When Doen Sensei’s Wonderland:  The Zen of Alice was first published in October, it received an enthusiastic welcome–many readers who came to book signings were turned away because booksellers had not anticipated how heavy the demand would be (one store sold more than 50 copies in less than an hour).  Just four months later, the book is drawing more and more new readers.  Wonderland currently ranks number 15 in Amazon’s “Zen Philosophy” category and number 26 in the vast, general “Zen” category.

Wonderland’s success has been so impressive that Random House will be publishing a German version in the near future.  We’ll keep you updated on other new versions as they’re announced.  Congratulations, Sensei, and bring on your next book!

Tags: books, Doen Sensei, Germany, Random House, wonderland, wonderland: the zen of alice, zen

Abandon

One thing I hope you all do is devote yourself to this practice with love, with a wild abandon and passion.  You need that love to really be able to fly.  Love for the practice, love for each other, love for yourself, love for your teacher.

As Maezumi Roshi always said, “appreciate your life!”  And I hope you appreciate it with a burning, fiery love.  Really let go into your life and really appreciate it.  Cultivate a certain potency, a loving warriorship, and choose a path with heart.

Fling yourself into the practice, into your life.  This is physical and it’s emotional.  Let go of your inner critic.  Be like the Sufis described a Man of God:  he’s like a moth.  He knows the flame will destroy him, will burn his ego to ashes, but he goes straight for it–because he has no choice.

You’re just passing through.  If you abandon yourself to the practice, to appreciating your life with real gusto, you’ll never look back and regret it.

Just passing through

We’re all just traveling through this life.  We are all going to die, and our lives pass quickly.  The warrior-traveler is a realist; he doesn’t get lost in the story of his life.  People who don’t realize they’re travelers act as though they will live forever, and this is just unrealistic.

Remember, too, that everyone else is a traveler; they and all the things they care about are just passing through.  Everyone is going to die.  Remembering this can make us treat others more kindly; when we think someone will be around forever, we don’t give them the same kind of care and respect.

Knowing that you’re just passing through can be scary, but it’s also liberating.  When you’re a traveler-warrior, when you understand that you’re just passing through life, not a whole lot matters.  And when you really understand this, you can focus on what you really want.  Knowing that you’re just passing through, knowing that you’re going to die–what do you want to do with your life?

Tags: death, life, traveler-warrior

Banishing Fear

Thoughts on fear:

• The more conscious you are, the less fear you have.

• Exercise.  We don’t feel fear consciously.  No one says “I’ll get up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, then be scared to death.”  The minute we are aware of fear it starts to fade since it wasn’t conscious to begin with.

• Stop and remember yourself.  Focus on breathing.  Concentrate on “I Am” on your out breath.  Banish fear.

• A study of obese people showed that observing themselves naked in front of a mirror for 10 minutes each day was the most effective way to lose weight.  Do this with your fear.  Observe yourself.  Just see fear for what it is.  You won’t want to live with it.

Photo by Monroe’s Dragonfly

Tags: consciousness, exercise, fear, self-observation

Happy New Year!

The laugh’s on me:
  this year’s man
    is last year’s man.

            ~Ching An

A new year, a new decade.  Several of my friends have groused recently about new year’s celebrations.  Why make a big deal out of an arbitrary “turning point”?  It’s just a calendar date!  And I’ve felt the same way sometimes too.  New Year’s parties, sure; Times Square (even on TV), nope.

Others look at the first day of the new year as a completely fresh start, a genuinely new year.  The strike of midnight wipes the slate.  Out come the journals and lists, with reflections on the past year and resolutions for the new year.  Some very accomplished people I know set goals—monthly, quarterly, whatever—for the coming year.  And a few of them actually always attain those goals.

I’m writing this with about 45 minutes to go (in our time zone), listening to five amazing young girls running wild and getting ready to go outside and light fireworks and bang on pots and pans and scream “Happy New Year!”  I’ll ask them, but I’m pretty sure none of them have set any actual resolutions for 2010—yet their excitement is the most genuine I’ve known.  (Maybe it’s just staying up late and going outside and making lots of noise without getting yelled at by the neighbors?)

I’ve fallen somewhere in the middle this new year.  I enjoy the celebration, and parties with fires and lights and fireworks in the dead of Winter, so soon after the Solstice—so I’m not in the Bah, Humbug! crowd.  But nor have I drawn up a list of resolutions.  I do, though, have a few things rattling around that I’d like to work on, and an ineffable sense that the turning of a “new year” is as good a time as any to get going on them.

And maybe that’s my middle ground.  It’s as good a time as any, and any time is a good time.  January 1st  is a great day to start sitting longer each day, get more exercise, try to be more present when talking to my family and friends and while at the office.  But so are June 15th, and October 30th, and December 21st.   They’re all good days to let go of fear, drop off body and mind, and deepen my practice.

Wherever you fall in the celebrating-New-Year spectrum, I hope that 2010 is filled with beauty and delight.

Photo by Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton