the scent of burnt cloves and saltwater sticking on her jeans She thinks about roasting coffee that way but doesn’t. The ocean is restless.
Author: Teahouse
Samsara
Bestowing only impressions of sorrow, in the butter soft leather light of new fog, a royal procession of swans announce themselves. Birth and death. Nothing is attached for long.
Celebrating Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche’s 60th birthday
Happy birthday, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche! You are the exquisite and peerless flower of heaven (tshangs pa lha’i me tog). Your arrival on this day, 18th of June, sixty years ago have revealed the truth of non-duality that aims to cut through our confused state of mind. Your immaculate speech is not separate from Lord […]
Out of Reach
In the stewed rhubarb flesh of the bay’s earliest fog, the water birds are undetermined. Birth and death. Nothing is attached for long.
A Prayer for All Who Are Sick
Yakushi the Medicine Buddha by Enku, 17th Century My friend Sister Petra is a Christian nun who also practices Zen Buddhism with our sangha. A few months ago she told me, “During the pandemic, I’ve been praying for everybody who’s sick, in body, mind, or spirit.” I was moved by this, and it has continued […]
On Academic Learning and Teaching Buddhism
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged here! One of the downsides of entering the regular work of scheduling, editing, and news-writing over at Buddhistdoor Global has been a decline in free time to simply observe the world and muse in a way worthy of blogging. . . Oh, and I had a kid. And […]
The Chickadees
do not land in my palm because they trust me. I am a phantom they barely notice. They sense my body heat, the blood coaxed through my thin veins like tree sap, and they hear my vibrations, the way Beethoven coped with going deaf, stopping long enough to bathe their tawny-colored tongues with seed, crushed seashells of safflower and thistle, […]
Creation
Long after therules of magica lush smoke of pipe tobaccorises from thedried leaves prayers cast inthe blackand oily birth light