BUDDHIST READING GROUP

Here are ten books of 2024 read by the Buddhism Today Reading Group I joined this year. I joined in February and we don't meet in December, so this stack comprises the ten books I read and discussed each month. 

February

Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax.

March

How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.

April

Choosing Compassion: How to Be of Benefit in a World that Needs Our Love by Anam Thubten.

May

Zen in the Garden by Miki Sakamoto.

June

The Heroic Heart: Awakening Unbounded Compassion by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo.

July

The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love by Paula Arai.

August

The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

September

One Long Listening: A Memoir of Grief, Friendship, and Spiritual Care by Chenxing Han.

October

Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time by Rick Hanson.

November

Awakening Dignity: A Guide to Living a Life of Deep Fulfillment by Phakchok Rinpoche and Sophie Wu.

My favorite book in the stack is One Long Listening by Chenxing Han, a spiritual memoir and meditations on grief by a Buddhist chaplain. It was intimate and vulnerable, exploratory and experimental, and provided a beautiful peek into both chaplaincy and friendship.



I also read an additional seven books that helped guide me, a couple of which were also read by the Buddhism Today Reading Group in prior years (with month and year in parentheses, if appropriate).

• Essential Zen by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tenzo David Schneider.
• The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey by James Ishmael Ford.
• Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh.
• Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull.
• The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Sam Hamill (April 2023).
• We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons for Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption by Kaira Jewel Lingo (June 2022).
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

My favorite book of these seven, and one of the most helpful to me in defining my current spiritual path this past year, is The Intimate Way of Zen. James Ishmael Ford is both a Unitarian Universalist pastor and Zen priest. It is loosely based around the Ten Oxherding Pictures of Zen.

At the most recent Buddhist reading group meeting, our main facilitator invited me to sit with members of South Sound Zen, so I went and sat with them. It was spectacular and holy and absolutely ordinary, all at the same time. It felt like "coming home," a place that is familiar and where I am known.

After sitting (zazen) for 25 minutes, walking meditation for 10 minutes (my first experience of kinhin), and then another 25 minutes of sitting, I had the opportunity to sit and converse with the leader for the evening, Chuck. He's on the board of trustees of Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, which is who allows him to lead/teach with South Sound Zen. He had a Pentecostal upbringing and shared about trying to shift from that background to Soto Zen. We talked about Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Daniel Berrigan. We talked about the decline of organized religion. All while eating lemon cookies and drinking green tea. I'll be returning to sit again.

THE WHALE

The Whale (2022) directed by Darren Aronofsky. An adapted stage play, the “stage” is felt in the cinematography and choreography of the scenes. There is a claustrophobia that builds in the apartment of the morbidly obese and dying Charlie. And this apartment/stage is filled with broken people. Broken. People. Are they good? Are they evil? Or, are they simply broken? It’s a difficult film to inhabit at times, just as many of the characters find their lives difficult to inhabit. Notions of faith, freedom, health, relationship (family and friends), are grasped at and then slip away again. Herman Melville and Walt Whitman make “cameos” here and there. I thoroughly enjoyed this. The cast is stellar. The story may be honest, but brutally honest. I suppose there is redemption of a sort. Highly recommended.

After the wildness of Aronofsky’s Mother! (2017) this is a welcome return to a more grounded film.

Streaming on Netflix.

ALIEN: ROMULUS

Alien: Romulus (2024) directed by Fede Alvarez. Just to be clear, I was one of the few who actually liked and enjoyed Prometheus. If you didn't, but you defend the final creature in Romulus then I call bullshit and I'm going to punch you. Romulus is filled with action as well as worn and tired tropes borrowed from every Alien film that preceded it. And, in the case of the opening scenes in the mining colony, it is also borrows heavily from Blade Runner. This is the Alien film that pushes too far for me. The two leads, Rain and Andy, though, provide excellent performances as "new Ripley" and "the android."

This one's a mixed bag. If you aren't a fan of the franchise then I recommend a pass.

Streaming on Hulu.

DRY

I stopped drinking alcohol on January 1, 2024, in what was a one-year commitment to myself. Now, I’ve decided to go permanently dry, so I have a few Deschutes brews that need to be released into the wild, since I’m retiring my beer cellar. I hope to find someone (or a few someones) to enjoy them, as I would have at one time in the past.

WILL & HARPER

Will & Harper (2024) directed by Josh Greenbaum. It's a road trip buddy film, with an existential underpinning. It asks questions, but in a gentle way. It plays a bit too light with the hateful moments of others. There is a scene that makes me absolutely uncomfortable for Harper and the vulnerability she feels. Ultimately, though, it's a film with heart. Tender and loving. And it reminds me a bit of My Dinner with Andre, which is a good thing.

Streaming on Netflix.

RAN

Ran (1985) directed by Akira Kurosawa. His final film is samurai saga meets Shakespeare meets Dante. It's beautiful and a bit bombastic, filled with family drama, betrayal, and bloodshed. The movie slowly descends into madness alongside the Great Lord Ichimonji and his ever-increasing kabuki mask.

Highly recommended.

MOUNTAIN of the HEART MOON

The Father sent me a set of Tibetan singing bowls to accompany my various meditations.

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As part of my staycation, I headed down to Olympia for a day of book browsing and banh mi, but primarily to go and sit in zazen with the community of Olympia Zen Center, which I learned is also known as Mountain of the Heart Moon.

