Keeping Time

Dear Friends,

The farming season is officially over! Whew! I haven’t written a blog for months. Not because I didn’t have time, but because the swirling activity was all geared towards outside, external, farm business, and necessary haste. I’ve written newsletters for Old Frog Pond Farm, but they promote the farm and encourage visitors. For blog writing, I like to travel on back roads, interior paths, to keep my finger on the pause button, to listen for thoughts that arrive in quiet moments and wend my way. A little like how I sometimes begin a sculpture. This morning I stayed in bed with my eyes closed and let the dreaming continue until seven! Instead of the darkness I was greeted with this view.

Sunrise Colors in the Pond

 I share this poem by the great 13th century Chinese Zen Master Wumen, the compiler of The Gateless Gate koan collection.

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

The great Zen master, Dogen Zenji, a 14th century philosopher, linguist, and poet, wrote in the fascicle, Uji, “The Time-Being.”

Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. . . . Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.

 Translated by Dan Welch and Kazuaki Tanahashi from The Moon in a Dewdrop, writings of Zen Master Dogen

Dogen’s Uji text is only a few pages long, but he completely twists and turns and challenges our view of time. As a teacher he wants us to realize the wonder and completeness of each moment and not be caught by the conventional view of time as a continuum. These and other writings about time are inspiring a new sculpture, The Keepers of Time, though the title is always provisional until it is complete.

It begins with a wheel, one of two old cart wheels leaning against the chicken coop. This wheel has eighteen spokes, six more than hours on a clock. The Timekeepers are women who will inhabit the wheel. I envision them placing the numerals for the clock in position around the perimeter of the wheel.

I'm not sure if the Timekeepers recognize that time is not an abstraction, but something they are creating. Do they know there is no time apart from their creating time? How will they each play with their hours, days, and weeks ahead?

How do I have more time to read and write? This thought arrived in my mind this morning? I held it as if it was lightly filled with helium. It had form. But as I stayed with my attention on this thought, it squirmed away. For a moment I couldn’t find it. Then as if it could slither like a ghost under a door, it appeared again. It wasn’t a shape any longer. It was detaching, losing meaning.

In mid-November I gave a Dharma talk, Time Present, at Zen Mountain Monastery. Writing this talk is what started me on this investigation of Time. If you’d like to listen click here.                                             

Another new project is Two Chairs—Conversations with my friend, Lyedie Geer. Posted on the farm’s youtube channel are the first two videos of this new collaboration. In the winter of 2022, inspired by a purple velvet chair I inherited from my mother, and Lyedie’s blue chair, we decided to get together for conversation. We didn’t know where or what we were doing, but it was a treat to be together in person and talk as the pandemic was losing its grip First, I went to Putney, Vermont, with my mother’s chair in tow, then Lyedie traveled down to the farm and we sat in two chairs outside my studio near the pond.

In the first Two Chairs—Conversations, we explore Pruning—daring to make those difficult cuts—in the orchard and in one’s own life. In the second, Splash, we dig into the creative process as we talk about one of my new sculptures. We’re grateful to be working with David Shapiro, who also made our farm’s video.

Finally, I want to let you know Lyedie is an amazing coach of creative women. Until December 21st, she is accepting applications for the Bluebird award! I suggest if you have any desire to be encouraged and inspired in your creative life, click here to learn about the three-month pro-bono coaching program she is offering.

That’s it for now!

With love, Linda

This Apple-Shaped Earth

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them
is something grand,

I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is
happiness . . . .

                                  —Walt Whitman

This Apple-Shaped Earth, bronze, Linda Hoffman, 2022

Do you remember as a kid thinking people on the other side of the world were standing upside?

My new bronze sculpture, This Apple-Shaped Earth is installed in Brookline, Massachusetts part of Studios without Walls exhibit along the Muddy River near the Longmont “T” stop. The theme is The Earth We Walk, and I made this piece especially for the exhibit. I wanted to highlight that this earth is all we have—there is nowhere else to go. We need to take care of it. This wonderful outdoor exhibit features thirteen artists. Put it on your summer to-do list! It will be up through September 5, 2022.

I also have a sculpture at The Edith Wharton’s Estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, part of the SculptureNow at the Mount 2022, featuring large-scale work of thirty artists. My favorite piece in the exhibit is the majestic dragon, Cecilia, by sculptor Robin Toast. It took three years to cut and stitch pieces of sheet metal to make the quilted dragon’s skin. It’s definitely worth a visit! The exhibit runs through October 19.

