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Créer, c’est vivre deux fois.
To create is to live twice.—Albert Camus
I do not seek to create as a career.
I create because I have to
to make sense of things
to make time stand still
to listen deeply.
Japan taught me that listening is an art.
I lived there for six years, studying at
Sophia University 上智大学 in Tokyo*
practicing zazen at local temples.
I continued my practice in Hawaii
counting one breath after another.
Now in my late seventies, I still sit.
The practice has become a habit.
Flowing like an alpine stream
from the Colorado Rockies
through many cultures
many languages
diverse religions to
ἐφήμερος—無常.**
In zazen, leave both front & back doors open so thoughts can come & go. Just don’t serve them tea!
* 上智大学 (Jochi Daigaku ) is a Jesuit University in Tokyo, Japan–called Sophia University in English.
** Greek for “ephemeral” carries a philosophical or poetic nuance that human life is fleeting. 無常（むじょう・mujō) in Japanese is impermanence, the Buddhist concept that all things are transient, which is not a direct translation, but philosophically identical to the more profound sense of ἐφήμερος.
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