All is blessed, all is blessed

Greetings Friends,

I am returning from the Grasses, Trees and Great Earth Sesshin at Great Vow Zen Monastery. An outdoor sesshin I have had the deep pleasure of co-leading for the past six years. During the sesshin we practiced various ways of listening to the dharma of the natural world, including:

* Hearing with the eyes, heart, whole body.

* Letting ourselves be seen by the sky, ferns, rocks and queen ann’s lace.

* Becoming tree, black-berry, forest, ground.

The great earth and sky speak the dharma through their constancy, reminding us that we too belong to this world, that our presence is medicine, that we aren’t separate or alone.

Have you ever…(a poem)

Have you ever, sat down with a tree and said hello, as if greeting a friend?

And then listened to her story?

Have you ever gazed into the face of a flower,

with wonder and delight

and asked