Tuesday Night Rambling

It's amazing how quickly, given the chance, one can fall out of the rhythm of daily blogging. I missed a day or two coming back from my Thanksgiving holiday in Massachusetts, and then got busy with the transitional activities that resulted in me quitting my job last Friday. Lest I give the wrong impression, part of that transitional activity was also securing a new job, which I start more-or-less at the beginning of the year. But just missing those couple of days completely threw me off of my blog rhythm.

After getting back from Massachusetts, I performed my usual Monday-night service at the zendo, but found to my surprise that I was also kicking off Rohatsu, the intensive, week-long retreat in commemoration of the Buddha's enlightenment. I spoke a few words of encouragement to the participants and had intended to join them later in the week, but the transition prevented that from happening. Rohatsu would have at least been a good alibi for not blogging more often.

Vegetarianism is continuing, with less backsliding than before as I learn the alternatives available to me. There have been a few lapses, such as Thanksgiving dinner and another on-the-go, fast-food chicken sandwich. The end of this week will mark a month of this new (for me) practice.

During the day, I've been wrapping up a few projects at the old job and packing up my office. This evening I attended the monthly meeting of the alliance of neighborhood organizations (I was elected vice-chair!).

So that's all I've got to show for the past couple of relatively blog-free weeks. I'll try to re-establish my former discipline of daily posts.

Oh, by the way, a pointer for those of you who might be interested: there's a podcast of a dharma talk by iconoclastic Zen teacher Brad Warner on line at Steve Hagen's Dharma Field Zen Center website. Select "Talks Online" from the menu on the left-hand side of the website and it will take you to a selection of recent dharma talks (they're all good). I'm not sure how long the Warner talk will be online, so download it now while it's available (while you're at it, check out the Steve Hagen talks as well). I have an mp3 of a talk Warner gave at the Atlanta Zen Center, but don't feel that it's "mine" to post here. Send me an email if you'd like a copy, though - it's an 11.9 mb file.