Zen New Old Year!


I was sent this great New Year’s poem from the Kwan Um Weekly Zen email list. It’s so incredible, I thought I would share it here for the start to a great new old year!

Let’s see what we make 2025 into!

From Zen Master Seung Sahn 1980 New Year

Every year, every year, 
New year, new year.
Every year, every year,
Old year, old year.
 
Old year gone.... New year.
New year gone... Old year.
 
Who made that?
You? I? We? They?
No, no, no!
Then God? Buddha? Time? Space?
No, no, no!
Then the sun? The moon?, The earth? The stars?
No, no, no!
Then the mountain? The river? The tree? The flower?
No, no, no!
Then the elephant? The dog? The cat? The mouse?
No, no, no!
Then, "Three pounds of flax?"
"Dry shit on a stick?"
"Katz?"
"Mu?"
No, no, no!
 
Then what?

The snow sparkles in the dawn.

In the morning 1972 plus 8. 


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End of the Travel Day

The biscotti cookies on Delta used to be the obvious choice on these flights, but now there is a new champion. Whatever these things are, they are my new favorite.

I think I disgusted everyone i was in line with by chugging a beer and eating a disintegrating sub sandwich while boarding. No, it was not a chicken finger sub - add another thing to the regrets list. 

Had a couple of thoughtful conversations on this trip. First, what is regret and what’s the function of regret? To say you have no regrets in life is to perhaps be expressing regret in a novel way. Regrets shouldn’t drive you forward, they shouldn’t really guide you unless they are educational moments where you learned a choice was a poor one. But even then, how do you determine a poor choice? The context then or now? It was a pretty good chat. 

Secondly, what does success mean? How would you know you were successful? There are financial benchmarks, obviously, but sometimes these leave us feeling cold. What about personal ones? That has the problem of being so individualized you dissolve any communicative potential of the term. Are successful people pointing themselves out? Or is that a sign of failure? Who gets to determine if someone has been successful? This is another great question I’m thinking about here as I return home. 

Along with the cookies I suggest a pairing of Woodford Reserve. They gave me a double this time. Cheers to you and happy new year! We plan to listen to music, watch the ball drop on TV and make some cocktails. 

Thoughts Aloft

Here I am on the flight - a quick selfie!!

Thinking about many things after my very quick trip to central Florida.

First, I think that there really is something to the connection between how you treat individuals and your political outlook. People who have a very committed political position feel justified in dismissing preferences or desires of others if they don’t correspond to the truth that they “know.” This might be prevalent diachronically, but I think this is a common practice that increases the more certain people are of their political position. 

Uncertainty is a fantastic political position as it keeps you open to change. You don’t have to do the high-energy face saving, or spinning a narrative about being wrong (but still being right) and you don’t have to do the backflips in defending your position until the very end. You can always lean into change, steer into it and really come out with a more informed or if not that, a more reasoned position, which is better for democracy anyway.

I’m hoping I can get a free drink on this flight too - coming down here they didn’t charge me. We’ll see if I can replicate it.

There doesn’t seem to be any reason why the FAA bans mobile phone use on commercial flights  I was wondering about this as it’s such a small deal these days to power off phones on the flight. Maybe they are slowly moving away from the policy? 

I think three to four days is the best length for a trip visiting people. I used to think it was much longer or you had to have at least a week to accomplish anything, but as I get older I think differently about it.

Flying back to a very warm New York, taking the train back home from Kennedy so I’m sure I’ll post a bit more. Had little time to really have a sit down and a type with little kids about - I don’t know how you people with kids write anything let alone good things. You are a lot better at concentrating than I am. 




Second Doctor Regeneration

I was shown this amazing reconstructed video of the Second Doctor’s regeneration this morning. Just an incredible scene. This never was shot at the time, it’s all newly created. I love these! This one is so well done using bits of audio from the surviving clips of the second doctor’s last episode. 

A lot of the elements are from the show but many of the visuals are modern.