zenjones

Hiked Pt. Reyes with KKJ yesterday. Bear Valley out to Arch Rock. We walked through the Sonoma County golden-hills-of-summer terrain, the paleolithic redwoods-and-ferns-and-symphony-of-streams terrain, the live-oak-and-scrub terrain, and finally to the rocky-and-sandy-coastal-habitat-for-seagulls terrain.

KKJ is the guy who gave me the first Joko Beck book. We have been hiking and talking about zen thoughts, zen theories, for 15 years. However, he doesn’t sit, doesn’t really have a practice, and hasn’t read Beck in years, so our conversations are getting a little surreal. We don’t speak the same language. But we sure don’t stop talking the whole way!

Yesterday we discussed the phrase “Believing your own thoughts” which I’ve sort of just accepted as meaning one thing—believing the fear-inspired and/or emotion-based thoughts. But KKJ pointed out that it really says believing all thoughts, even those that are just functional. So we went back and forth on that for a while. I said I’d ask my teacher.

I am so grateful for Pt. Reyes, for the people who started national parks, for the natural beauty that I can dip into at will up here.