I just got the following e-mail from Peter Rocca, one of Nishijima Sensei’s Dharma heirs and the guy who took over for me doing the Saturday afternoon lectures at Tokyo University’s Young Buddhists Association.
Dear Peter-san,
I just informed by Yanagimoto-san, the organizer of Dogen Sangha's Japanese class of that Nishijima Roshi left the hospital on April 1. He had suffered from anemia and cured by blood transfusion remedy in the hospital, I am told.
I hasten to let you know of the good news.
With best wishes.
SAITO Harumi
He also posted something about his return on his blog. So it looks like he’s OK. Good. I don’t know if I’ll get to speak to him or not before I head off for Tassajara tomorrow. But I’ll try.
Anyway, I just had some thoughts before running off to the mountains about the whole concept of keeping informed. I am totally under-informed and glad of it. People these days seem proud to declare themselves news or information junkies. But I’m not convinced that’s the healthiest way to live. I can’t understand, for example, why anyone would need one of those RSS feeds (or whatever they’re called) so they can instantly know when I’ve updated the drivel on this page.
The other day I got interviewed and the guy asked me my thoughts about the upcoming election. I just didn’t have any. I mean, it looks to me like Obama’s going to win. But who knows what could happen by November? In any case I don’t have any useful thoughts on Obama or Hillary or whoever the Republicans are running. Is it McCain? I used to live in Kenya and Obama's dad is from Kenya, so maybe I should vote for him on that basis.
At Tassajara there are no regular sources of information about the outside world save for the gossip you get from new people coming in. There’s no newspapers, no TV, no radio, no Internet and access to the single telephone in the place is strictly limited. You can write and receive mail, but I don’t think it gets delivered and picked up daily. That’s “snail mail,” by the way, what we in the olden days used to call postal mail.
News Junkie types seem to believe that you’re either stuffed with every fact and opinion being thrown about in the sea of information or you’re just a mindless, ignorant sheep being led to slaughter by the powers that be. But I don’t think it’s all that vital to know every detail of what’s going on in the world. Blissful ignorance isn’t the proper antidote either. The best course is somewhere in between.
Me, I get the LA Times every day. I don’t subscribe, by the way. It just shows up. I assume I’m still on the list because of a former tenant here who subscribed. If it stops coming I probably won’t subscribe. But I might just so I can keep up with LIO. I get enough info by just scanning the headlines. I’m confident that if something really vital to my existence happens, I’ll find out about it.
By the way, it looks like I probably will attend the all-day Zazen at Hill Street Center on April 19th. But I will not be able to accept anyone's reservations by e-mail. Please send your reservation requests to Yuka at yukster1999(at)yahoo(dot)com. OK?
Here are the plugs:
April 25 - 27 I'll be leading a retreat at Southern Dharma Retreat Center in North Carolina. So don't y'all forget about that.
And on on May 3rd 0DFx will play at the Spitfire Saloon in Cleveland and on May 4th, we'll play at the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio in commemoration of the 38th anniversary of the infamous shootings by the National Guard
On May 17th and 18th I'll be leading a 2-day retreat at the Milwaukee Zen Center. So all cheese heads are ordered to attend.
I'll be one of the teachers at this year's Great Sky Zen Sesshin August 9-16. Check out their webpage for details.
The annual Dogen Sangha retreat in Shizuoka, Japan is scheduled for September 20-23.
Gotta go pack now. See ya in a couple weeks.
