See also What Was New in 2002.

Go to Readers' Comments: 2001-2002,  2000,  1999

There used to be a lot more comments on cuke.com but I don't post most comments so much here anymore because it's just too time consuming. They do get in the site here and there but just not posted here. But anyway - here's what there is.-DC, 2006 - Working on blog software so folks can add comments to cuke automatically. - DC, 1/30/08

The main thing that's gone up in this section in 2006 is/are the letters from Eric Arnow from Thailand and Burma.

9-25-08 - A message about Thank You and OK!. I don't usually print emails and letters I get about my books but I do get them and thought I'd share this one. Thanks Nicolas. - DC

8-08-08 - An auspicious day.

An important note about how I shouldn't demean Suzuki's legacy with personal opinion and my shocking response.

dchad:

as a great admirer of SS, i was sadded to see the "impeach em both now" section of cuke.com. what a genuine shame to see his legacy made smaller by association with your personal view.

RK

DC's response:

Thanks for your note.

I know you're right. But there's tons of personal view on this website. There's Suzuki stuff and non Suzuki stuff. It's not pure. I'll put yours on it too. I'm really busy now but I'll post your note. When I get time I'll make a Don't Impeach Em Both Now tee shirt.. But also you're right and I do have plans to separate Suzuki stuff and keep it pure. In the meantime It'll all be in the mix. In the even smaller meantime I'll post your note.

Further DC comment: He is right. I'm working on the SSLP hot and heavy now and also on finishing up a soon-to-be-released publishing project and I don't mix them. The Suzuki stuff is going to be out of my hands and passed on at some point so I should start separating it and let it have its own website and I'll have my personal expression and opinion website separate. They should both have blog aspects and allow the reader to directly enter comments. It could be two distinct sections of cuke but better two different domains. Gotta get on this.

4-07-08 - Yesterday I got an email asking about Shunryu Suzuki and his habit of buying the worst vegetables. Here's that email, my response, a response to the response, and a response to that. - dc

3-26-08 - Another offer to buy cuke.com!

From: Keral Patel
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:07 AM
To: dchad3@sonic.net
Subject: Domain name cuke.com
Hello Sir,

I saw your domain name cuke.com. If it is for sale then please let me know.

I am interested in buying this type of domain names

Thanking You.

-Keral.

DC's answer:

How about $2,000,000

We're all bozos on this bus." - Firesign Theater
www.cuke.com, originally a site for Crooked Cucumber: the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki (Broadway Books)
Thank You and OK!: an American Zen Failure in Japan (Shambhala)
Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki, Author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shambhala)

3-25-08 - Oops, linked to the wrong Robert Adams site yesterday. That's the one Andrew specifically doesn't recommend. Here are the suggested ones and Andrew Main's note on Adams.

3-24-08 Robert Adams - an Advaita teacher - check out Robert Adams Infinity Institute - thanks Andrew - in links

3-14-08 - A message from Brother Lor on Opray's Eckhart Tolle classes.

2-05-08 - two new letters from Eric Arnow

1-30-08 - Tom Cabarga on how Cabarga Creek got it's name.

1-13-07 - See this email about web site development from a good reader named Richard O. DeWald and Here's his web site. Take a look at his frustrating experience with the SFZC on his blog: My refuge as a sesshin stooge.  And then go to Buddhism Without Bullshit: My sesshin at Dharma Field. Let's hope I am together enough to take advantage of his offer. - DC

1-07-08 - Correspondence between Jeanie Stearns and DC mainly concerning Phillip Wilson

11-06-07 - A picture and a poem from Gene DeSmidt

10-01-07 - Karl Renz will be in the Bay Area (Mountain View, San Francisco, San Rafael) October 3-7 (see the schedule) Read Andrew Main's informative message about this Advaita-like independent teacher - with links and quotes.

9-09-07 - A thoughtful email received a week ago from Robert Anderson in which he expresses concern about idealizing Shunryu Suzuki.

7-08-07 - Reuven Benyuhmin sent some interesting emails yesterday  - about his name, the word "bupkis," misrepresentations of his past, the meaningless trivia of a great deal (maybe 100%) of what we're involved in, and the emptiness of everything - in response to the Early Tassajara, Zen Mt. Center, Practice Period Alumni List (1967- 1989). This, as everything on cuke, is printed with his permission, and, as with everything herein, can be modified as he wishes. We are not journalists but... but... what are we? Reuven sort of answers that. - in Reader's Comments

4-06-07 - Two interesting quotes received recently:

3-22-07 - A note received a few days ago from Gary Gach.

