Happy New Year

I spent my evening sitting three zazen and walking meditation sessions at the Santa Cruz Zen Center. It was a wonderful experience and I feel that Zen is becoming more and more of a branch for my spirit to rest on.

We had a fire bowl ceremony at the zendo (among other wonderful things, including ginger tea at the break and truly delicious vegetarian noodle soup afterwards). One resolution I want to keep is to help cook on Friday mornings at the Zen Center for our local Homeless Garden Project.

I had a lovely experience tonight in the gentleness of the Santa Cruz Zen Center; at the fire bowl ceremony, one of the participants told us that there was wood in the fire from the Tassajara monastery. One thing I love about Zen is that I feel linked through time to other monasteries somehow.

So I am leaving something for myself to remember this year whenever I get too full of how "well" I am doing on my spiritual path, an anecdote I picked up somewhere:


"At Tassajara there were a few students who had done a thirty day sesshin together on the outside, thinking that if seven days was good that thirty would be better. They talked to Suzuki-roshi and described all their experiences and said that they had gained a higher state from it and asked what shall we do now? He said, "Concentrate on your breathing and it will go away."

And those are my thoughts on this first day of 2011