Zen teachers back in the 13th Century, for example, probably only had to face running out of ink for their writing brushes … while now we must ‘sit with’ the Koan of JAVA script and browser conflicts.

But the wonderful thing, truly, that Zen offers to all of us is this:Accept that computers, just like all of life, will not do what we wish all(or most) of the time. Go with the flow. Allow the computer to crashendless times … for it is all a perfect moment in time. “Be at one” with slowness and freezing … for a slow boot-up is an excellent opportunity for a moment of patient Zazen.  Accept program conflicts as “just-what-they-are” and allow them to be! Remember that the “Blue Screen of Death” is beyondall thought of “life” and “death” … and that rebooting is a kind ofrebirth.

A monk asked Master JōshÅ«, “Does a hard drive have Buddha nature”??

But, in any event, ‘Ustream’ (the video system I have been using until today) seems to present some conflicts with ‘FLASH’ and certain browsers that results in crashing. To solve the problem, I will now try to experiment with switching to YouTube (which seems more glitch free). I will still use Ustream for certain special events (like our longer ‘LIVE’ Saturday sittings and monthly Zazenkai) because it has certain advantages.

One issue with YouTube, however, for those folks ‘sitting-a-long‘ is that there is a 10 minute time limit. That means that, from now on, WE CAN START ZAZEN TOGETHER, and I will ring the beginning bells … BUT YOU MUST KEEP TRACK OF YOUR SITTING TIME, and ring the ending bells yourself. Truly, Zazen is endless anyway!

Let’s see if this works a bit better for most folks, and I apologize for any crashing if we need to use Ustream sometimes.