Category: Upaya Zen Center

Aging & Dying, Upaya Zen Center, Zen & Dharma

Always leaving, always coming home

Go away with no string on your straw sandals. —Dogen Zenji Today I left home and arrived home. I wedged the door of the turtlebus closed with a stick, and rode the ferry across the Salish Sea. Home to the Appias, Apt. 306. Home to my storage locker full of clothes and photographs and love …

Bicycles, Upaya Zen Center

What you find has everything to do with how you get there

Once in New Mexico I decided to go for an adventure to Albuquerque, and I asked if anyone had recommendations for what to do there. “You want to go to Albuquerque? Albuquerque is an armpit! Just move on through,” replied one car-dependent resident. Undiscouraged, I put my bike on the train in Santa Fe and …

Aging & Dying, Culture and Art, Life of Carmen, Uncategorized, Upaya Zen Center

Lessons of Chaco Canyon

Early this morning I sat wrapped in a blanket on the frosty back patio of Querencia. The sun rose over Pikacho Peak. Ravens and chickadees chattered, dogs barked, coyotes scattered, footsteps crunched on snow. The highway woke up then too, commuters zooming through the valley to Santa Fe. Each engine momentarily obliterating the birdsong and …