Word: zazen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Every morning at 4:55, Egyoku Nakao, 48, head priest at the Los Angeles Zen Center, dons the golden brown robes of her station and presides over 33 students engaged in Zazen, Zen's painstaking sitting meditation. Her authority, like that of hundreds of senseis before her, is absolute; a student would no more contradict her than question the break of day. A few hours later, however, the Japanese-Portuguese American slips into civilian clothes and rearranges the meditation cushions for an innovation called a Practice Circle, where the talk is free and her view is not privileged. "The center...
Meanwhile, the good people of alt.politics.clinton still appear to be divided on almost all issues concerning our 42nd president, but over at alt.music.pearl-jam there was a consensus growing that the correct lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter had been found. Things seemed calm at alt.philosophy.zen, one discussion of zazen culminating with advice from a user going by the name Sleater, "You need only listen to the whisper in your own heart. My brain is only a reflection of yours...
...Zazen, the act of meditation, is the most obvious characteristic of the Zen sect. It is not as initially calm and comfortable as monks make it look. Even the little pillows we squash under our squatting hinds can't alleviate the aches and numbness of 45 minutes of physical inactivity. Seigan, a monk from Brooklyn, NY, graced our buttbones with a special hint on how to fold the pillows just right, so that I could be content in my almost-Lotus position for a good 20 minutes before my sparkling clear concentration began to drift below...
...tens of miles from towns with dots on maps. I was lucky enough to enjoy the beauty and the serenity of Dai Bosatsu Zendo. I went for a walk around the lake in a post-storm mist that hung like cobwebs in the air. It was as still as zazen. I imagined it in winter, the surrounding mountains a crown of white, the water solid and still. The Zen of Ice-skating? Sounds like...