One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same any place in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear. — Dave Brubeck



Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Originally posted May 5th, 2010, but reposted now because the work is far from done.

Please join me and chant the Smokey the Bear Sutra for all those who are working for a green earth! Use any tune you like, or none at all. Sing in the shower or on the street or in a coffee house or in your room. In my own practice I visualize Mary, Star of the Sea, standing at Smokey's side to offer guidance and protection. This is not obligatory. But it is obligatory that you find your own way to join this work.

By reciting this sutra (and matching my actions with its words), I am confident that its merit will:

Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.

Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.

Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women,  
and beasts.

Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a 
sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

After we chat and pray, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that we have fulfilled our obligation. Take Action!





SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA
by Gary Snyder

A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and watchful.

Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

His left paw in the mudra of Comradely Display--indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that of deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys;

Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the west, symbolic of the forces that guard the wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the true path of man on Earth:

all true paths lead through mountains--

With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;

Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;

Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs, smashing the worms of capitalism and totalitarianism;

Indicating the task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes, master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or slander him...
HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam
"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND MAY THIS RAGING FURY BE DESTROYED"

And he will protect those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television, or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out with his vajra-shovel.

Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.

Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.

Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.

Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT
...thus we have heard...

(*may be reproduced free forever)


*And this have I done!

Sister Kuon Elaine MacInnes Roshi

Originally posted December 12th, 2012



“Spirituality is what you do with those fires that burn within you.” -Sister Elaine


Sister Elaine MacInnes is a Catholic nun and a recognized Zen master. I have included a brief biography, a film, The Fires that Burn, done about her, and a link to her book on the miscellaneous koans. The picture of her with Jeremy Irons comes from her tenure as the head the Prison Phoenix Trust he founded to introduce meditation in the UK prison system. Now in her 80’s she continues to work with prisoners in Canada through the not-for profit Freeing the Human Spirit which she founded.



not broken, what do catholicism, zen, yoga & prisons have in common? a profile of Sister Elaine MacInnes by Talya Rubin

The Fires that Burn explores the life and work of Sister Elaine MacInnes - professional musician, Roman Catholic nun, Zen master, and prison activist - and her unusual journey to greater understanding. The documentary retreads 80-year old Sister Elaine's life path of spiritual redefinition, and uncovers the journey from her harrowing days as a body shield and activist during civil war in the Philippines, to her present-day campaign to get meditation teachers into prisons across Canada.

Flowing Bridge, Guidance on Beginning Zen Koans, By Elaine MacInnes. Elaine Roshi took some flak for writing about a koan practice that had been almost entirely an oral tradition, but I see it as her simply starting from the beginning.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha and the Goddess


by Rick Fields

Thus I have made up:
Once the Buddha was walking along the 
forest path in the Oak Grove at Ojai, walking without 
arriving anywhere
or having any thought of arriving or not arriving

and lotuses shining with morning dew
miraculously appeared under every step
soft as silk beneath the toes of the Buddha

When suddenly, out of the turquoise sky,
dancing in front of his half-shut inward-looking 
eyes, shimmering like a rainbow
or a spider's web
transparent as the dew on a lotus flower,

--the Goddess appeared quivering
like a hummingbird in the air before him

She, for she was surely a she
as the Buddha could clearly see
with his eye of discriminating awareness wisdom,

was mostly red in color
though when the light shifted
she flashed like a rainbow.

She was naked except 
for the usual flower ornaments
Goddesses wear

Her long hair
was deep blue, her two eyes fathomless pits of space
and her third eye a bloodshot
ring of fire

The Buddha folded his hands together
and greeted the Goddess thus:

"O Goddess, why are you blocking my path.
Before I saw you I was happily going nowhere.
Now I'm not sure where to go."

"You can go around me,"
said the Goddess, twirling on her heels like a bird
darting away,
but just a little way away,
"or you can come after me.
This is my forest too,
you can't pretend I'm not here."

With that the Buddha sat
supple as a snake
solid as a rock
beneath a Bo tree
that sprang full-leaved
to shade him.

"Perhaps we should have a chat,"
he said.
"After years of arduous practice
at the time of the morning star
I penetrated reality, and now..."

"Not so fast, Buddha.
I am reality.

The Earth stood still,
the oceans paused,

the wind itself listened
--a thousand arhats, bodhisattvas, and dakinis
magically appeared to hear
what would happen in the conversation.

"I know I take my life in my hands."
said the Buddha.
"But I am known as the Fearless One
--so here goes."

And he and the Goddess
without further words
exchanged glances.

Light rays like sunbeams
shot forth
so bright that even
Sariputra, the All-Seeing One,
had to turn away.

And then they exchanged thoughts
and the illumination was as bright as a diamond candle.

And then they exchanged mind
And there was a great silence as vast as the universe
that contains everything

And then they exchanged bodies

And clothes

And the Buddha arose
as the Goddess
and the Goddess
arose as the Buddha 

and so on back and forth
for a thousand hundred thousand kalpas.

If you meet the Buddha
you meet the Goddess.
If you meet the Goddess
you meet the Buddha.

Not only that. This:
The Buddha is the Goddess,
the Goddess is the Buddha.

And not only that. This:
The Buddha is emptiness
the Goddess is bliss,
the Goddess is emptiness
the Buddha is bliss.

And that is what
and what-not you are
It's true.

So here comes the mantra of the Goddess and the Buddha, the unsurpassed dual-mantra. Just to say this mantra, just to hear this mantra once, just to hear one word of this mantra once makes everything the way it truly is: OK.

So here it is:
Earth-walker/sky-walker
Hey, silent one, Hey, great talker
Not two/Not one
Not separate/Not apart
This is the heart
Bliss is emptiness
Emptiness is bliss
Be your breath, Ah 
Smile, Hey
And relax, Ho
And remember this: You can't miss

We dedicate any merit that might come from reciting, posting, and spreading this sutra to Bonnie Johnson, who now bridges the worlds of both the seen and unseen. In your presence, Bonnie, we were so aware of who we were that we saw the possibility of being so much more--extending love's embrace. You showed us the way of Jesus through your kindness, gentleness, the care with which you treated us, all your friends, family, doctors, caregivers, yes, even the care with which you treated your disease. May your teaching go on and on throughout all the worlds to come. May you be with the saints forever.



Sunday, July 14, 2019

The Gift of Tears—For my Mother, Leona Carroll

It is May 10th, 2009, Mother's Day, and I am reposting this piece that I wrote two years ago about my mother, Leona Carroll Ireland. I dedicate it to you, Mother, and to all our mothers.

I woke up this morning missing my mother who has been dead now for several years. Given the contentious quality of our relationship for most of our 60 years together, I am surprised that oftentimes I find tears in my eyes when I think of her. I still remember phone calls where she slammed down the receiver, long periods of not speaking—her cold punishment for my seemingly uncooperative nature—her steely resolve that by the force of her will, I was going to get straight somehow, and marry. We were locked in a stalemate for almost 20 years.

Then a few short years before she died, I got really lucky, or was blessed, when I was able to touch the pain her actions tried to mask. That took away their power to hurt, and allowed me to experience a kind of love that I could not have imagined.





This is what I write about this Mother’s Day morning.

"A painted cake doesn't satisfy hunger."
There is a famous story in zen about a monk, Hsiang-yen, who, by most standards applied to monks, was a failure. He worked away in the monastery of his teacher expecting nothingand he got nothing; he sat long hours in meditationnothing; he did rounds of beggingright, again only scraps; he got thrown out of the hojo every time he presented himself before his teacher to check out how he was doing because he didn’t seem to be absorbing much. A hopeless case.

After many years of getting nowhere, when his teacher died, convinced that realization was beyond his capabilities, he retired to a remote temple where he tended the teacher’s grave. One day, the story continues, as he was raking the stones in the orderly zen garden (I like to imagine the ones you see in the fancy books with perfectly ordered lines in the rock), a small stone bounced off the garden wall with a Ping! Just that sound, and in a tumble his mind gulped in all his training in a single instant. And he got his life.

Even someone who has never practiced long days of meditation can understand the appeal of Hsiang-Yen's story. Everyone I know has some dilemma like this in his or her life. For me my relationship with my mother was a huge conundrum.

I have flown to Tucson to be with my mother after her first serious heart episode. It is decided that she get a pacemaker; that the doctor electrically jolt her heart, and, hopefully, restore a normal rhythm. Then the elements of a really bad melodrama started to unfoldmy father disappeared for several days when he can’t take anymore, my mother brawled with her sister and a pretty buffed nursing attendant as she tried to put on her clothes to leave to go out into the street and hail a cab to take her home given that no one in her family seemed willing to obey her command and return her to a normal life. Eventually a really well-trained and compassionate case manager was the voice of calm, and mother agreed to the procedure. The drama to follow can be a quick note in the marginfurther refusal on the operating table; family crisis; harsh words exchanged in anger; the heart specialist looks like the 14 year prodigy, Doogie Howser M.D., on the TV (I’m not kidding. He really did look like a teenager). I started to laugh, . . . this kid is going to thread electrodes through the arteries to my mother’s heart? What is she going to think? She thinks he’s cute, and refuses his treatment. Back to square one. That evening we will try again.

Before her surgery, she can have no food; even water is restrictedonly small ice shavings. I hold a plastic cup and gently spoon the shavings on her tongue. She chews, and sucks, and swallows with smiles. I hear the ice click against the side of the plastic cup as I scoop it up. I use every bit of all my long zen training just to be with my mother for what might be her last moments of lifejust her, just this spoonful, just this ice, just my breath and hers, just her pleasure in ice and water. It is very sweet, and I feel like the good son. If nothing else about zen, it does train you to be present in the moment. And that moment will have to be enough for this particular gay son after many long years of feeling outcast and abused. Yes, I decide it will be enough.

The medical procedure went as well as any scripted denouement on the Doogie Howser TV show. You couldn’t hope for more: the patient got well; the family crisis was temporarily resolved when the stubborn mother agreed to go to the nursing home; the father returned, shaken, humbled but unharmed, forgiven and loved; the gentle sister has taken over managing the mother’s care. And I boarded Frontier Air to return to San Francisco.

After the exchange of pleasantries, I discovered that my seatmates were going to San Francisco to be reunited with their birth mother whom they have never met (how could I make this up?), and I told them that I have been at my mother’s sick bed. 

We are in flight. Staring out the window as we flew over the Rockies, across the desert and into the sky over Death Valley, I lapsed into a brown study, and sat mesmerized by the wonder of the world. The flight attendant offered me a second Diet Coke with ice. My orphaned seatmates passed the offering across the seats. I took a big gulp and as I swirled the ice around the cup, it clinked against the edge. In an instant my mind tumbles and I am no longer "me" in a plane over Death Valley, but I am in my mother’s lifeI mean really, not some theoretical propositionall of it, her hopes her pain her struggles her fear her birth her death, and I burst into tears and sob. My orphan seatmate understands something about finding mothers: she just reaches out and gently touches my arm, holding me connected to the breathing world as my mind flies away. Did I thank her enough? Any trace of resentment, regret, bitterness, or recrimination about the way my mother treated me at any time in our lives together evaporates. She is just my mother, and I am finally able to enter into the mystery and wonder of being a son.

The plane lands in San Francisco. I mumble good-bye to my seatmates where the mother that gave them birth is waiting at the gate. I wish them well, and I walk back into my life, praying that everybody be lucky enough to find out who their mothers really are, to be able to step into their lives, and cry when they are gone.


