Compassion Kyôsaku

"[Kitano] was thin and not in good health, but Shunryu was mesmerised by the way he would lay out his bowing cloth and lower himself to place his forehead on it, and above all by the way he would rise up again. He was so frail that every time he bowed Shunryu thought he wouldn't be able to get up, but he did, time after time.

"Eventually Shunryu realised that it was harder for him to watch Kitano bow than it was for Kitano to do so."

David Chadwick, Crooked Cucumber



(Photo of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva statue in Bodhisattva garden of Truc Lam Tri Duc Zen Monastery courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Jungle creek

(A shot of a creek in the jungle where I sat my 100 Days.)

Seedling Year

just a foot long, but it'll do
New Year's pine

Issa















(Pine Tree by Pan Dawei courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Straight Key Night 2019

(Every New Year's Day brasspounders observe Straight Key Night. During this 24-hour period [1 January UTC, 0000 to 2359], we eschew our fancy-pants electronic keyers – such as the one shoved back against the wall in the picture – and pull out a classic old-style Morse key, for auld lang syne. The example in the foreground above is the very one I started on, all those years ago.

It's been humbling. In my young days OTs [old-timers] complimented me on my skills, but it turns out that several decades of laziness plays hell on one's fist. My New Year's resolution is to remedy that.)

WW: Green sea anemones

(Anthopleura xanthogrammica. With support from elegantissima.)

WW: Je me souviens

(Ah, les fois que j'ai déneigé ça. Québec, tu me manques encore.)

Good Video: From US Marine to Zen Monk

Here's another great Zen hermit video. This time it's former Marine and corporate warrior Scott Mangis. He's been inside (got okesa and the whole 8.2296 metres), but these days practices essentially on the Issa plan, as a family man and member of a freeform skete near Tokyo.

So cue 'er up, brothers and sisters. It's nine minutes well-spent.