Mid-October here in Spokane and, needless to say, the leaves (and pine needles [i] and fruit [ii] ) are falling, as they do every autumn.   Well, all is well.   Before continuing, I must get the gratitude thing out of the way: [iii]   I have several reasons to be grateful: 1. At seventy, I’m still here to watch the leaves fall and hale enough to rake them up.   2. We are lucky enough to have a house with trees on our property, here on the South Hill, a famously woody neighborhood. 3.   The trees keep growing, and even seem to be thriving, during this early phase of global climate change.   In the far future, in whatever forms they evolve into, the trees will be here much longer than us. Emily in the front yard, enjoying a bit of  raking in a previous October.  Note matching pants. I could summarize this little essay in one sentence: There’s plenty of stuff to rake up, not just the leaves.   Our back yard is a three-tiered jungle.   The canopy, (if I may borrow a term normally u

  Bumping Into Zen: First Zazen in Japan June 11, Tuesday (2002) Dear ________, Please forward to whomever might be interested. Thanks so much for your reply to my last message. Also, thank you, _______, for yours. Please find attached a couple of photos taken of Daibutsu, the Great Buddha, in Kamakura . I was there on a Sunday not long ago. The site was jammed with tourists, mostly Japanese; many were offering prayers and tossing coins in a tank. I usually try to follow the adage “When in Rome,” but here in Japan I’d look very awkward trying to “pray” to a big statue. (I’m awkward doing most things here in Japan. So…they have their ways, I have mine.) I don’t know what the standard reaction to seeing this bronze colossus is. For me, confronting such a monstrous example of good zazen form made me want to practice more. Maybe that was why it was built in the first place--some time in the 13th century—to make people want to meditate more often and more intently. Kamakura was the first

  Basketball Hurts April 8, 2021 Three days after the dispiriting defeat by Baylor in the title game, our Gonzaga flag still hangs limply and listlessly above our porch.   I’ll take it down soon.   It got wet in the rain this morning; it has no flap left in it.   Down it goes. Sad Suggs Ever since the Elite Eight run in1999, the  that began this 22-year streak, The Zags have lost a game in the Big Dance  that ended the season.   I can remember every one of the losses. Every single one of those defeats—twenty-two of them—has provided a unique flavor of disappointment.   I won’t bother recapitulating the worst ones—the 2006 melt-down vs. UCLA and the 2013 loss to Wichita State [ 1 ] come immediately to mind—but this last loss against Baylor on Monday night produced a particularly bitter taste, most obviously because it spoiled the “perfect” 32-0 season, something that hadn’t been done since Indiana did it 45 years ago.   Limply it hangs. Gonzaga has the best record in college bas