Welcome

Welcome to the new Empty Gate Zen Center web site. Many thanks to the development team, which worked together to make this web site appear in Virtual Space. Thanks to Leah Kenaga for her tireless dedication to the Zen Center in general and to this web site in particular. Her wonderful design sense is responsible for the elegant and creative look of the page. Ross Chapman has used his expertise as a web developer to make happen in virtual space what Leah designed in the relatively “real” space of Photoshop. Thanks also to Gary Sprague, Xuan Vu and myself for writing and creative input.

This being the first posting to my Blog I want to give you a sense of what I will write about. I am most interested in the intersection of practice and our everyday life. Our training is very important for our ability to meet this very moment directly, with wisdom and compassion. My background of dedication to Zen Practice and my training in and my work as a Psychotherapist inform my take on life. Deep and awesome states in the Dharma Room are important, but without grounding, they are, like all of our experiences, transient. Like the Buddha said, these experiences are like a phantom, a bubble, or a dewdrop. Zen practice can help develop the flexibility and aliveness to meet this very moment freshly.

My interests are varied and I hope that what I post on this blog will reflect that. I enjoy reading the news and keeping up to date so you may see me post on some of the important political and cultural issues of our times. If political, please remember that they are my views and do not reflect the views of Empty Gate Zen Center. Empty Gate is an open community. People of all political persuasions, ethnic or racial backgrounds, and temperaments are welcome to and do practice with us.

I also hope to comment on the everyday occurrences that occur in our lives. One of the valuable teachings I received from my teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn was a deep appreciation for the absurd. We all develop a worldview, a way of getting by in a very unsettling and multilayered existence. We weave a tapestry of self, adding new strands to the old, hoping to make sense of things and not be overtaken by events or feelings that we can’t control. This creates a false sense of self, which can cause strange and uncomfortable happenings in our lives. I hope to use this blog to expose this absurdity in my life and the lives of others. A healthy sense of humor about our selves and others is critical if we hope to have a long-term Zen practice.

Last night at around 3AM my wife and I were awakened (for the third time) by our dear sweet cat. She had already disturbed our sleep enough times that we had banned her from the bedroom. On a trip to the bathroom my wife Sheridan found a dead rat on the living room floor (Kwan Sae Um Bosal). Whether our cat Sophie was punishing us or trying to get back in our good graces with her conquest we will never know. Anyway, this did not help our sleep in any way.

While trying to get back to sleep I was reflecting on how much goes on in the nocturnal world that I am not aware of. Our cat spends hours outside at night interacting with a variety of animals and insects that we never see. Seeing the dead rat on the floor was undeniable proof that there are many rats living with us on our property in Oakland California. How many of us really want to admit to the fact that we live with rats all around us. It reminded me of how many things we deny or just conveniently forget about. This denial may help us find some comfort in our world, but importantly, it holds us back from seeing things as they really are. If the Buddha made any point, he taught that seeing things clearly is the prerequisite to enlightenment. If we are not dealing honestly with the way things are we will never break the stranglehold that suffering has on our lives. Uprooting this denial and dishonesty is the path to freedom.