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A Moment in Autumn

As far as I can remember, “being in the moment” was a concept that was always around me. However, the abused child that I was could not remain in moments that were mortally painful. Thus, unconsciously I dissociated. I dissociated the pain, but I think my mind augmented beauty or joyful moments, like a drug, in order to anesthetize the repressed pain. Sometimes I felt outside of myself with joy. Sometimes I fell into unexplainable depressions. In recent years I have become aware of my dissociation and the barriers it presents to “being in the moment”. So, I have tried take this recognition with me, and I attempt anew to find “being in the moment.” It is September 30 th , temperatures have been dropping. For weeks I have been pruning back my over-eager, ever-productive tomato plant, knowing that soon, when the nights freeze, it will die. I am leaving only the sprigs that have baby tomatoes on them the size of a pea or pearl, hoping for some October sunshine to help
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Meditation and PTSD

In 1993, when my 'Christian phase' was over, I began an earnest engagement with Zen Buddhism. Over the years, in Germany and in France, I had gleaned information about meditation, mostly from books. By the time I returned to Stuttgart from Paris, I had obtained the name of Fumon Shōju Nakagawa , who was at the time official representative of the Soto Zen school in Europe. This was the school of Zen practice of my father and his family that I had grown up with. I also attended sesshins (retreats) with Roshis (masters) from the Rinzai school. But I found the insights I gained with the Soto Roshi most convincing, and so I remained with him. (In 2005 he performed our wedding ceremony .) During the sesshins, we kept silence for several days: For as long as the sesshin lasted we ate, worked, and meditated in silence with the exception of daily lectures and/or Q&A sessions with Roshi. Around this time I suffered acute temporary hearing loss due to professional stress and had beg
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Retirement Rest?

After I finished my dissertation in 2008, I fell into a deep depression. I sat in a chair and couldn't move. The depression was accompanied by various bodily pains, all of which later got names (diagnoses). By 2011, the disability insurances of Germany, Austria and USA were convinced: I wasn't going to get better. It is now 2019, and I have worked as assiduously as possible to 'get better'. (Apparently, what with ageing and all, getting 'well' isn't going to happen.) My mother's death in 2016 threw me back several years, but that, too, has now passed.  In the meantime, getting better has come to involve plans for the 'retirement future', and my husband and I -- after some real knock-down-drag-outs on the subject -- are also now dealing with that. So there I sat yesterday, in my age-appropriate easy-chair, watching the clouds thicken for the oncoming night storm, feeling the cooling breeze after the baking summer sun, and thought: OK, f
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About this blog

One of my earliest recollections as a child was seeing my father sitting on his Zafu meditating.  I also remember occasional discussions about Zen and meditation. As an adult, I would from time to time try to sit and meditate, or I would read about zen and meditation. But I didn’t know what I was doing, and the meditating didn’t seem to take me any further. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I was finally able to hook up with my own zazen practice.  Before long, it became one of the pillars of my life. My Zazen (sitting practice)  has varied over the years. At present I am meditating in the mornings. And I am once again reading Suzuki’s book, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.  But I find that where I used to have many questions, I now have many comments or correctives. And I would like to retain these. So, I have decided to set up yet another social media website as a receptacle for my thoughts on this topic.
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