WW: 2026 teeshirt

(Here's this year's teeshirt. I suspect fellow meditators will get it.)

Words To Live By

"If you find life is whizzing by you, move away from the urinals."

Me, channelling Bashō.


(Photo of Jin dynasty chamber pot courtesy of David Straub and Zhangjiagang Museum.)

WW: Great horned owl tail feather

(I found this great horned owl [Bubo virginianus] tail feather on the trail a few weeks ago. Note its frayed tip in the close-up below. Flight feathers of all members of order Strigiformes – the owls – have this kind of tip, which softens their aerodynamic slip, resulting in their owners' famously silent flight.

Great horned owls are native to the Americas, where they are present through virtually all of subarctic North America and a great swath of South America. Here on the North Pacific coast, their classic call – "Who died today? Who? Who?" – is a common feature of the night.)

Good Podcast: Guo Gu

It's always illuminating to hear from Chinese teachers and students.

We tend to forget that Zen is a mispronunciation of Chàn, a practice model that originated in China. Over the centuries, given the vicissitudes of history, Chàn faded mostly away as an active denomination, but a 19th century restoration movement has steadily gained ground.

My own admiration for Chàn – historical and current – is a matter of record. Encounters with our rootstock have informed my practice from the first, providing depth and balance to an otherwise comparatively narrow Japanese schooling. It's worth noting that Dōgen himself was a Chinese-trained bilingual sinophile, and while he dedicated his life to founding a self-sufficient Japanese Chàn lineage, he had no intention of rejecting its Chinese heritage or principles.

So it's heartening to see disciples of modern Chàn show up in Zen circles.

The above teisho, delivered at San Francisco Zen Centre on 16 June 2026 by Chàn teacher Guo Gu, is an excellent example of the sort of guidance we lost when our ancestral tradition went 404, and the wealth we're regaining as it returns. (It may help that Guo Gu's path to enlightenment practice reflects those of many ancient Ancestors.) It's all here: the sardonic humour, the laconic common sense, the notion that we're our own worst obstacle.

All the stuff that makes Zen Zen, what.

Audio of this talk can also be accessed in SFZC's own online teisho archive, or downloaded to your desktop or mobile device wherever you get your podcasts.

Note particularly how Guo Gu clears the decks on the matter of shikantaza. Just that brief teaching advances my practice significantly.

WW: Native morning glory

(I think; Calystegia sepium ssp. angulata, if I'm right. It can be difficult to tell this from Calystegia x lucana, an invasive hybrid with a close European cousin.

I grew up calling these morning glories, but I see where county extension agents are now calling this hedge bindweed. Perhaps to reduce its charm(?). It's true the vines can blanket entire forest floors and become problematic in some locations, but the gleaming blossoms in the shadowy terrain it favours are striking and magical.)

Stuff Country Boys Know

"A man, he'll walk straight into Hell with both eyes open, but even the Devil can't fool a dog."

Earl Hamner, Jr.


(My favourite line from my favourite episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. This notion of eternal reward is precisely mine as well, dogs intact. You can see the scene here; colourised, sadly, but the shifting tints do enhance the sense of bardo.

Incidentally, Hamner not only wrote all of Serling's "hillbilly" episodes, he was also the creator and narrator of another well-loved series from my youth, The Waltons. His is that voice that supplies the show's abiding soul.)


(Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com and a generous photographer.)

WW: Cooking is an act of love

(Long day in the kitchen.)