Dec 14 – 20

“When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it’s the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we’re alert. This gift is always present in anyone’s life, that moment when ‘It’s not the way I want it!”
 
-Charlotte Joko Beck
 
Practice Meetings

Friday Dec 20, 7:00pm

This Week’s Koan

Blue Cliff Record #34
“You Have Not Visited Mount Lu”

Yangshan asked a monk, “What place did you come from recently?”

The monk said, “Mt.  Lu.”

Yangshan said, “At that time did you roam on the Five Elders Peak [at Mt. Lu]?”

The monk said, “At that time I didn’t go there.”

Yangshan said, “At that time the Preceptor did not hike on the mountain.”

[Later,] Yunmen said, “As these words were all for the cause of compassion, they have fallen into chatting in the grass.”

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