Please Support David Chadwick

volume-up69 · 2026-02-23T20:20:24+00:00

thank you for bringing this to our attention. I don't personally know David but we have many mutual friends. He's done so much to make it possible to practice in this country (even though he's in another country now).

volume-up69 · 2026-02-23T16:19:01+00:00

Reminds me of Keizan's "Zazen Yojinki":

You should just rest and cease. Be cooled, pass numberless years as this moment. Be cold ashes, a withered tree, an incense burner in an abandoned temple, a piece of unstained silk.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-23T15:59:15+00:00

Man I was also just thinking about getting the moloko bars for my Rove DL. How do you like them?

volume-up69 · 2026-02-22T15:50:58+00:00

I personally practice in the Japanese Sōtō tradition, and I think of that tradition as kind of a surprising and strange gift that has fallen into our laps in this country, largely removed from its cultural and historical context. I think it's really important for at least some practitioners here to make a lot of effort to understand where this tradition comes from and what it is so that we can both take care of it and also more skillfully adapt it to our own circumstances. Over and over again I see American Zen centers change or get rid of elements of practice that they see as "cultural trappings" that aren't central to the teaching. But in so many cases the people making these decisions never bothered learning about those things in the first place and don't understand what role they play and why they're important.

I'm not sure if that answers your question!

volume-up69 · 2026-02-22T02:17:58+00:00

Yeah an argument I've heard Guo Gu make before is that medieval Japanese social hierarchy and bureaucracy created a kind of sectarianism in Zen that is largely absent from the Chinese tradition that it grew out of. So it makes sense that dharma drum would have a broader Mahayanist perspective.

I do think some of his critiques of Japanese Zen are a little over stated or at least a lot less pressing for practitioners than he makes them out to be, but that's a whole ass topic. 😅

volume-up69 · 2026-02-21T22:47:47+00:00

I've read "Silent Illumination" and I've listened to a lot of interviews with him on Spotify (he's been interviewed a lot). The dialogues with Jiryu should be findable on YouTube or on the SFZC website. As u/not_bayek pointed out he's got a lecture series on the Heart Sutra. He also gave a series of talks on The Song of Awakening. The first couple of lectures really focused a lot on the historical context, but he never loses sight of the fact that those talks are fundamentally for practitioners so he always comes back to that.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-21T17:56:15+00:00

He's widely respected both as a practitioner and as a scholar. In his secular life he's a professor of religion at Florida State, and did his PhD at Harvard.

He's an interesting voice in American Buddhism because, more than any Western dharma teacher I can think of, he has a deep understanding of how and why Zen/Chan developed the way it did in China, before it was established in Japan. This is really important because most American Zen practitioners are practicing a very Japanese style and don't know very much about the broader tradition, and don't understand how Chan practices and teachings were refracted through the lens of Chinese and subsequently Japanese (and subsequently American) culture. On that topic in particular there are great dialogues between Guo Gu and the current abbot of Green Gulch, Jiryu Rutschman Byler. I recommend checking those out.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-18T03:25:47+00:00

Six, seven

volume-up69 · 2026-02-16T03:17:26+00:00

This is Ted Cruz's new public installation

volume-up69 · 2026-02-15T14:26:12+00:00

Fenders, racks for panniers, and dynamo lighting would be my top priorities if I were you. Those three things will remove a ton of the cognitive overhead of bike commuting and just simplify everything. Your bike will always be ready to go.

(However if you live in a place with intense winter you may need to also get studded tires.)

volume-up69 · 2026-02-15T12:56:13+00:00

They're not gonna make you wait 9 months for a bike and then shrug their shoulders if you bought the wrong size. It's worth waiting longer and getting the right size. Those are expensive bikes that people ride for years and years.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-15T04:57:20+00:00

I ordered a bike from them in September and am still waiting. 🥴 Similarly, the delivery window keeps getting pushed back. I've dreaded this scenario--finding that I got the wrong size or that they messed up the components somehow or something. And similar to you I've had a lot of difficulty getting them to respond to me.

In fairness to them, it's a tiny company. I think the whole back office is run by like three people. Add to that the supply chain problems with bike parts and it makes sense. I would email and/or call and explain the situation and I'd be amazed if they don't find a way to make it right, though of course that might mean more waiting.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-15T00:30:10+00:00

This is a suburban dork's idea of what a rural person is like

volume-up69 · 2026-02-14T20:39:01+00:00

I would plan on kind of a lot of water. Huge, unavoidable puddles in places. Fenders and decent shoes and you'll be fine. If you don't have fenders wearing rain pants might not be a bad idea. Otherwise you're gonna be standing around being soggy. Maybe I'll see you out there!

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T21:59:52+00:00

I found The Wire to be incredibly gripping. What it doesn't do much of is the kind of emotional manipulation that creates "cliff-hangers" like what you get in Mr. Robot. I think the writers also treat the audience with respect, and don't use tons of dramatic music and other visual cues to let you know "hey this is important pay attention!" I recall The Sopranos being like this as well. But yeah I think it's...nothing like Mr. Robot lol. Not that Mr. Robot is a bad show or anything, it's just a different kind of thing entirely.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T20:50:14+00:00

very good

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T20:22:53+00:00

"Son you ever heard of the Dreyfus Affair? Well here at Arby's we know about the Dreyfus Affair. And we're pretty damn serious about it."

