue: Zen Practice and Depression (edited version)
Posted on April 29, 2013 by Alan Senauke
Right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no more letters, no
Not unless you mail them from
Desolation Row
— from “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan
It starts with dread. In a distant city, on top … Read more
Tangled Up in Blue
Posted on April 22, 2013 by Alan Senauke
Right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no more letters, no
Not unless you mail them from
Desolation Row
— from “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan
It starts with dread. In a distant strange city, face up … Read more
Photography As Zen Practice—A Few Thoughts
Posted on August 2, 2011 by Alan Senauke
There has been a long radio silence on the blog. Not because nothing has happened. Maybe because too much has happened: ongoing, infuriating gridlock on the national budget; family medical crises; a wonderful waltz across Texas, visiting Zen centers in … Read more
Remembering Maylie Scott/Kushin Seisho: 3.29.35 to 5.10.01
Posted on May 9, 2011 by Alan Senauke
Maylie Scott — Kushin Seisho/Vast Mind Clear Shining — passed away ten years ago on May 10, 2001 at the age of 68. At Rin Shinji (Forest Heart Temple), the Zen center she had created and led for too brief … Read more
Zen & Ethical Conduct: An Open Letter to Genpo Merzel
Posted on April 20, 2011 by Alan Senauke
This letter from 66 Western Buddhist teachers was posted yesterday to Dennis Genpo Merzel and to a number of Buddhist publications. It is the followup to a letter that was included in my 23 February posting “The Cloud of Knowing … Read more
The Cloud of Knowing & Not Knowing: Sex, Power, and Sangha
Posted on February 23, 2011 by Alan Senauke
Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink.
— Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
In late January at a gathering of students at Ameland, in the north of Holland, Dennis Genpo Merzel acknowledged … Read more
Mindfulness Must Be Engaged—a Meditation
Posted on April 14, 2017 by Alan Senauke
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The Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness invite us to be mindful of the body in the body, feelings in the feelings, breath in the breath. This means becoming aware of actions and thoughts from within themselves, within ourselves. In just this … Read more
Category: Zen Tags: Engaged Buddhism, Meditation, Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen