Radiance of the Dark

2004 - 2005 | Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO and Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM

A bouquet of talks on the Heart Sutra, the distillation of the vast Prajna Paramita literature of the Mahayana. That's Prajna Paramita herself, the mother of buddhas, above. Because the Heart Sutra is a distillation, it's dense, nothing extra, bracing. Turns out when you pour in the stories and associations that surround it, the potion becomes sweeter and more complex. The first talk is the most straightforward introduction to the text, and after that, well, it wanders where it wanders - being the heart of the world and all.

2004 - 2005 | Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO and Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM

A bouquet of talks on the Heart Sutra, the distillation of the vast Prajna Paramita literature of the Mahayana. That's Prajna Paramita herself, the mother of buddhas, above. Because the Heart Sutra is a distillation, it's dense, nothing extra, bracing. Turns out when you pour in the stories and associations that surround it, the potion becomes sweeter and more complex. The first talk is the most straightforward introduction to the text, and after that, well, it wanders where it wanders - being the heart of the world and all.

Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO | April 9, 2005, April 28, 2006

The old folks talked about how we all unfold sutra scrolls from our toes as we walk and our mouths as we speak, waving from the bright green tips of our new growth and falling out the tops of eggs as we peck them open. It's spring, the season of unfoldings both delicate and flamboyant — a good time for two talks inspired by artists. The first is an exhortation inspired by an old-style preacher and painter, Hakuin Ekaku of eighteenth century Japan — whose, um, directness I seem to have been channeling a bit that night; the second is a meditation on how koans are like the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, seventeenth century Dutch master of the pervading light. Hakuin would probably be pleased that his Prescription for the Penetrating-One's-Nature-and-Becoming-a-Buddha Pill was passed around during a retreat, while Vermeer might be surprised to find his oil and canvas evocations of peace enlisted to show how we work with koans, and koans work with us.

2004 - 2005 | Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO and Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM

A bouquet of talks on the Heart Sutra, the distillation of the vast Prajna Paramita literature of the Mahayana. That's Prajna Paramita herself, the mother of buddhas, above. Because the Heart Sutra is a distillation, it's dense, nothing extra, bracing. Turns out when you pour in the stories and associations that surround it, the potion becomes sweeter and more complex. The first talk is the most straightforward introduction to the text, and after that, well, it wanders where it wanders - being the heart of the world and all.

Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO | April 9, 2005, April 28, 2006

The old folks talked about how we all unfold sutra scrolls from our toes as we walk and our mouths as we speak, waving from the bright green tips of our new growth and falling out the tops of eggs as we peck them open. It's spring, the season of unfoldings both delicate and flamboyant — a good time for two talks inspired by artists. The first is an exhortation inspired by an old-style preacher and painter, Hakuin Ekaku of eighteenth century Japan — whose, um, directness I seem to have been channeling a bit that night; the second is a meditation on how koans are like the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, seventeenth century Dutch master of the pervading light. Hakuin would probably be pleased that his Prescription for the Penetrating-One's-Nature-and-Becoming-a-Buddha Pill was passed around during a retreat, while Vermeer might be surprised to find his oil and canvas evocations of peace enlisted to show how we work with koans, and koans work with us.

2004 - 2005 | Springs Mountain Sangha, Colorado Springs, CO and Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM

A bouquet of talks on the Heart Sutra, the distillation of the vast Prajna Paramita literature of the Mahayana. That's Prajna Paramita herself, the mother of buddhas, above. Because the Heart Sutra is a distillation, it's dense, nothing extra, bracing. Turns out when you pour in the stories and associations that surround it, the potion becomes sweeter and more complex. The first talk is the most straightforward introduction to the text, and after that, well, it wanders where it wanders - being the heart of the world and all.

June - October 2019 | Northern Coast of California

An erratic series prompted by the erratic events of our times, in hopes of offering ways to hold their complexities, grieving what there is to grieve and remembering the veins of gold that mend a broken tea bowl — the radiance in the shattered, the unexpected beauty of the mended.

June - October 2019 | Northern Coast of California

An erratic series prompted by the erratic events of our times, in hopes of offering ways to hold their complexities, grieving what there is to grieve and remembering the veins of gold that mend a broken tea bowl — the radiance in the shattered, the unexpected beauty of the mended.

June - October 2019 | Northern Coast of California

An erratic series prompted by the erratic events of our times, in hopes of offering ways to hold their complexities, grieving what there is to grieve and remembering the veins of gold that mend a broken tea bowl — the radiance in the shattered, the unexpected beauty of the mended.

June - October 2019 | Northern Coast of California

An erratic series prompted by the erratic events of our times, in hopes of offering ways to hold their complexities, grieving what there is to grieve and remembering the veins of gold that mend a broken tea bowl — the radiance in the shattered, the unexpected beauty of the mended.