When the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center Meditation Hall Burns: A Reflection on Practice and Compassion
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I received news that the meditation hall at Tassajara had burned to the ground.
For many, this is a reminder of impermanence—mujo—a core teaching in Zen Buddhism. Forms arise and pass away. Nothing is fixed. Nothing is permanent.
I have sat in that zendo.
Not as a visitor, but as one who lived within the rhythm of practice at the San Francisco Zen Center, and who, together with others under the guidance of my teacher, helped complete the Kaisando or Memorial Hall, dedicated to Sunryu Suzuki Roshi. Those were days of discipline, silence, and deep immersion—not only in zazen, but in the vast body of Buddhist texts that lined the shelves. I read them late into the night, absorbing what I could, believing that within those pages lay the wisdom to free the human mind from suffering.
And yet, one memory from Tassajara has stayed with me more vividly than any sutra.
I was there with a former Israeli soldier. In the stillness of that mountain retreat, he spoke to me—perhaps because I am Muslim—about his experience in killing Arabs in Palestine. There was no pride in his voice. Only a quiet sadness. A remorse that seemed to have followed him into the zendo.
I did not argue with him. I did not judge him. I listened.
That moment revealed something profound to me: that beneath identity, ideology, and conflict, there remains a human being capable of remorse. And that remorse, fragile as it is, may be the beginning of awakening.
But it also left me with a question that has only grown stronger with time.
If the practice is real… if compassion is truly awakened… then where does it go?
In recent times, I have witnessed Buddhist monks from the Theravada tradition walking across great distances in the name of peace, drawing attention to the suffering of humanity. Their steps carried a message beyond the meditation hall—into the world where children are killed, where families are torn apart, where war continues to define the lives of the innocent.
And I ask myself: where is this voice within Zen?
Institutions such as the San Francisco Zen Center and other leading schools of Zen in the West have preserved the forms of practice with remarkable dedication. The zendo is maintained. The rituals continue. The teachings are transmitted.
But when I look at the world—at the suffering of children in war-torn lands—I do not hear a collective cry. I do not see a movement of the same magnitude rising from within these institutions to meet that suffering directly.
Is the practice turning inward at the expense of the world?
The Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism is not one of withdrawal. It is a vow to remain with all beings until suffering is alleviated. It is not merely to understand emptiness, but to embody compassion in action.
So I cannot help but feel that the burning of the zendo is not only a lesson in impermanence.
It is also a question.
What is being lost… and what is being revealed?
If the structure that housed our silence is gone, what remains of the vow that silence was meant to cultivate?
Perhaps this fire is not an end, but an invitation—to rebuild not only the hall, but the direction of the practice itself.
To step beyond the cushion.
To carry the stillness of zazen into the noise of the world.
To allow compassion to take form where it is most needed—not only in the quiet transformation of the individual, but in the collective response to suffering wherever it appears.
I write this not as a rejection of Zen, but as someone who has lived within its walls, who has felt its depth, and who still believes in its potential.
But belief must be matched by action.
Otherwise, the zendo may stand again…
while the world continues to burn.
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