Today is the anniversary of our getting married in Kaifeng, China, after a number of months trekking around. A few months later, John and I were getting his property ready for his new life and as the site of the school. So in many respects, the solstice represents for me the apex of my distance from Boston, music, and counseling, and a turning back towards the states, and a new family, a giant new project, and my formal practice of Buddhism.
    Yesterday, before heading out with my son and a dear friend of ours to Rockaway Beach and Coney Island,  I met with a dharma cousin in the West Village, Lawrence Grecco. I hope he enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his... we hadn't met but I had taken an interest in his public struggle with  some of the more regressive and anti-gay ordination policies in the Korean Sangha and he seemed like an appealing person to meet. It is important that TAS starts to reach out to the larger Buddhist community and that we start to gather perspectives on zen education from other practitioners.

   We had a wide ranging conversation about our individual paths, about teaching, and about creating and maintaining a community. If you wish to check out some of Lawrence's work, here is his blog, http://openskyzen.blogspot.com/.

   I will be writing more tomorrow, Thursday being a blog day, and will hopefully be able to post an excerpt from the talk I gave at graduation.

I've taken a few days off to unwind from the school year. Back on Thursday for posting. See you then.