Friday, July 12, 2019

Koan Bibliography

Koan Collections


The Blue Cliff Record


The Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: (碧巖錄) Bìyán Lù; Japanese: Hekiganroku (碧巌録?); Korean: Byeokamrok, 벽암록(碧巖錄);Vietnamese: Bích nham lục (碧巖錄)) is a collection of Chán Buddhist koans originally compiled in China during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the Chán master Yuanwu Keqin (圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135).


The book includes Yuanwu's annotations and commentary on Xuedou Zhongxian's (雪竇重顯 980 – 1052) collection 100 Verses on Old Cases (頌古百則) — a compilation of 100 koans. Xuedou selected 82 of these from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu (景德傳燈錄) (Jingde era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), with the remainder selected from the Yunmen Guanglu (雲門廣録), Extensive Record of Yunmen Wenyan (864 – 949).


Another key legend regards Dogen Zenji (道元禅師; 1200 – 1253), who brought the Soto Zen sect to Japan. After an extended visit to China for the purpose of studying Zen, on the night before his planned return to Japan, Dogen saw the Bìyán Lù for the first time, and stayed up all night making a handwritten copy of the book. Given the size of the book, this story is almost certainly apocryphal.

The most widely used translation is The Blue Cliff Record, J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, trans.



The Gateless Gate


The Gateless Gate (無門關, Mandarin. Wúménguān, Japanese. 無門関, Mumonkan) is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開)(1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai). Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen. A classic edition includes a 49th case composed by Anwan (pen name for Cheng Ch'ing-Chih) in 1246. Wu-liang Tsung-shou also supplemented the volume with a verse of four stanzas composed in 1230 about the three checkpoints of Zen master Huanglong. These three checkpoints of Huanglong should not be confused with Doushuai's Three Checkpoints found in Case 47.


Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin Ekaku, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai School practice. Five of the koans in the work concern the sayings and doings of Zhaozhou; four concern Ummon.


There are 3 widely used English translations:

Yamada, Koun, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, Wisdom Publications. 2004

Aitken, Robert, The Gateless Barrier, The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumokan), North Point Press, San Francisco. 1991

Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan by Zenkei Shibayama is somewhat hard to find in print. 


Other Koan Collections

Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues Shoyo Roku, Hung-chih Cheng-chüeh, Cleary, Thomas, trans., Shambhala, 1998

Entangling Vines, Shumon kattoshu, is one of the few major koan texts to have been compiled in Japan rather than China. Thomas Yuho Kirchner (Translator), Nelson Foster (Foreword), Ueda Shizuteru (Introduction).


Shōbōgenzō (正法眼蔵, lit. "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye")

Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo: 301 Koan Stories, Nishijima, Gudo, Michael Luetchford & Jeremy Pearson (eds), Windbell Publications, Woking. 2003

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, John Daido Loori,  Kazuaki Tanahashi (Translator)



Other Books

Cleary, Thomas, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record: Zen Comments by Hakuin and Tenkei, Shambhala, Boston & London. 2000

Cleary, Rational Zen; The Mind of Dogen Zenji, Shambhala, Boston & London. 1993

Cleary, No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan, Aquarian/Thorsons, London. 1993

James Ishmael Ford  (Ed), Melissa Myozen Blacker (Ed), John Tarrant (Foreword) The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan. 2011

Heine, Steven, Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts, SUNY, Albany. 1994

Hori, Victor Sogen, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice, University of  Hawai'i Press,  Honolulu, 2003

MacInnes, Elaine  Ruben L. F. Habito (Foreword)The Flowing Bridge: Guidance on Beginning Zen Koans 

Miura, Isshu & Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, The Zen Koan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen, Harcourt Brace & Co., San Diego. 1965

Nishijima, Gudo & Cross, Chodo, Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Book 1, Windbell Publications, Woking. 1994

O'Halloran, Maura, Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Life and Letters of an Irish Zen Saint 

Japanese Buddhism and the Meiji Restoration, The American Academy of Religion, 1997

Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, A Man of Zen: The Recorded Sayings of Layman P'ang






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