The Three Messengers

Robert Rakusan Ricci, Senior Monastic - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 07/27/2022 - The three messengers: old age, sickness, and death. Why do we call them messengers? What do they tell us? Do we listen? And how do we respond? In this poetic offering, Rakusan talks about how he holds his personal encounters and experience of the three messengers in light of Master Dogen's teachings (...to study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self....) along with the wisdom of Leonard Cohen ("Who by Fire"). Rakusan gently admonishes us to heed the call of the three messengers and give voice to our Bodhisattva vows.