Tag: thich nhat hanh
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Hosts & guests
“Receive a guest,” advised the Zen master Soyen Shaku (1860-1919), “with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.” Zen masters’ pronouncements are often enigmatic, but this one is particularly baffling. For one thing, it seems to blur, if not collapse, the distinction between social…
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An unexpected lightness
In the summer of the year 2000, I had the good fortune to be spending the month of June in Ireland, where I was teaching Irish literature to American students at Trinity College, Dublin. One sunny afternoon, as I was walking down Nassau Street in central Dublin, I stopped to browse at a sidewalk bookstall.…