I am the jikido (timekeeper) for evening zazen meditation. This duty involves sparking up the candles and incense in the zendo, guiding lost visitors to a cushion, and keeping the time. I strike the heavy, temperamental temple bell to begin the sessions and signal the breaks. At the end of zazen I chime the chubby …
Author: carmen
Attachment is the enemy of intimacy
 Scrawled in a toilet stall with a black sharpie: “separation -> anxiety”. That’s it—dukkha in a nutshell. Crave it, grab it, hold it tight and make it yours. Never let it go. But here’s the news: everybody leaves. Everybody dies. Everybody forgets, and everyone is forgotten. Time is fleeting and opportunity is lost. Opportunity isn’t …
Private property
Once when I was a child, I went on a car trip with my parents. We passed through miles and miles of pine forest between Toronto and Montreal. Looking out the window I was mesmerized by the endless, depthless green. I leaned over to the Oldsmobile’s front seat and said “one day i’m going to …
Me and my breasts
At age 10 my early-blooming boobies made me a freak and a victim. I’ve spent my life hating them, hiding them, and fantasizing them pared away. So last week I got a message from my doctor in Vancouver. My routine mammogram showed some vague abnormality. The good folks at Upaya directed me to a benevolent …
Don’t follow me i’m lost too
The whole point of this exercise is that there is no point…I mutter this mantra to myself. And then I try not to try, to let that mutter gently dissolve into the empty chaos of my mind. I was having a pretty good zazen, all told. And then all hell broke loose. Maria Rinzan, Upaya’s …