Many years ago, as an art student, I learned to draw what is by drawing what is not. I learned to draw the negative space around the figure. This perspective opened…

One cold midwinter day, I went through my old notebooks—my collections of creative ideas, sketches, and scribbles. As I turned the pages, I was struck by the sheer volume of thoughts, half-formed concepts, and expressions.

Each time I struck the bell, for an instant, there was a contact of form meeting form. The striker meets the metal, a precise point in time, already gone the moment it happens. The sound arises, full and clear, filling the space. But even as we hear it, it is vanishing.

…winter envelops the Temple in stillness, inviting me to contemplate the vastness of existence. The snow-covered landscape stretches silent as the world slows, inviting me to explore its serene simplicity. The grey sky, heavy and soft, dissolves the boundary between above and below.

The New Year opened gently during the first weekend as our sangha gathered for a three-day online meditation retreat. Together, we sat in the silence of shared presence, each turning inward while remaining connected through the digital thread of the virtual zendo.