My favorite time…

My favorite time to be at Dai Bosatsu Monastery in the Catskills is always the first week of October. The mountains surround the zendo, and the leaves start to change at the top of the peaks and then slowly the colors drift down. By the end of the week the monastery is surrounded by a brocade of color. 

The large Bonsho bell in this photograph is nearly seven feet tall and five feet wide. It weighs about eight thousand pounds and its resonance can carry for twenty miles on a clear day. I”ll never forget the first time I ever heard it. 

In was early morning, and still dark when it began to ring with an eerie sound, almost supernatural as though it came from the center of the earth. I was deep asleep when it rang out with one long boom. When the sound faded into the morning another boom echoed off the mountains. It penetrated through my dreams and I woke up completely mystified. What was that? I had never heard anything like it. It was mystical.

Zazen practice IS mystical. For me, it’s filled with mystery, awe, and fascination. 

Things that are better at night

Sei Shonagon has a list for “Things that are better at night: The glow of deep purple softened silk. Flossed silk. The sound of a waterfall.”

Here are a few of our dark nights in which to delight…

The road home from a solstice party

Celebrating Christmas with a fire

Things that just keep passing by

Sei Shonagon lists “Things that just keep passing by: A boat with its sail up. People’s age. Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.”

This autumn there are some very cool days and one thinks about changing clothes to wools and long sleeved flannel shirts. But then the very next day the temperature soars into the 70s and there is renewed hope that the summer will linger forever though signs in the garden tell us winter is quickly approaching.

Sunsets and sunrises are lavish with color. Pale pinks and oranges flood the sky. Trees and shrubs wear a brocade of woven hue: reds, oranges, pale green, and brown. Ferns and grasses spell the end of the year, dahlias and salvias throw out the best of the season. It is truly a splendid time.

The color of the mountains

This is one of my favorite scrolls. The words in English:

The color
of the mountains
purifies
the pure body

These words have been a favorite of mine for a long time. I remember a ten-day Vipassana retreat in the desert of Joshua Tree in southern California: it was spring, the mountains far in the distance were framed by the blue endless sky. I walked for hours outside  in meditation – these words in mind with new blooming flowers carpeting the desert floor under my feet.

These words are with me now as they were then, but I usually associate them with spring or fall and hang this scroll in the tea room when the Catskill mountains across the river show different hues of color depending on the changing seasons.

I never thought about these words for winter until yesterday when I saw the mountains dusted with the first snow. What could be more pure than white? The snow, the early blooming narcissus, the white paper to hold the black ink?

Sei Shonagon has a list titled “Things worth seeing.” Indeed. But how about a list “Things worth being?”

Full moon – Rohatsu

Moon orbit to the left. Neighbor’s orbit to the right

It’s freezing cold and I ran outside to take this photograph with my hand held camera. It’s out of focus but no matter. It’s Rohatsu. December 8.

Buddhists around the world are sitting in meditation/zazen tonight, all night until dawn to acknowledge and join in the Buddha’s actual experience of sitting through the night until he saw the morning star and attained enlightenment.

I’m seeing the full moon and my neighbor’s Christmas lights.

What was it that he realized?

It was revolutionary…for us all to discover and actualize every day, every moment of our lives.