I'm back to the blog after a busy spring and summer. Much of the time taken from blogging (and from working on Turning Words) went into changes to our homestead, or its connections with the local (Manitoulin Island) community. Meanwhile a bad back and other physical challenges cut deeply into my energy. I'm dealing with that by deliberately changing my habits, so that i move more deliberately … and the same goes for our use of electrical energy, as we adjust to our newly installed solar energy system. It's a kind of ‘mindfulness.’ The details are more relevant elsewhere (such as the Resilient Manitoulin blog), but it's all part of ‘settling our whole being into interpenetrating reality’ – as Shohaku Okumura puts it in his recent book, Realizing Genjokoan: The key to Dogen's Shobogenzo (p. 90).
I didn't do much reading this summer, but Okumura's book was certainly a highlight. He is a lifelong practitioner and scholar of Dogen's work, and the more personal side of this book struck a chord with me as well, because Okumura (who is a few years younger than me) also takes note of his declining energy levels. I can't call myself a Buddhist because i was never taken on by a ‘live’ Buddhist teacher, but immersion in Dogen's way of reading, thinking and nonthinking is deeply affecting what i can say about intimacy, intimologies, interpenetrating reality.
Back to work on (play with) Turning Words. While i still have some energy left, right?
