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.