on the anatolian plateau, september 2018 from my travels to where and nowhere . autrement dit the point of the journey is in the travel . travels are pointless . they have no start and no end they take us nowhere . who is the traveler . where is she . travels that take us nowhere and to nowhere . nowhere is a grand palace it is our home . its walls are made of air thin air . its doors are passageways of winds . its roof is the sky . where is this . where are we . we kee

Nah ist und schwer zu fassen der Gott. Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch.” “Near and hard to grasp Is the God. But where danger is deliverance also grows” ― Friedrich Hölderlin These are the opening verses of Hölderlin's celebrated long poem Patmos. Martin Heidegger has written a commentary on it. They have accompanied me for many years and I have kept coming back to them. There is a koan-like quality to them that defies intellectual understanding. It needs to be

it's destiny you said encounter of destinies should one time we meet it is an overnight stay in a rundown hermitage stars spread over the sky they greet your dark flame some untold sorrow of the sea you see my hour go blind you see shades roll over me for i had to step aside #ryotantokuda #zenmaster #eitaiji #zen #sesshin #dharma

sitting that mirror where we see ourselves and the many worlds as reflections passing . ripples endlessly fading into circles of infinity infinity #ripple #zen #zenpoetry #inity #mirror #retreat

one of the more impactful and profound experiences given to us to live is to recollect heart and mind in an intensive period of silent and still sitting. this is a moment when, while attending and caring for whatever unfolds outside, we begin to turn our light inwards, as the buddha encouraged us to do in his last recorded words. to turn our light inwards is another way of speaking of intamacy and homecoming. intimacy means, no one other than you, can take the steps, often st

Today I would like to present you Master Tokuda Igarishi. The first time I met him was in a small Parisian apartment where he and a few of his students would gather twice a week to sit zazen. That was back in the Winter of 1997. Three years later he formally accepted me as his disciple, and ordained me monk and gave me the dharma name Tetsu_un which I would loosely translate, from the explanation I received from hims as: explore to the end what it is to be a cloud. Now that

on the road, by an open filed, cévennes, france, 2007 #sunflowers #cevennes #zen #blackandwhitephotogrpahy

in conversation with : Therese Lind Bjellder @thereselindbillie So basically a teacher's work is to reveal our hidden potential to us and yes, the inspiration he or she gives is this: take a step out of the fear that is restraining you. That step is letting ourselves fall into the unknown. -Hamid Ebadi @hamid.ebadi0 🗣🙏🏽💫🍀#myteacher #thankful I wish to one day again sit for hours and listen to your magical beautiful words describing the indescribable ---------------------

wondrous too our grieving samsara where with a smile adjourning time you tie the seas that sunder us where slowly i waken as you wheel my soul with rings of song together we blaze by fire’s breath untouched and its light uplifting light mougin, 2005 #samsara #zen

when things start falling apart, hold on to your seat. albert camus puts it this way: there is no love of life without despair of life. but pain, sadness, grief and and despair are at odds with our deep-rooted belief in a life free from them, a life of permanent bliss and happiness. there is nothing wrong with us wanting this but an honest relationship with life soon makes us understand love and despair, happiness and pain, light and dark are not only inseparable but co

ease into this the need to know i have blown it out in your heart paths and journeys now silenced are you awake or is this still sleep you don't know rejoice not knowing is the closes Angkor wat, siem reap, Cambodia, 2010 #notknowing #zen #sesshin #angkorwat #siemreap #meditation

and the rest is silence the sheer beauty of osho's words arrested me this morning: “ our existence is nothing but a sound in the immense ocean of silence.” as i sat with his words these ripples surfaced and began floating towards me: we emerge out of that ocean and return to that ocean. you can call that ocean the tao, the primal source, the universe, or any other name of your liking. any name will do as no name will do. no name will do as it is beyond names and naming. beyo

Our sesshin (silent meditation retreat) in Monchique, South Portugal, is less than a month away. Some of you have written to express your interest but find it difficult to come for financial reasons. Some others feel you are not in a good enough space to get involved with intensive meditation practice, that it may become overwhelming. Whatever that may be, in the words of Jim Morrison of the Doors, what a lyricist: The time to hesitate is through! Reflecting on these obstacle

over the past ten years, i have had the honor to share teachings with many students in india, bali and some other parts of the world. the setting of these teachings has primarily been at yoga teacher trainings, something rather uncommon for a zen teacher, this being the background i am coming from. what distinguishes the common from the uncommon is something you begin to lose sight of the more you follow your own deeper calling. your life has a mysterious way of unfolding the

Thank you Jennifer Stretton for posting your blog entry about our Bali retreat here below. Five years have passed and we have all become older. Some of us have felt the aging process more acutely though, imagine hitting the sixty-year old point. As we can't run away from impermanence lets hold our nose and warm up to it; a good way of doing that is intense meditation. For those of you who wish to attend our October sesshin Jen's description will give you a feel of the retreat

ocean's pure invention each dawn she summons the wind to recapture me from pits of sleep where mere keepsake of their cawing one late flight crows abandoned me she draws me to her waters where now where now forever i stand a listening to nothing bound receiving her release as she rolls 2006 mandrem, goa, india #poetry #meditation #goa #Zen #retreats #nature

It's a happy moment whenever I get the chance to sit with others an intensive sesshin (meditation retreat) as this allows me each time to come back to that place of honesty where I can meet my own practice and, through it, my own life in a very open way. Over the years you begin to realize there is a depth to this practice of silent sitting that you will never fully plumb. Something rather joyful as what you are sensing as unfathomable is simply the mystery of life revealing