Street Level Zen: Progress

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Albert Einstein


(Photo courtesy of Michael DeMarco and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Captivity

"Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing... how the world still dearly loves a cage."

   Maude.


– From lifelong favourite Harold and Maude, which entire movie has an atmosphere I would later recognise as the precise texture of Zen koans and stories.

    "Why not kill yourself?" asked the monk

    "No place to start," said Caoshan.




(Photo courtesy of Chris Fuller and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Family

"Having children takes talent, like any creative thing."

Maurice Sendak


(Photo courtesy of Seth Anderson and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Home

"A man is never lost at sea."

Ernest Hemingway


(Photo courtesy of Paul Harrison and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Effect

"It's not that the wind is blowing. It's what the wind is blowing."

My friend Brent.

[Who informs me now that he originally got this mot d'ordre from comic Ron White.]


(Photo of dust storm swallowing Phoenix, AZ courtesy of Wikipedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Street Level Zen: Attainment

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Abraham Lincoln

(Photo courtesy of Radek Skrzypczak and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Passive Karma

“Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don’t do.”

Jonathan Safran Foer


(Photo courtesy of Greg Rosenke and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Diversity

"What makes you different makes you valuable."

Terry O'Reilly







(Painting of Japanese long-tailed rooster courtesy of Shibata Zeshin and Rawpixel.com.)

Street Level Zen: Nihilism

"He's a nihilist."

"That must be exhausting."

– The Big Lebowski


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

Street Level Zen: Mindfulness

"One uncomfortable explanation for why so many aspects of modern life corrode our attention is that they do not merit it."

Casey Cep


(Photo courtesy of Carlos Ebert and Wikimedia Commmons.)

Street Level Zen: Contingent Reality

« L'être humain va toujours chercher l'horizon. C'est d'ailleurs à cause de sa conscience et son intelligence que l'horizon existe. »

Serge Bouchard

(English translation here.)


(Photo courtesy of Artur Opala and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Alienation

"How badly people want to talk to someone. They cannot make anyone hear them unless they scream, but they seldom really scream. Instead, they put letters in bottles and throw them into the sea of strangers, and the letters always seem to say, 'Save me, save me'."

Peter S. Beagle


(Photo courtesy of Šarūnas Burdulis and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Enlightenment

« Il n'y a rien de plus heureux qu'un être humain qui est devenu ce qu'il était déjà. »

Le si regretté Serge Bouchard.

(English translation here.)

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commmons and a generous photographer.)

Street Level Zen: Dependent Co-arising

« Ce qu'il faut de saleté pour faire une fleur! »

Félix Leclerc

(English translation here.)


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Street Level Zen: Age

Don't write anything till you're 25.

Don't write for the high school yearbook; don't write for the college literary magazine.

Don't write that stuff.

You've never had any experiences. Just shut up.

I did not have anything to say until I was 35

and even then, not much.

– Joe Queenan

(Photo courtesy of Ilya Ilford and Unsplash.)

Street Level Zen: Refuge

"Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places."

Henry Beston

(Photo courtesy of Mario Dobelmann and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Dukkha

"As my gramma, Nana Roseannadanna, used to say: it's always somethin'."

Gilda Radner


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Street Level Zen: Strength

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

Ernest Hemingway

(Photo of welded saw blades courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

The Path

"I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved."

Will Rogers


(Photo of the Palouse courtesy of Gleb Tarro and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Logic

"Logic can only take you so far. Then you have to get out and hop."

Terry Pratchett