Spinal Tap

Last night I had a spinal tap in Berlin. Y’know, it didn’t actually hurt that bad. I’d heard the people that made the movie This is Spinal Tap picked the name because it was supposed to be the most painful medical procedure. Apparently the fictional band said they wanted a name that represented dominance and […]

SICK IN BERLIN ~ ANGER MANAGEMENT

The photo is from former East Berlin, Karl Marx Strasse with Dunkin Donuts taken yesterday by me. Dig Dirk from Sprockets dancing on the Don’t Walk sign! I have over-extended myself and it has bit me on the ass. I am sick in Berlin. It’s 2:30 and I have yet to leave the apartment of […]

Report form France

I’m in Poitiers, France now. Yesterday I ran a day of Zen for 10 people at my friend Arnaud’s house here. It was very interesting and very tiring. The people who attended the event were not zennies for the most part. I know at least one of them had done zazen at a Zen temple […]

FOREIGN SUPERMARKTS

One of the great joys/challenges of doing what I do is negotiating foreign supermarkets. Or markts as they seem to be called in many countries in Europe. My friend Robin has an apartment in Amsterdam that he rarely uses and has kindly allowed me to stay here. It’s like having my own swingin’ bachelor pad […]

Hello From Rotterdam

Two days of day-long zazen retreats are done and all participants survived. On Saturday I was in Bonn, Germany leading a day-long retreat on a street called Adolf Strasse. I did three and a half hours of dokusan (private one-on-one talks) in a single straight sitting and came back to tell the tale. It was […]