Lots of people are asking me about how Nishijima Sensei is doing. For those who don't know, he posted a message on his blog saying he was going to the hospital and would not be posting for a while.
I'm as much in the dark as anyone else about this. Apparently not even his Japanese students have a clue. The only person I know of who would know is his daughter. But I don't even know her name, nor have I ever met her. She doesn't much care for her dad's Zen activities anyway and isn't likely to take kindly to calls from strangers about him even if I could find her. So I'm just sitting tight hoping somebody will contact me.
Also, I noticed a few people don't seem to get that my most recent post on Suicide Girls listed only Zen centers I'd had personal contact with. It's not intended as a comprehensive list. I'm reluctant to recommend any place I haven't actually been to or at least know the person who runs it. Which doesn't mean places I don't know that well are bad or anything. I just don't know them. For example, my guess is that lots of the places run by Kobun Chino's dharma heirs -- like Jikoji near Santa Cruz -- are very good. But I've never gone to any of them.
Also, I'm going to be staying at Tassajara for two weeks in early April, trying out one of their work practice periods. Go to their website for info on that. It sounds like a fun and relatively painless way to see Tassajara as it actually functions. There's no Internet service up there. But maybe I can find a way to write blog entires on paper and mail them to someone in the surface world to type up and post.
Gotta go.