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I did a little bit of internet research so I somewhat knew what to expect. I knew that OZC was a school of Sōtō Zen and that they were an "Order of Ryokan," the late-18th/early-19th century Japanese Zen poet-priest. I was intrigued by the poetry connection, as well as the fact that I understood Sōtō to have fewer "expectations" during zazen than the Rinzai sect.

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I arrived for the newcomer orientation before the formal sitting commenced and I'm glad I did. There was one other person there for the first time and our "guide" for the evening was Bill. Bill physically walked us through the zendo and showed us the various rites and rituals of preparing to sit in meditation—when and where to bow, and to whom; which directions to turn and face; what to "do" during sitting.

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I sent myself some brief notes immediately after leaving OZC. Here is what I wrote about Bill:

Bill was the best of guides. Patient. Honest. Genuine. Walking us through movements. Nudging us out of the nest a bit. Offering compassion and forgiveness. Modeling behavior. Nudging us a bit more. Gently reminding and correcting. Checking in afterward.

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Here is what I wrote about Eidō Frances Carney, the founder of Olympia Zen Center, who presided over the evening:

Eido-san was filled with holy fire. Demanding and forgiving. Scolding and loving with a simple glance. And, in the end, once the rites and rituals were complete, welcoming and affable, approachable after all.

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Bill had told us that no one would judge us if we didn't get things exactly right. And, I believe he was right. I think I was hardest on myself. During the beginning of the session, to whom did I initially forget to bow? Eido Frances Carney. I caught myself and turned to bow to her. At this point, this was our initial meeting. Not a good way to start, as far as I was concerned. I thought her look fierce, but that was more likely because of how I felt for missing the bow at the proper time. I bowed and got myself settled in and ready for the forty minutes of sitting.

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Bill had told us that the reason that the Sōtō schools sit facing the wall is to avoid unnecessary distractions. He also told the other newcomer and I that we would sit on either side of him, in order that he could model behavior and movements for us. When the moment came to sit, however, there was no seat on the other side of Bill so he pointed me to the next available open cushion. But I wasn't seated in front of a blank wall like most of the room, but one of two windows. I laughed inside.

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The "goal" of the evening was to just sit. In proper form, of course. But there was no koan to meditate upon, as in the Rinzai schools. There was no need to count breaths. My understanding, after hearing Bill explain what we would be "doing" during sitting, was to accept the thoughts that came into our minds and then dismiss them. Yes, Bill confirmed, this was indeed how to sit: accept the thoughts that arrived in our mind and then dismiss them, without violence.

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I was seated in front of a window, in a half-lotus position, hands lightly positioned in cosmic mudra, eyes downcast at a 45-degree angle and slightly closed (but still open). And I watched the light slowly bleed out of the sky. I watched the ferns of the yard outside the zendo dance in the wind.

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I found one yellow leaf on the ground to concentrate upon. I used that leaf to "turn off" other thoughts in my mind, or, rather, to accept and dismiss them. I used that leaf to "focus" upon in such a way that, via "training" of the Magic Eye books decades ago, I was able to sometimes make the ferns and their movement disappear. I was able to make the yard disappear. And, then, ultimately, I was able to make the leaf disappear. The window became a wall. Until I would think about the window as a wall and then the leaf would pop back into my senses, followed by ferns and wind and window.

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After the sitting, there was a ceremony that included chanting a couple of sutras together, a Dharma talk by one of the members, and then a time to chat with one another before heading home for the evening.

The highlights for me were the holy moments of the sitting. Of the uncomfortableness of body (my left leg went fully "to sleep"). Of turning a window into a wall. And of the wonderful hospitality of Bill and the rest of the OZC members who were welcoming, kind, forgiving, and seemingly filled with joy to be in the presence of one another, all while taking time to sit together in silence.

THE SUBSTANCE

The Substance (2024) directed by Coralie Fargeat. Body horror. Existential horror. Not really scary, but gross in parts. Satire of celebrity culture and the pressures we place upon women. If I were a producer, I would have cut the last 20 minutes; it would have made for a great film rather than a good film. Definitely something to see, though.

Interesting use of close up shots. Good cinematography and storytelling. Plenty of references to other horror films—King Kong (1933), The Fly (Cronenberg's remake, 1986), Carrie (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), The Thing (1982), The Shining (1980). I'm sure I missed a lot of other nods and echoes.

Watched at The Grand Cinema with The Wife.

WHITE RIVER

This morning I went and sat in silent meditation with members of White River Buddhist Temple in Auburn. Then I joined them for their fall O-Higan (equinox) worship service.

Meditation was both boring and beautiful. Half an hour seemed to be a good amount of time. Turning off my "monkey mind" was more difficult than I anticipated. I worked through some virtual sword routines to keep my mind from wandering astray too much.

This community of faith was extremely welcoming of a newcomer!

SWIM FREE 2024

Sandy Fest Seven, a day to honor my Mom's life on the anniversary of her death was an excellent day. Creating art. Time together. Pizza. A Coca-Cola toast. A couple of readings from The Little Book of Zen Healing. Open and honest conversations. A mini-film festival of home movies featuring my Mom. May she continue to rest in the embrace of God.

The art this year was a series of "best of" projects. We revisited things we enjoyed in the past.



Our first stop was at the Bremerton Art Walls to get another small "Swim Free" octopus painted onto the retaining wall, amongst all of the graffiti art.



Then it was off to The Father's house to create art with members of my family. I worked on Coke bottles for the second year in a row. Other than the one octopus bottle, I simply painted patterns on bottles. It was fantastic therapy. It was meditative and healing.