A review of Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li
Forest Bathing tells us what we instinctively know to be true about being in the natural world: it “can restore our mood, give us back our energy and vitality, and refresh and rejuvenate us.”
Book Review
Alive in the Mire: Swampland Flowers
A review of Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui translated by J.C. Cleary.
Vimalakirti said, “It’s like this: the high plateau does not produce lotus flowers; it is the mire of the low swamplands that produces these flowers…”
Answers for an Authentic Life
A review of Zen: The Authentic Gate by Koun Yamada Roshi
An old friend passed away this morning. I wasn’t aware he had suffered a stroke two weeks earlier, so I was shocked to hear that he was gone. A silent pause seems to follow news like this, then my mind fills with questions…
Grass Huts and Hermits
A review of Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits by Bill Porter.
Not long ago I ran across a new Buddhist blog that says it is for people who “are interested in meditation but don’t want to pretend they live in ancient Asia.” I try not to get too worked up about how people characterize Buddhism, but that line about pretense got my attention…
A Physicist Encounters Naked Awareness
A review of The End of Suffering: Fearless Living in Troubled Times by Russell Targ
For a number of years at the Hazy Moon, Nyogen Roshi has been talking about science. Specifically how a number of scientists from different disciplines increasingly are hitting upon a track that parallels the insights of classical meditative or spiritual practices…
Science Gets Personal
A review of Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death by Robert Lanza, MD with Bob Berman
Is it any wonder that some of us find ourselves uninterested in science that espouses lifeless mechanics and randomness theory? What if science were an exploration of mind? Your mind. How does it work? Where does the world I am living in come from?
Beliefs and Brains
A review of My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. and Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, M.D. Those of us who spend a lot of time at the Hazy Moon regularly hear Nyogen Roshi ask “Do you really believe …?” followed […]
Where Am I? What Time Is It?
A review of Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, by Robert Lanza, MD, with Bob Berman There are periods when I read from this book every morning, in the same way that I read Song dynasty Ch’an masters like Ta-Hui or Yuan-wu. I read for […]
