Today’s miniature is best read in context. Buy the book and read it from the beginning. Once you get to page 190, you’ll be caught up with this post.

I have not had any encounters in my life that could have lead to “… children and their innumerable children and their innumerable children and innumerable, innumerable cousins …” So far I’ve escaped fatherhood. This is an odd source of pride for me.

For the wood design enthusiast. Elbert Hubbard was the mover behind Roycroft. His implementation of the Arts and Craft ethos lives on today. There is a lot to be learned here including an hour long video produced by PBS.

Today I learned a new word, jingoistic. Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy”.


Robert Aitken is quite the story teller. 


My father was proud of his prowess at scratch off lottery tickets. Winning a few dollars made his day in a way that I never could understand. From time to time he  would ask me to send him scratch off lottery tickets from Idaho because we have different games. He told me once that those who play the Powerball type lotteries were fools easily separated from their money. He hoped to win big by scratching.


He never did.

Robert Aitken’s mother was a talented and engaged woman who raised two sons. She was troubled in her relationship with her mother.  Aitken confesses, “This karma affected her marriage, and ultimately me, I’m sure, though I lack the insight to say just how.”

“I lack the insight to say just how.” Thank you roshi for this teaching. The rains don’t come and the wind blows hard. I eat my dinner alone. Knowing or not knowing is not the trouble. Want one or the other and the road to hell is paved with questions. 

Sycamore spoons, roughed out and ready for finishing. carving by Will Simpson From Spoonery

Listen to an NHPR 2004 recorded interview with … “Dan Dustin is a wood artisan and spoon maker from Contoocook, New Hampshire. He’s been using his own unique method of making wooden spoons for 30 years. He begins by going into the woods, and “finding” the spoons within the branches of trees. He says the trees make the spoons, he just discovers them. His spoons cost as much as $100.”

“They were of the earth, earthy, and were not easily impressed.”

With this we see our own limits of expression. What sweeps away our grounding, points out to us where we are moored? Comfortable in a skin of nature, of art, of literature, of technology. What brings us to this ‘impressed’? The lightness of ‘impressed’ sings in the heart of this little boy.

Lunch time walkabout, Honey Bees working the plum blossoms, I left my smile there for you to find.

Grandpa Baker’s Failure”, number 170 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

About the saddest thing I’ve ever read. Short and in one paragraph, six sentences, Aitken paints a masterpiece of sadness expressed as Grandfather’s marital failure.

“He couldn’t attain the measure of human happiness that we all hope for ourselves.”

I marvel at Aitken’s skill at weaving story.

“A Fine Memory”, number 169 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

In todays miniature, roshi confesses to a poor memory. He describes the tricks he uses to support his memory and how in the end they fail him.

Exactly what is the teaching here?

Is it that old men have poor memories? No. Is it that the tricks we use to hide our failing are all useless? Maybe. Is it that knowing we are naked at all times, it is still fun to play? This feels pretty close.

I’m reading James Krenov’s “The Impractical Cabinetmaker” and what strikes me is how Krenov strips away all the jargon and talk of technicalities and advocates trusting our hands much the same way a Zen Master would strip away doubt and self-talk and advocate direct practice.Krenov ponders the problem as he sees it, that many craftsman loose their connection with the material and force their will on it. This leads to disasters of failure in design and execution all for the sake of showiness.

“Snagged in the pros and cons of technicalities we forget the broader meaning of a method and its relationship to our material… Being inventive at the expense of being sensitive may take us away from our best intentions and from the honest center of our craft… Craftsmen approach the work itself as having a definite and vital connection between the methods used and the nature of the result.”

“Simplicity is at the heart of so much that is fine… Simplicity needn’t be crude; it can, and should, include the sensitive… When the simple becomes obvious: a band of small discoveries, strung like pearls on a thread of curiousity, lend richness to our work.”

James Krenov
The Impractical Cabinetmaker 1979

“All Things are under the Law of Change”, number 168 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Yes indeed ‘all things are under the law of change’. Even this blog. Things have gone quiet here as other projects grew.  All things are under the law of change.

In this miniature, Robert Aitken paints an intimate portrait of living with his grandparents at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. This was back in 1928 and all things are under the law of change. Yet, how often do we forget this or wish it was some other way?

Old photographs show us change. They show us that “nothing survives after all – nothing at all.”

Here is a photo of a work under progress.

Here is a photo of the same piece completed and hanging in the Wawawai Canyon Winery gallery.

“Liquid Sunshine”, number 167 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Photo by Will Simpson From One world at a time

My meteorological friends will love today miniature. Aitken tells of his Hawaiian youth where “”liquid sunshine,” as we called it as children, when it sprinkles on a bright day. The sun shines through the light rain and the effect is lovely. The Hawaiians call this phenomenon kilihune.”

Turns out Hawaiians are quite creative in naming their rains. In a contest with the Inuit’s names for snow, the Hawaiians are the champions. Another example of Hawaiian names for rain which I found in an article in The Independent published in the UK, is lanipali, which means a very heavy shower. Its literal meaning, however, is “shower reaching to heaven”.

How sweet, a shower reaching to heaven. Those Hawaiians are close to the rain.

“Incredibly Naive”, number 166 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

One minute we feel superior the next we are dead. What good is this superior feeling now?


I’m reminded about the Seung Sahn saying “you must become stupid” as a way of practicing. What we call intellect and reason only get us so far down the path. At some point they become barriers. When death approaches, intellect and reason will be of no use. This become stupid is not a become ignorant. Instead it is becoming more open, less rigid.

don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know… don’t know…

Looks stupid but is intimate in ways knowledge and reason could never be.

It is a sad day. Zen has lost a giant. Hand together in gratitude. I have a picture of Daido that I’ll carry with me for 49 days.

“Reading the Book”, number 165 of 188 from Robert Aitken’s book Miniatures of a Zen Master.

Thank you Roshi for introducing me to Simone Weil.