BECOMING & FORGETTING

Shugetsu, or Delia, as I know her, has lived inside & outside Zen monastaries and recently moved from a Zen household in Corvallis to Portland, Orgeon. I'm not really sure how we became friends, I guess through her photographs of jizo statues that I adore so much.



To me, Delia's style is beautiful; she lives in a way that is true to her heart, her intelligence. Her blog, Shugetsu, Becoming & Forgetting is playful and lighthearted, and just when you get sucked in, she'll write about a slice-of-life that bites to the core, and you'll end up crying a little too. I admire Delia because it's not easy to stay aware of one's truth and live it. I feel like she pulls me back to sanity every time I check out her photos or click on her blog.

Anyone who's done time on the spiritual path and/or been involved with saving-the-world philanthropy knows that the hiearchy can be cliquier than high school and aspiring masters are not always, but sometimes more arrogant than someone who's never meditated a day in their life. The deal with Delia is that she really keeps it simple and practices the one thing I ever found useful from the whole spiritual/metaphysical freeway--and that is, if you do nothing else, try and be kind.

Here are some THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT DELIA SHUGETSU:

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE:

1) Math & science tutor
2) Ladies' clothing salesgirl
3) Biomedical researcher
4) Zen monastic


FOUR MOVIES I WOULD WATCH OVER AND OVER (AND DO):

1) Grave of the Fireflies
2) Anything by Hayao Miyazaki
3) The Merchant-Ivory films
4) I Capture the Castle


FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:

1) Two Zen monasteries in California (Tassajara) and Oregon (Great Vow
Zen Monastery)
2) San Francisco's Duboce Triangle
3) A small sheep farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley


FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH:

I don't watch TV, but I'll share my favorite books instead:

1) The Way it Is, Ajahn Sumedho
2) Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit, Robert Kennedy
3) The Universe in a Single Atom, Dalai Lama
4) Any book of poetry by Jane Hirschfield


FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON VACATION IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS

1) Lithuania
2) Ireland
3) Denman Island BC
4) Deep inside myself


FOUR WEBSITES I VISIT DAILY (Or at least Weekly):

1) BBC Radio Ulster
2) Flickr.com
3) My blog, shugetsu.blogspot.com
4) NY Times news feed


FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
1) Natto & raw egg over brown rice
2) Kimchi
3) Blintzes
4) Gingersnaps


FOUR PLACES I WOULD BE RIGHT NOW:

1) Yoshino, Japan
2) Belfast, Northern Ireland
3) (I'm making a note lately of not yearning for things to be
otherwise--and this is all I seem to be able to come with.)