What Does it Mean to be a Senior Student?
Cory Caplan About ten years ago, I dragged three of my friends to what would be the last Soundgarden concert at The Forum. And in the middle of what was probably our third round of overpriced lagers, I got a phone call -- which perturbed me because I had my phone on “Do Not Disturb”, so somebody had called me using an “Emergency Bypass”. It turned out to be my then
Inner Strength, Disciplined Revolution
The Shape of Inner Strength The question of the week is, “What is the Secret to Inner Strength?” I can’t or won’t answer this question because the question is for you to ponder, but I’ll ponder it with you. When I hear inner strength, I think of discipline and a strong will. This is what inner strength shows up as (not the secret). In martial arts and meditation we are very interested in
Lessons from retreat
This last weekend the staff and a good number of Kung Fu students went on our annual retreat at Mt Baldy Zen Center. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend; the weather always seems to cooperate with us, so continued thanks to whoever is in charge of that. We arrived Friday afternoon, set everything up, ate an early dinner and did our first drill. First Lessons We started with a flow drill where
The Best Worst Thing
Last Tuesday I got all four wisdom teeth out. So forgive me if I seem a bit dumber. I was a little scared going into the surgery because it was my first time going under general anesthesia. I was also told about 10 years ago by a surgeon that a nerve was a bit close to one of the teeth and there was a chance it would get severed, leaving me
Life and Death
Practicing Loss The last time I wrote about death was when my mom passed from pancreatic cancer about five years ago. I talked about it being the first time I felt like I really had to deal with hardship and true loss. We practice loss when we meditate, letting go of what we are attached to in the moment, but it’s of course more difficult when we lose a person we
