Sunday, November 14, 2010

NEW RSS FEED for 'SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO & TAIGU'

Hi,

We have a NEW WEB ADDRESS and RSS feed for our 'SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO & TAIGU' video talks and netcast Zazen sittings.

URL:

http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/with-jundo-and-taigu/

RSS:

http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/with-jundo-and-taigu/atom.xml

If you would link to our new address, Taigu and I thank you very much for doing so, and thank you again if you have in the past.

Editorial changes at Shambhala Sunspace mean that we will be appearing there every few weeks or so (instead of two or three times per week, as has been until now.) We also anticipate that we will have some articles/essays in the print version of Buddhadharma Magazine, the Practitioner's Quarterly, in the coming months. Please look for those.

The editors at Sunspace lately have expressed their wish to make Sunspace webpage more "pan-Buddhist", aimed more at a general "non-Zen" specific readership. Although we were happy to appear there so many times a week as we have, Taigu and I ourselves felt that, by appearing so often, we were dominating the page sometimes, and that other voices should be heard. However, a more serious issue for us is that Taigu and I now would have to pull some punches in our talks to fit in the new format, making them lighter and less "Zen specific" (in the editor's words). Taigu and I are simply not willing to do so, or to change our way of presenting what we present ... teachings on Koans, Shobogenzo and all the rest ... in order to make the subject more appealing to the readership of a webpage. Although the editors must cater to folks who are not Zen practitioners, the editors had also taken to changing some of our posts to remove what they considered "insider Zen jargon", to "clarify" some of our wording for "less familiar readers", and we did not think that appropriate (clarity of wording is not always clarity expressed) . Thus, Taigu and I suggested to the editors that we move our more 'serious' teachings back to our Treeleaf webpage (where we do not have to worry about editors and editorial policies), and just post at Sunspace when we have a sometime lighter and more general topic to speak about once in awhile. That works for everyone.

Now, the editors are not to be faulted, as they are just trying to reach out to a big tent which holds all flavors of Buddhist ... from "A is for Amida to Z is for Zen" ... and I can see their point of view in needing to do that for their Sunspace webpage. Taigu and I also feel that it is a very good thing to communicate with the wider Buddhist community, and that is why we will continue to post there every few weeks when Taigu or I do have a topic to talk about which fits the "MahaSangha" viewpoint that the editors want.

Again, thank you for your continued friendship and for "sitting-a-long".


Gassho, Jundo (and Taigu too)