March, 2010

There have been a slew of news reports lately that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., the combo responsible for the current remake of Clash Of The Titans, will be producing a new Godzilla movie for release in 2012.

It's kind of funny to see this. It's part of a story I've been following for the past few years. A guy named Yoshimitsu Banno -- named in the story linked above as one of the film's producers -- has been making the rounds in the US entertainment industry trying to get a new Godzilla project off the ground since at least the late 90s. Banno is an intriguing character. He is the only person to have directed just one Godzilla movie (not including the last US-made catastrophe in 1998). Most Godzilla movie directors get asked back after they do one movie. Banno apparently made the execs at Toho so mad they never asked him back.

Banno's Godzilla movie was 1971's Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, one of my personal all-time favorites of the series. It turns out that Banno didn't just pick a pollution-based monster as Godzilla's enemy because it was a trendy topic at the time. He was and is a big environmentalist. It has long been his dream to remake Godzilla vs The Smog Monster with a big budget as a way of calling attention to the serious environmental issues facing humanity today.

Apparently, Banno managed to purchase the rights to remake Smog Monster from Toho. But his efforts to get it going haven't been all that successful until now. Last I'd heard before this news came about was that he was trying to get a 15 minute Imax version made somewhere in South America. Or something like that...

ANYWAY, this all got me thinking that one of the FAQ's I get fairly often when I'm on tour from people who've read Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate is, "What the heck ever happened with your job at the Godzilla company?" (which was not the company that made Godzilla, but was a company founded by the guy who invented Godzilla)

I left that unresolved at the end of the book because at the time I finished writing the book it was unresolved. What ended up happening is that I got fired. That's in the book, I think.

But then in September of 2008 I went to Japan to lead the annual Dogen Sangha retreat and scheduled a meeting with the company while I was there. It was at this meeting that they proposed for me to come back to Japan and work for them again at the Tokyo office.

I really hemmed and hawed on this one. I desperately wanted to return to Japan. I feel more at home there than I do anywhere else. And yet returning to my old job sounded unappealing. Besides that, Zen Wrapped in Karma was set to be released in the Spring of the following year and I wouldn't be in America to promote it if I took the job in Japan.

At the end of 2008 I had to make my official decision. So I moved in to the San Francisco Zen Center for three weeks, finished off the book, then called up Tokyo and told them I was staying in America. I officially quit.

And that's the story!

Remember that this weekend I'll be in Brooklyn at the Zen Center there running a retreat. There's still space available. All info is on this link here.

Then it's on to Baltimore and following that, Richmond, Virginia. All info is on the link referenced above.

I'd say can't wait, but under the circumstances that seems a tad unseemly sentiment...

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama concludes his escape from occupied Tibet, having crossed the border into India, and on this day in 1959, is granted political asylum.




I was rummaging through Youtube for a suitable video to mark this occasion and was a little surprised at the number of offerings hostile to the Dalai Lama. The main gripe is that Tibet under the Dalai Lamas was a theocracy, and that people suffered terribly there before the Chinese invasion. True 'nuff. That system was swept away along with pretty much anything that might be called Tibet, replaced by the Han occupation and absorption. Some would call it genocide. I do.

And having come "West," the Dalai Lama has picked up democratic ideas and the state in exile of which he is spiritual leader, although not political leader, is a very interesting enterprise.

The Dalai Lama has not only represented his people well, he has opened the door to the Buddha way for many. My Buddhism is much more spare than his. I have little truck with tulkus. But I've witnessed people taking up the Buddhadharma through the Tibetan style do very well spiritually.

And the Dalai Lama has been an exemplar of a way of peace.

Sadly, apparently, his nonviolent resistance, his willingness to deal with the Chinese, would they be willing to on their side, is slowly losing acceptance from the Tibetan exile community. I fear with his death, maybe before, things are going to go bad there...

But there is a bottom line here.

The Dalai Lama deserves the adulation much more than the criticism...

Feeling in a photographic mood, here are a few pictures of big birds I have taken over the years to inspire your meditations or simply your flights of fancy. Enjoy!



Sometimes, there is confidence.



And sometimes, not so much.




Sometimes, we go around and around, seemingly without end.



But in the end, we're always amongst friends.

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Well, two seders and I am still alive. First night a Jewish/Buddhist seder, second night with close long time friends. I guess the question is am I free from bondage?

A friend in the Tricycle Community has asked about that. He wonders if I am not too attached to my robes, title, and well, I suspect he thinks I am full of myself. He wonders whether people would respond to me any differently if I did not hide behind these masks: if I were just plain Harvey.

I don’t know. What I do know is that I am told various things by various people about myself. Some are not so pleasant. Some are quite pleasant. In either case, I work on not allowing them to stick. Teflon Zen.

It is a difficult question, though. Most of my adult life I have been a person with some degree of authority: a man with a gun hunting other men in combat, a child protective services social worker and supervisor, a supervisor of mental health services in a school system, a Ph.D. psychotherapist, a director at a psychiatric hospital, and finally a Zen Teacher. I am quite “used” to being in and using authority.

My sense, though, is that I wield it with a considerable degree of humility. I reveal too much of myself at times, I listen to crap being dumped on me sometimes, and I care deeply about those who do the dumping, as well as the world in and around me. Robes and the like are just part of the trade. They are my personal history that goes with my kechimyaku (Zen Bloodline) and Shukke Tokudo (Home Leaving Priest Ordination).

Forget the robes, the title, and the like: just cloth and words. Forget my teaching, as well. These are my words, put on my experience: not your words, put on your experience. Above all do not confuse the two.

Be well.