Snowy River Zen Center

03/30/2026

Hello everyone a reminder that this upcoming Sunday we will not be at Healing Roots as we will be having our annual celebration of the Buddha's Birthday at Hoffman Park. More details are on the events page. We look forward to seeing all of you there.

03/15/2026

Hello everyone. Due to snow and road conditions we've made the decision to cancel zazen at healing roots this morning. We look forward to seeing you all next week and please stay warm and safe.

09/18/2024

Kenotic, self- emptying Love is the messianic promise. A promise made at the inception of creation. It is what creation “groans in labor for” (Romans, 8:22) to this day, perpetually with no final consummation.

This promise lies within the matrix of the life force, awaiting the touch of conscious awareness.

A Rabbi once said, “if the messiah were to come, they would not be the messiah.”

The messianic promise is not a person. It is, however, an event that can occur in and through persons. An event, not an established fact.

It is why Meister Eckhart was so insistent upon the birth of the Eternal Word in each human soul in the perpetual now.

It is up to us to fulfill the promise.

An empty self is a bell that rings only Love.

09/08/2024

In Love I am More God

During our gathering this morning I referred. To Suzuki Roshi, where he says, “For a plant or stone to be natural is no problem, but for us it is a problem, indeed, a big problem.”

Then I drew a daring parallel to illustrate: I said,

“For a tree to be fully God and fully tree is not a problem. For us to be fully human and fully God is quite a bit more difficult.” (For instance, it involves loving all beings indiscriminately.)

Today in my study I found testimony from Meister Eckhart to defend my thesis.

“What a person loves, they become in love (echos of ‘where your treasure is, there your heart is also’). Shall we deduce then that if a person loves God, then they become God? This sounds like heresy. When people make love, they are not two, but rather one unity, and in love i am more God than I am in myself.”

Homily 49, Peeters Edition

08/23/2024

Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
-T. S. Elliot

There is a true person of no rank going in and out of the portals of your face. Those who have not yet seen, look!
Master Linji

The doctrine of “hypostatic union” states that Jesus was “fully God and fully human.”

Makes me wonder, if we could find our way into becoming fully human, would we also become fully God? Is that how He did it?

Is this what constitutes the “power to become the children of God?” (John 1:12)

08/21/2024

Cosmic Christ/Sambhogakaya Buddha

I’ve always loved the afternoon light
Yet it has taken a long life to see
I can only love the Light
Because the Light first Loved me

08/01/2024

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

A. Einstein

07/26/2024

We will be having our board's 3rd quarter meeting tonight at 6pm via Zoom. All members are welcome to join us for these meetings.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88526396222?pwd=q4rxeXqSOIjMo0zPa4HlbTtBk0VMcS.1

Passcode, if it requires it: 913054

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07/19/2024

Our new Saturday zazen schedule is every other weekend, 9am, Glen Park. Tomorrow will be the first off weekend without Saturday zazen.

See everyone on Sunday for sitting and Dharma talk!

07/16/2024

How rare it is even to realize we most often live in subjugation to an Imperial subject. Even rarer those occasions when we taste the sweetness of life beyond the subject.

On those occasions we see that freedom has nothing twhatsoever to do with the will.