Cecilia, stitched sheet metal, Robin Toast, 2022

And a third outdoor exhibit that I recommend is the 2022 Outdoor Arts Biennial: Passages in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Take a stroll through this delightful village and you will find thirteen sculptures elegantly installed throughout the community. Refuge, my giraffe riding on a turtle’s back is installed near the library and playground. I’m hoping to see the giraffe and turtle’s noses rubbed smooth from young fingers discovering it.

Refuge, Linda Hoffman, Installed in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Photo: Molly Dickinson

And later today, Sunday June 19th, I will be giving a Dharma talk at the Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the regular Sunday Service which begins at 9:30 with liturgy, followed by two periods of sitting meditation, and then the talk. I’ll be talking about Pruning, Juneteenth, and the Seven Factors of Awakening. The talk will be up on Zen Mountain Monastery’s podcast page sometime this week,

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Juneteenth Day!

Happy Summer Solstice!

 Love, Linda

The Year of the Frog: What Orchardists Do While Apple Trees are Chilling

I’m working in the studio on a sculpture of a frog. I talk to it while I sculpt it. I ask questions. I stroke it and I pat it. You might say I have fallen in love with this frog—though I’m not intending to kiss it, and definitely not desiring to meet a prince. This is not a frog of fairytales, but the frog who is the subject of a haiku by Matsuo Basho, Japan’s most influential 17th century haiku master.

Haiku was originally a seventeen-syllable introductory verse to a longer series of linked poems. Then in the middle of the 15th century, people began to write these short poems as a separate form. They sent them to each other, shared them. They were often playful. Basho, a maverick, was keen to use this form of poetry to express something more serious. For almost all of his life he explored the writing of haiku. Haiku became an evocation of an experience, of a moment. As an art form, it aligned with the development of Zen Buddhism in Japan, and became an instantaneous presentation of the whole without intellectual commentary.

How much could be expressed in few words? How to express an emotion like loneliness without using the word?

In 2001, when I first visited this rundown farm with its old apple orchard, I was awed by its large pond. Years earlier I had lived in Japan and been influenced by the Zen poets and traditional Japanese arts. This pond reminded me of one of Basho’s haiku and I named the farm Old Frog Pond. There are at least a hundred translations of the poem—some quite strange—but literarily it is:

Furu ike ya/ old pond (‘ya’ is a word of emphasis but without specific meaning)
Kawazu tobikomu/ frog jumps
Mizu no oto/water’s sound

In a traditional haiku, the first line often sets the scene. In this poem, we are introduced to the view of the old pond. This ageless pond might make us think about the beauty of the moon’s reflection in water, or how an old willow’s branches coax ripples on its surface. The pond may hold in its depth old carp, ancient beings.

In the second line, our gaze narrows as we see a frog. In traditional haiku writing, “Frog” was considered a season word to indicate spring. In Basho’s poem this little frog appears, a small creature, perhaps just coming out of the mud on an early spring day. Our mind holds the fragility of the frog within the expansive pond. We hold the singular among the universal.

Then, all of sudden, we are woken from our musings with a ‘splash’—the sound caused by the frog’s jump breaking the surface of the water.

Suddenly, everything disappears—our thoughts about this old pond, about the frog, the season, the setting. Only the sound exists. We are no longer thinking or making up a story. No frog and princess here. For a moment we even forget ourselves—just splash!

What does it take to be absorbed in the moment? Why is this significant?

How do we absorb ourselves in an experience? How do we have an experience?

Who is this ‘we’ that experiences?

Basho trained for several years as a Zen monk. He continued to wear the robes of a monk as his daily garb. His writing of haiku was the practice of a Zen art. His language was always simple yet conveyed the complexity of our heart/mind. In Japanese the character for kokoro, carries the meaning of ‘heart’ and ‘mind’, unlike in English where these two words are distinct.

Working on sculpture is different from writing. I form the muscles of the leg with melted wax. I press and shape the thick and sinuous body parts. I carve into hard wax the lines of the nail ridges on its webbed feet. Wax sticks to my finger tips and palms, and hardened wax packs behind my nails. When I work on the frog, I touch only frog. When I gaze at the frog, I see only frog. This frog does not jump. It is sitting. Contemplative you might say. Prayerful even. There is no splash.

A concrete pillar stands in the water between the lower pond and the small stone bridge before the pond water flows into the vast Delaney wetlands. It’s been calling for a sculpture since I moved here. Once this frog is cast into bronze, it will live on the post and gaze east towards the rising sun. Its feet will dangle and tease the water.