11-30-06 - Used Readers' Comments today for this exchange on the ten fetters which exposes the folly of Mahayana Buddhism.

12-23-05 - 3 recent contributions

Loring Palmer writes from Rishikesh.

Check out Reuven's latest contribution at Sangha News.

10-23-05 - Reuven Ben Yuhmin submits a calligraphy and explanation. Dig it.

4-27-05 - David Schneider comments on the tenken position.

A new email from Eric Arnow in Thailand from a week ago. Read 'em all.

4-11-05 - from Dan Kaplan

Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 09:25:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Daniel M Kaplan
Subject: some thoughts on the webpage
Hi David

In perusing your website., I looked at the suzuki roshi related group list. I found it interesting that there seem to be innumerable other zen centers run by former zc folks not listed, i.e katherine thanas, steve stuckey, lew richmond, ed brown etc. Wondered why they weren't listed, unless it just takes up too much space. Hope you are well. Enjoyed seeing you, however briefly at the koan seminar. An interesting evolving experiment in practicing together. dan

DC responds to Dan Kaplan's suggestion: To make it short, I responded to Dan that the limitation wasn't space but time, that I just can't keep up with everything. But I can't dismiss what he said. It would be nice to have a thorough list of Zen groups in the Suzuki lineage and Katagiri's too, with photos and a nice presentation.

So I ask cuke.com readers to send in links, images with photos of the teachers and places, names of the groups and where they are, contact info and info on teachers with no web presence. I'll collect what I get and we'll see what happens. - DC 

6/09/04 - Correction from alert reader on the source of the two jobs of a monk being to meditate and sweep the temple. See What's New, 5/15/04, below. [I know this isn't 2003 but I don't have a 2004 Readers' Comments page. Maybe some night I'll do it. - DC]

5/05/03 - A letter of 4-08-03 from Mitsu Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki's widow.

4/24/03 - From Dr Alastair J. Reid, Girton College, Cambridge [sent 4/21/03]

4/18/03 - A note from Neil Rubinking

4/03 - There are some comments in the Current Events section.

4/12/03 - Two obscure and interesting errata in Thank You and OK! pointed out by alert readers.

4/10/03  - Bishop Joey comments on the article (4/05/03) on  the  Saint Stupid's Day  Parade which he founded. Comment located at bottom of article.

3-10-03 - Selling my house, downsizing, setting sail on a new voyage. - DC

2-13-03 - A note on war and peace from my old high school friend, Lindsay Sharp in Austin: 

I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Crooked Cucumber. I remember a poignant line in the book, when Shunryu was in Japan before the war and the government was asking men to join the armed services "to preserve peace." I've got an Americans for Peace sign in the yard.

1-24-03 - Thanks to Albert Rudolph for the following exchange which echoes the thoughts of others. - DC

David: Your posted "Shunryu Suzuki lecture given at the City Center in San Francisco on Sunday, June 7, 1971" ---- have you considered editing out the "you knows" & touching it up a bit? I think it would be much more useful that way.

Albert Rudolph
--------

I will be putting up a slightly edited version such as you suggest in a short while.

DC
--------

Thanks, because I decided not even to read the lecture do to the annoying 323 "you knows" etc. (which aren't such a big deal when you hear the lecture).

AR
--------

Here it is. [not that lecture anymore, but there are other verbatim and lightly edited lectures via this link.]

DC

1/16/03 - a question from a reader in Thailand on work and practice at Zen Center and then his observations on the practice in Thailand and Burma.

1/8/03Here's Stuart Lachs' reply to some of my comments of 12/21/02 which you can see the link to below. Also there are a few new comments from me in reply to his reply. To see what this is all about, go to the Shoes Page and check out Stuart's article on the Myth of the Zen Master. 

I'm a little tardy with this posting because, not long after posting my reply to Lachs, I went to the emergency room and ended up getting an angioplasty. I was out in a day but there was Christmas and some complications after New Years and I got a bit lazy.- DC

Go to Readers' Comments: 2001-2002,  2000,  1999