07/17/2026
"Most changes are beyond our control, and so we have to cultivate the ability to roll with change- to become the change itself."-
Roshi Bodhin Kjohlede
"Loss or imminent loss is bound to unsettle the mind.
Adverse circumstances plainly take a toll on the sitting mode of our practice- But sitting is never more important than when we’re struggling with pressures.
In the sitting (zazen) itself we get a break—
in the words of the poet Shelley, "a smooth spot of glassy quiet amidst those battling tides."
Far more important, though, are the changes we notice after getting up from our sitting.
If we’ve made sitting part of the fabric of our daily life, then when the Winds of Change do kick up, we’ll be a bit better at maintaining our balance."
Roshi Kjohlede reminds us that though we are beset with problems in our life, "No matter how bad it is, it would be worse if you weren’t sitting every day."
"How does drawing our limbs together to sit every day relieve suffering from loss and other adversity? By allowing our thoughts to settle, for starters. A death or serious illness, a layoff or rupture in a partnership is bound to take an emotional toll on us but if we can refrain from dwelling on the misfortune, our suffering will be less.
Thoughts bind us to our pain. Most thoughts revolve around the self, so that when thoughts thin out, so does the self-drama.
In old Buddhist texts we’re warned of the 'Eight Winds’ that are most likely to destabilize
the mind:
*Gain and loss
*Praise and censure
*Fame and disrepute
*Pleasure and displeasure
Any of these eight is a test of one’s emotional equilibrium, and the four that we wish for—gain, praise, fame, pleasure— can knock us off balance as much as their dreaded opposites."
As Buddha, the ancients and our modern Zen teachers firmly teach, exemplify, encourage...
"No matter how bad it is, it would be worse if you weren’t sitting every day."
-Roshi Bodhin Kjohlede
Excerpts from:
Becoming the Wind-by
Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede
-Publication, Zen Bow:
Adapting to Change
volume ###viii
numbers 1&2 2015-16
For the complete Dharma article: Becoming the Wind, including Roshi's elaboration on the Eight Winds and how to have one's practice benefit from our life situations, whatever they may be, can be read in the following Zen Bow:
https://podcast.rzc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/ZB+Adapting+to+Change.pdf
* photo: Intensive 2019 w/Roshi Bodhin Kjohlede, Sensei Jissai Prince-Cherry hosted at
Cleveland Zazen Group, Larry and Susan Rakow.
And attendees who as poet Shelley says, found "a smooth spot of glassy quiet amidst those battling tides."
