Since Nikos Kazantzakis' sequel to the Odyssey is not available on kindle, and it is a huge book, I can't lug it with me. So it will be an Italian reader (my reading ability is in serious disrepair!), an italian dictionary, a monograph on Cecco Angiolieri (a sonnet writer who goaded and annoyed Dante), and whatever is on the kindle. One of the problems with martial arts is the outfit is so bulky...were it not for that, Kazantzakis would be all I would need.

Training and Meditation

 Last week, my sword practice was strong and focused, but the last few days have seen an interesting decline in my concentration. Is it important to understand the factors that contribute to shakier meditation? In some respects, certainly it is. For each of us there probably are optimum conditions for any activity, yet as most of know, there are inexplicable ups and downs that must be ridden out, accepted with generosity and used for deeper insight.
   Fortunately, I am headed up to Boston for evening classes at the Shim Gum Do temple this week. A teacher is important: he or she has vastly more experience in those ups and downs, and in the teaching itself. I feel enormously lucky to have such a masterful teacher in Chang Sik Kim, and want to spend as much time as I can in the presence of his teaching. My own teaching is grounded in my experience as a student, without it, my own students suffer.
   It is hard to believe that the school year ended only a week or so ago, it seems so irrevocably far away. It was a year where so many important elements seemed to come together, whether it be graduates who have spent 3 or 4 years at TAS and thus were essential in bringing the culture and folkways of the school to a new peak, or the steady commitment to the structure of the school day, or Stephanie's work in bringing the teacher evaluation and support system into being, or my finishing grad school...it was a big year.
   I will try to post from Boston on Thursday, but I tend to stay away from computers while up there. If I don't post, I will do so on Monday the 2nd.
   

    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.