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That Which We Already Know

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  I’m so excited that this labor of love is coming to fruition! Final editing is underway. The beautiful cover artwork by Sophie Binder Designs is complete. I hope to have this book in your hands soon! That Which We Already Know  is about stillness of mind. Part childhood memoir, part spiritual enquiry, part psychological and philosophical exploration,  That Which We Already Know  paints a picture of our fall from grace and ultimate redemption via the recollection of childhood truth: that we arise in this world with an innate capacity to experience stillness. There is nothing for us to learn in this regard. We simply need ease our adopted selves out of the way in order to realize how very much we already know. That Which We Already Know  began as a flash of inspiration upon waking one morning. It seemed that in an instant I saw the arc of my life with perfect clarity. Raised Christian, I’ve been a practicing Zen Buddhist for nearly thirty years. This book recounts how I found solace a
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On Life and Death: Deciphering Dogen’s 'Shoji'

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  It has been a season of many losses within my family and circle of friends, bringing life and death to the forefront of my mind. Life and death is something of a koan that each of us must resolve—the Great Matter that I spoke of in a recent post. Dogen’s Shoji ( Life and Death ), on the other hand, is a koan in the more traditional and literal sense. It is one short fascicle of a larger work, the Shobogenzo , composed sometime in the first half of the 13 th Century by Eihei Dogen, preeminent teacher within the Soto Zen tradition. Sunset with silhouette of trees Dogen begins Shoji with a quote from another Zen teacher: “Because in life and death there is buddha, there is no life and death” (Nishijima and Cross, 2009, p. 299). This first sentence may well be a koan unto itself—a koan within a koan, if you will. What does it mean? Perhaps we can gain a toehold by thinking of Buddha as ultimate reality beyond all so-called separate things. Thus, when we recognize Buddha in life and d
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Eclipses, Ice Cream, I Love You, Goodbye

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Our family lost its matriarch this past April. Darlene was an incredibly accomplished professional woman—having traveled the world as part of a wife and husband ministerial team. She was retired by the time I got to know her, though, and most people in our circle simply referred to her as Mom or Granny. Darlene holding one of our newest family members. Having married into the clan somewhat late in life, and with my biological mother still alive, I never quite felt comfortable calling her Mom. Instead, I settled into calling her Darlene. Regardless of what I called her, though, as my birth mother slowly faded away into the haze of dementia, Darlene was there for me as the perfect mother-in-law. But there were times when I felt like an imperfect son-in-law. You see, Darlene poured out more love than I was able to accept. She knew I loved plants and gardening, for instance, and she just kept them coming. Even after we got young cats that made keeping houseplants nearly impossible, the
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Grief and the Great Matter

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Occasional days of warmth and sun and new growth peeking from the earth have blessed us, yet winter’s gray embrace seems here to stay. So many people I’m close to are struggling mightily these days with loved ones dying, relationships crumbling, or serious illness descending full force upon them. It reminds me yet again of the howling reality that life can plunge us in an instant from the sunny heights of all is well into the icy depths of pain and bewilderment. Thus, even with spring right around the corner, I find myself revisiting what Zen Buddhists refer to as the Great Matter —the mystery that each of us must resolve regarding life and death. The first spring flowers this year If unresolved, the Great Matter follows close behind wherever grief may lead—darkening it, deepening it, and making it lonelier still. On the other hand, resolving the Great Matter provides context for our grief. Contextualized, our pain joins the chorus of loss’s universality rather than being an isolated
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Synchronicity and Meaning (Part 3 of 3)

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Gosh, it’s been almost a year since I began this series of posts recounting some of my recent experiences of synchronicity. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at it having taken so long, though, given that I knew from the start this installment was coming and would require of me a fair bit of emotional heavy lifting. In fact, this post may well be the most personally revealing one I’ve ever written, dealing as it does with the dysfunction of my family of origin and the karma it has wrought. But to disregard such messy context would be to excise these synchronicities from everything that gives them power and meaning in the first place. Please bear with me then, as I share enough background information to allow you privy to my state of mind at the time of these events. You may read the first two installments here and here . Interior of Liverpool's Bombed-Out Church First of all, I must say that I’m a Zen Buddhist and not particularly invested in any theories about the afterlife, not
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Synchronicity and Meaning (Part 2 of 3)

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It’s not uncommon for those grieving the loss of a loved one to hope for a sign from them that all is well on the “other side.” Perhaps this is especially so for survivors left without any meaningful sense of closure. My mother, for instance, slipped inexorably into the quicksand of dementia without me being able to say goodbye in any meaningful way. Perhaps that explains my openness to receiving a sign from her, despite my Zen Buddhist leanings leaving me less inclined to believe in heavenly realms of souls and angels. Grief is never easy, but grief without closure is more difficult still. Euonymus, sometimes called Burning Bush In the first installment of Synchronicity and Meaning I described waking from dreamless sleep with an artist’s name on the tip of my tongue. The last name was Bosch. The first name rhymed with anonymous. Euonymus? No, that’s a plant of some kind. With the mystery yet unresolved, I fell asleep again. Upon awakening the next morning, however, I saw that a fri
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Synchronicity and Meaning (Part 1 of 3)

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“Oh my gosh, I was just thinking of you!” Have you ever been party to a phone conversation in which the person on the receiving end immediately blurted this out? It would seem to be a fairly common occurrence. But does it mean anything? Is it synchronicity, or is it merely coincidence? For if there is no reason for such events, and no meaning for them to accrue, then they result in little more than “gee whiz” wonderment. I’ve been a “student” of synchronicity for many years. By that I mean I give due consideration to apparently synchronistic phenomena whenever I happen to notice them. I appreciate the way they nudge me from my comfort zone in the rational world and open me to thinking about new possibilities for the reality I might otherwise take for granted. That said, I’m no pushover! My rational mind can’t help but analyze these potentially synchronistic occurrences before getting too excited about them. For instance, when those intriguingly timed phone calls come from my spouse, w
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The Weather Inside

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Perhaps it’s human nature that our moods so often track the weather outside—spiraling downward like the cold rain in the drainpipe and then lifting once again when the sun peeks through the clouds. Ah, but it isn’t always so. Sometimes we revel in the gloominess outside, finding a sort of melancholy joy in how it so perfectly supports our (and the world’s) need for rest and renewal. Unfortunately, the opposite all too often occurs. It might be a gorgeous day outside, but we feel as though we’re gazing out through dirty glasses. We sense brightness, but our mood is dark. We wish we had more spring in our step, but it feels as though our feet are stuck in mud. Whether we’re experiencing depression, grief, or merely a persistently rough period in life, it can be all too tempting to believe that such inclement “inside weather” will be our lot forevermore. We might even commence to seeding our dark storm clouds with endless self-recrimination: We’ve “no right” to feel this way given all tha
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