Dear Friends,

The first true snow of this winter has finally come dropping its thick blanket over AnRyu Temple.   Sitting with embers burning in the wood stove and the 'Temple Guardians' close by.

 This holiday season, a time when family and friends gather in celebration, is marked this year by much loss; young lives, family homes, many dreams have all been destroyed. We do not need to travel to other places to touch this first truth of the Buddhas' teachings: there is suffering. It is here.

Our grief, our questioning, this world is calling us to practice, not to understand why or to escape the reality, but to be fully awake with the suffering in this world.  

Without strong practice at these times, it may be easy to fall into polarity, attempting solutions, hardened resolutions to never let this happen again, believing there are  

good people and bad people.   

The grief, so overwhelming that we easily fall helpless or tighten inside, wanting to find blame, to fight or become numb. The call of the Bodhisattva is to sit in the feelings, thoughts and sensations. From a 'rational mind' this may seem futile, a waste of time even.

Yet if we do sit, something else happens. Our practice deepens, each moment free and fresh brings possibility, an inner transformation happens. From this place of inter-being, we know more clearly how to appropriately act with wisdom and an open heart.  

Anraku and Ryumon Senseis