like totally

Four months back I ended a two-year online relationship of “work in the room” with a Zen teacher in Colorado Springs, entirely for financial reasons. I was no longer able to send the monthly “Dana” (generous support) I had been. Now my financial situation has changed some with going back to work three additional days a week, and last Saturday I made an arrangement to begin work with a new teacher for considerably less dana as a member of the Pacific Zen Institute. We began meeting online yesterday.

This stepped out from our time together:

One of my best friends in life, Dr. Doug Martin, he of West Los Angeles and polio and a wheelchair van, and I, behind the wheel, arrived at a mall somewhere in the valley. We went (rolled and walked) in and landed at a food place. I asked the young woman, who asked what we wanted, “What’s good here?” She answered, “I live in the really good part of Encino.”

What could be more Zen than that?