New Year Fusatsu

From Sogen: It’s a new year, a new day, a new moment, a new breath. During the first Sunday service of 2026, we practiced Fusatsu, the beautiful full-moon ceremony of atonement and renewal of precept vows. Recalling with regret harmful actions we may have done and...

Art and Everyday Life

From Mushin: How do the arts enter your everyday life? As mirrors for experience and meaning-making, they shed a bright light on the human-made world. They trigger us into physical sensations, emotions, streams of thought associations, memories, dreams etc. There’s...

One Bright Pearl

From Mushin: The whole world in the ten directions is One Bright Pearl, the title of the essay by Dogen Zenji that we worked with at the Rohatsu sesshin just finished. We come away from it with a keener awareness of how this one bright pearl, each moment, is shaped by...

Rohatsu

From Mushin: Many of us are preparing to attend Rohatsu sesshin, a week that celebrates the Buddha’s awakening. We celebrate by embodying it during an intensive week of being present in all that we do. Everything, from zazen to chanting, to work practice, to drinking...

What Is Being Received?

From Sogen: What is being received right now by body, heart and mind? What is being received that sustains and enriches life? Thank you air. Thank you food. Thank you friend. Thank you stranger. Gratitude, acknowledgment, appreciation being expressions of generosity,...