While working on the sculpture, I wondered if the frog should be carrying anything on its back or holding anything in its hands. But the frog was adamant. I’m just a frog. I’m a frog that is completely myself. Not going anywhere, not doing anything. Maybe that’s why I love it. Maybe that’s what love is—not needing something or someone or ourselves to be any more than just what and who we are. Not needing to do anything, only experiencing this moment fully.

            Next spring I hope you will come to see this Frog in its new home.
May we all find the stillness and wakefulness of Basho’s Frog in the New Year!

Spring Training at a Zen Monastery

Before spring slides into summer, I wanted to share about the last three months which will also explain why there have been so few blog posts. I’ve been on an intense retreat—some of it quarantined in my studio, some of it at Zen Mountain Monastery in the New York Catskills, and some of it, following the spring Old Frog Pond Farm schedule.

I was asked by my Zen teacher to serve as Shuso, or Chief Disciple for the three-month training period, we call Ango. The training period, Ango, dates back to the time of the Buddha. In his time, the year was broken down into three-month periods much like our four seasons. There were two seasons of intensified practice when the community of monks, the Sangha, gathered and practiced together. These periods coincided with the monsoon rains, when it would have been dangerous and difficult for the monks to be wandering the countryside. Instead, they gathered in groves and set up temporary living huts, practicing together and living near their teacher. These intensified three-month periods, called Ango, alternated with the seasons when the Sangha would disperse, going off in the own directions, to beg for food, find shelter, and spend the time in solitary practice.

At Zen Mountain Monastery we practice Ango in the spring and the fall. The Shuso, or chief disciple is chosen by their teacher, and they can be either a lay person or a monk. Their role is to inspire the Sangha with their devotion and commitment to practice. The training period ends with a ceremony where the chief disciple gives their first talk on koan and is then challenged by the Sangha with live questions.

At the end of May, my time as Shuso ended with a talk on the koan, “Dongshan’s Essential Way.” Dongshan was a 9th century Chinese Zen master. The koan is a brief teaching dialogue between a student and their teacher. This koan begins with the student saying, “I cannot see the essential path; I still can’t become free of discriminating consciousness.”

What is this essential path? The student can’t see her way. Is it hidden? Who is hiding it? What is hiding it? And why is this student asking the question right now. Today?

I gave my talk on the last Sunday in May. It was followed by questions from other students, and then congratulatory poems. The ceremony marked the completion of my transition to become a senior student in the order, and the opportunity to now take on a more important role within the Sangha.

Many of you know how much I love Zen practice and specifically, training at Zen Mountain Monastery. A full matrix of activities shape our training: zazen (meditation), liturgy, body practice, art practice, work practice, study of the teachings, and face-to-face encounters with our teacher. Most importantly, it is following the rigorous monastic schedule, putting aside one’s own desires, and joining the community. It is said that being in community is like being in a rock tumbler. We need each other to bump up against, to be polished. However, to put it most simply, Zen training is the study of reality as it really is when we are not confused, when our mind is not obscured by attachments and clinging to that which is not real. We aspire through our practice to move among grasses of this world with equanimity and compassion, to be fully present, to do good and not cause harm.

I haven’t felt that I could write about this rite of passage until it was over. There were moments when I knew for certain my teacher had made a grave mistake. I could not do this. But I also knew there was no way out. Of course I was going to do what I was asked to do. I was going to give it everything I could. And the Sangha was there with their love and their support.

Now that I’ve a little time back home, and have hung up my new white robe and am wearing jeans, t-shirt and work boots, I wanted to share with those of you are curious a little about this rite of passage in the Zen training world. And here is a podcast posted where you can listen to the ceremony or find it on the Zen Mountain Monastery website. If any of you want to talk to me about my experience or about Zen Mountain Monastery, I love talking about it. And if you’d like to join us for morning meditation at the farm, drop me an email and I’ll let you know the details.

I look forward to reconnecting with many of you in person. We’re preparing the grounds for our 15th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit opening on August 1 with twenty-five sculptors bringing new work on the theme of “Emergence.” We’ve scheduled storytelling events with Fugitive Productions, and Plein Air Poetry returns also on the theme of “Emergence.” The fruit is ripening. It looks like mother nature is providing a bountiful and beautiful crop, and our farmers are working hard to encourage its health and growth.

The verse that accompanied the koan is on the verse board below:

Wet with morning dew
The tips of the ten thousand grasses
All contain the light of day.

Enjoy these last days of spring!

Group Photo after the Ceremony