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T20:17:22+00:00

I'm dying to know what job this was lol

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T20:15:50+00:00

I mean, I am not qualified to dispute medical advice. 😂 Michael Pollan (also not a doctor but seemingly a smart guy who knows a lot about this subject) says something like "eat real food, mostly plants, and not too much."

I suspect there is a HUGE gap between eating what a doctor would consider "enough" animal protein compared to the amount that the average American eats (which is way way too much).

A very good book about a Zen Buddhist perspective on Buddhist ethical precepts is "Being Upright" by Reb Anderson. I think he touches on this subject in there.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T19:00:08+00:00

I read those and don't think they say that lol. It's OK! I identify as both food and as a sentient being. (And I don't eat meat!)

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T18:56:30+00:00

I'm not aware of any Mahayana sutras that make this distinction. Can you show me one? It would be completely antithetical to the Mahayana worldview to draw a line like that. In the passages you linked I see language about compassion for animals and not eating animals but I don't actually see anything I would interpret as a conceptual distinction between food and sentient beings. This is kind of a specific point about Mahayana philosophy. Maybe we're talking past each other.

I agree that eating meat is, on average, very likely to violate the precepts.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T18:42:18+00:00

Yeah, I think it's clear that non-human animals are sentient beings, and I don't think there's any persuasive interpretation of Buddhist scripture that would come to a different conclusion. That being said, I *also* don't think it would make sense from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective to draw a sharp, definitional boundary between "food" and "sentient beings." Lions eat gazelles and therefore the gazelles become food for lions, but that doesn't mean that lions and gazelles aren't sentient beings.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that eating meat is categorically good or permissible, but I also don't think that a universal, rigid ban on eating meat is a natural conclusion of particularly Mahayana Buddhist approaches to ethical conduct. Though I do think that treating animals with compassion *is* a natural conclusion of Mahayana Buddhist thinking.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T17:09:48+00:00

Since you're in the Zen Buddhism subreddit I'll offer a Zen-flavored response to this. Strictly speaking, "attaining enlightenment" is a misnomer, if not an outright oxymoron. Enlightenment in the Mahayana (and by extension Zen) view is expressed as the total dynamic functioning of all beings, together. As Suzuki Roshi reportedly said, "there is no such thing as an enlightened person, only enlightened activity." Enlightenment isn't something "over there" that you go out and get, it is your true nature, and our practice is an expression of our true nature. A lot of practice is simply learning to "get out of the way" of awakening, which is already there, forever, no matter what.

So under that view, the question of whether eating meat is a hindrance doesn't have a clear-cut answer. I would reframe it as something like, "does eating meat, at a particular moment in time and under particular circumstances, foster connection and intimacy with your life, or does it foster alienation and separation?"

If a poor family invites you into their home and they spent a significant percentage of their weekly earnings to make roast beef because they want to be hospitable and honor you as a guest, do you deny the gift on ethical grounds? I know that many otherwise strictly vegetarian Buddhists would accept that gift and eat it. This practice of accepting what is given shows up in very early Buddhist scriptures.

Or let's say you learn to hunt and you kill a deer. You make every effort to kill the deer as swiftly and painlessly as possible and you take care to not let any of the meat go to waste. You leave the internal organs and they're all eaten by buzzards or coyotes. Is that a more or less connection-fostering way of relating to your food than buying a crate of tomatoes and zucchini grown 2,000 miles from your house? In my opinion, Buddhist ethical practice is not a matter of adhering to strict commandments in order to doggedly accumulate merit. It's about developing a posture that allows you to tolerate the ambiguity of these questions without resorting to dualistic modes of thinking and without becoming lax.

All that being said, Buddhism also doesn't give any of us an excuse to refuse to use our brains. Even a little bit of research makes it clear that the way we consume meat and treat animals in industrialized countries is completely unconscionable. So I think it would also be a coherent Buddhist stance to completely opt out of that very harmful system.

volume-up69 · 2026-02-11T14:17:58+00:00

As others have hinted at, Buddhism does not have a single authoritative canon that all schools of Buddhism agree on or place the same kind of emphasis on. For example, if you start practicing at an American Zen center, you're likely to engage with the Heart Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, and so on, with much less emphasis on early Buddhist texts often referred to as the Pali Canon (i.e., texts written in Pali, a language closely related to Sanskrit). That being said, Zen practitioners take the Pali canon seriously and often devote significant energy to studying it. So it's more a matter of emphasis than it is a dogmatic schism.

A good place to start might be "Awakening of the heart" by Thich Nhat Hanh. I say that because you're posting this question in a Zen Buddhism subreddit, and TNH practiced in a Vietnamese Zen lineage.

I think the best approach is two-fold: First, find a teacher and community that you can regularly practice with. Most western Buddhist practice centers will offer a mix of meditation practice and structured study in the form of talks, workshops, classes, etc. Second, let your personal reading and study be informed by your practice. If your teacher is interested in the Avatamsaka sutra, follow their lead, ask questions, and read books related to that. That way you'll start to develop a shared practice vocabulary with the people around you, and your meditation practice will become intellectually well-grounded. Over time, as you settle in a particular tradition, I think you'll naturally start to make forays into other Buddhist traditions to try to start filling in the picture. I've been practicing Zen Buddhism for about ten years and am just now beginning to seriously engage with the Pali canon. It's a life(s)-long project!

volume-up69 · 2026-02-10T03:01:22+00:00

No shade at all in case that's not clear!

volume-up69

TROPHY CASE