Essays
Sudden vs Gradual Enlightenment
Published in Buddhadharma (Spring 2009)
"We've reached the point where any discussion of Zen that doesn't take into account new findings about its literary and cultural history looks like quaint mythologizing, instead of something that can be refined through new research and deepening insight."
"We've reached the point where any discussion of Zen that doesn't take into account new findings about its literary and cultural history looks like quaint mythologizing, instead of something that can be refined through new research and deepening insight."
Hidden No More: A Review of "Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters"
Published in Buddhadharma (Winter 2009)
"So here's the thumbnail review: Read this book. What we know of Zen has been incomplete, because the part about women – their stories and their teachings through the ages – has mostly remained hidden from ordinary sight. Grace Schireson's book is an important contribution toward making our understanding of Zen whole."
"So here's the thumbnail review: Read this book. What we know of Zen has been incomplete, because the part about women – their stories and their teachings through the ages – has mostly remained hidden from ordinary sight. Grace Schireson's book is an important contribution toward making our understanding of Zen whole."
This Floating World
Originally published in Shambhala Sun
"The image of a human life as a small skiff on the wide waters of the world has been around as long as people have had boats, and the thought that life is a dream is no news flash, either. But what does it mean that there is something happy, maybe even beautiful or consoling, in thinking so?"
"The image of a human life as a small skiff on the wide waters of the world has been around as long as people have had boats, and the thought that life is a dream is no news flash, either. But what does it mean that there is something happy, maybe even beautiful or consoling, in thinking so?"
Some Thoughts on Zen
"One of the things I love most about zen is that it accepts that life is simultaneously beautiful and difficult, and it asks us not to turn away from either. It suggests that it is helpful in this matter of being alive in a beautiful and difficult world to foster an attitude of warmth and curiosity; this allows us to live with a more open heart and mind, and to notice what happens when we do."
Joyfully Alive
"Sometimes we change something because it isn't working...But sometimes the tradition itself is changing, outside anyone's control or intentions, into something else it wants to be. Nowhere is this clearer than in the way we work with koans."
The House Style
"It is from a deep exploration of these three currents – that something we recognize across time and space; the parts of our received tradition we understand to be conditioned and find enduringly useful, or beautiful; and our native expressions of Zen, both from the western tradition and in our own practices now – that we can help create a Zen of this time and place."
Refuge in the Storm: On Taking the Precepts
"Deciding to participate in a ceremony of taking refuge in the bodhisattva way is a deeply personal matter: It's a request that rises from the heart, usually to acknowledge the sense of coming home one has found in the practice, and the desire to live a life that is beneficial to oneself and others, a life of greater kindness."
Body of Radiant Knots
Being Bodies, Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment. Edited by Lenore Friedman & Susan Moon. (1997)
"The two things that have shaped my adult life more than anything else are meditation and being sick. I know this is true because I cry as I write it. They are so tightly braided that I can no longer imagine what either would be without the other. Meditation helped me to make it through years of illness; illness forced my meditation to be deep and strong and real. Because of their unyielding collaboration, the dark colors of the open wound and the experience of bearing the unbearable are known to me."
"The two things that have shaped my adult life more than anything else are meditation and being sick. I know this is true because I cry as I write it. They are so tightly braided that I can no longer imagine what either would be without the other. Meditation helped me to make it through years of illness; illness forced my meditation to be deep and strong and real. Because of their unyielding collaboration, the dark colors of the open wound and the experience of bearing the unbearable are known to me."
| Body of Radiant Knots |
