Hermitage Update
January 2000

There
is no
news.

We tend to the shop. We worry about lack of money. We sit on our cushions in silence zazen. We sit on the prayer benches for spoken and chanted psalms.

The ground hardens. The chickadee and other feathered munchers fly to feeders with more urgency in bitter cold.

The events at the bookshop are a sustaining conversation nightly.
 

1. Epiphany signals the invitation to ground and intuit Christ now.
2. Learning from Martin Luther King Jr. we think about and practice integration.
3. Jan.19th celebrates the birth of Dogen Kigen Zenji in 1200, inviting us to look at what we are, realizing and practicing, each moment.

"There is a very easy way to become a Buddha: not doing any evil, having no attachment to birth and death, sympathizing deeply with all beings, respecting those above, sympathizing with those below, not feeling aversion or longing for anything, not thinking or worrying – this is called Buddha. Don’t seek it anywhere else.”
-- In Birth and Death, Zen essay by Dogen  

We settle in for winter. Wood at barn door, wool scarves at neck – as days lengthen light. 

Here 
is, yes, 
new.

Gratefully,

6Jan2000

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