Taking Care Of Business

I have heard it said that the job of the shuso is to be the friend of everyone in the practice period. One of the ways that Lien is definitely accomplishing this is by making coffee in the morning - and not just one pot, either. She makes both pots of regular and a pot of decaf, all before four thirty in the morning, by all accounts (I am not around to verify this, but I have been told it is so). No wonder that she was given a milk frother during skit night, ostensibly for her heroics in the shuso jundo olympics, but mainly as a recognition that she was performing valuable Bodhisattva activity at such an unearthly hour. I understand that said frother is now being deployed in the early morning coffee round, which means we are one step closer to having the espresso bar in the building that many of us have long been agitating for - along with the hot tub on the roof. Then there will obviously be no further obstacles on the path to enlightenment.
For people in the building, it is not just the coffee that we appreciate, but also the little notes that Lien got into the habit of leaving on the pots, so much so that when she stopped writing them, she had requests to please continue. Each day a different gem, written on white masking tape, divided into three such as 'every day / is a / good day', 'where / is / buddha?', or my recent favourite, 'raindrops / & / roses'. Such are the little rituals which, as I have observed before, illuminate our practice life together.

The Coffee Made Me Do It

I am seeing the phrase "merging realization" in many of Dogen's fascicles, and each time I see it I think of merging traffic, so I am tempted to stretch the analogy: any time you are in a vehicle you are immediately traffic, and you can never be separate from traffic. Even though it may seem that when you merge onto the freeway, there is other traffic that you are joining, in reality there is only traffic. Traffic is not merely arising now; traffic abides in the phenomenal expression of traffic. Traffic may flow, but it is always traffic. Always traffic means the traffic may flow. Deeply consider the causes and conditions of traffic as you merge with it.

Study Hall

I am taking my time working my way through 'Taking Our Places', as it is all very valuable material. Here was something I read that seemed especially appropriate this week, from the chapter on vowing:
"It also helps to do such practice in the midst of a community so that we can find encouragement and support to carry on with what we know is the right thing to do, even though sometimes our energy and commitment may flag. When that happens, the others in our community pick us up and help us along - and we do the same for them. This is why religious practice over the millennia in all traditions has been communal, and includes observances to be carried out at appointed times of the day, week, month and year".
We had one such appointed time last Saturday, where we marked the beginning of our Fall Practice Period with an opening ceremony at the end of our one-day sitting. Paul had already observed in his lecture that hardly any of us has the discipline to complete a one-day sitting by ourselves (I would include myself in this), but that together we encourage each other. Practice period opening ceremonies at City Center usually involve everyone standing in a circle and stating their intention for the practice period. I have been trying to find a way to delineate the distinction between an intention and a vow, and I haven't come up with a good answer yet, but would be happy to hear suggestions. My stated intention was to try to meet everyone from a place of love and compassion and to trust that they wanted to meet me from the same place. As I looked around the room I was very happy to realise that I knew everyone's name in the circle, which strengthened the feeling of community for me; at the sitting there had been a few people I didn't recognise, including one woman who was visiting the city from Hong Kong, has found us through our website, and had wanted to experience sitting with other people; she said she had had a wonderful day.
As an aside, I notice that this is the one-hundredth post, which is a little milestone in its own way. I would like to thank Greg for getting this blog underway, and Dana for encouraging me to take it up, everyone who reads it in the four corners of the world, and those who write in with comments, all of which are appreciated. Here's to the next hundred.

Kinhin is not a coffee break

'Zen Seeds' by the Japanese nun Shundo Aoyama is a book I enjoy returning to from time to time, and not just because she is my homophonic namesake. The light style of her short pieces belies a strong and intense practice sensibility; I used a piece she wrote as the basis of a discussion with the Saturday sangha a couple of weeks ago, and everyone was amazed at how she cut very quickly to an essential point.
One idea of hers I particularly appreciate is this: 'When the abbot or any of the teachers is away from a temple for a week or so, the novices think nothing of it. But if there were no toilet paper, they would quickly feel its absence'. Since she herself is an abbess, her humility is striking.
Luckily I have never been responsible for the supply of toilet paper at Zen Center, but when I was tenzo, I felt that running out of coffee would be equally traumatic for many of the sangha, and in the early days of my term, I had to run to Safeway once or twice for a couple of pounds to tide us over until the next delivery and thus avert calamity.
I have long ceased to be surprised at people's caffeine intake during our early morning schedule - a while ago I listened to a recent resident declaring how she would get up at four every day, so that she could use the extra hour before the wake-up bell to drink two cups of coffee without having to rush, as without those two cups of coffee she would fall asleep during zazen. I refrained from speculating whether an extra hour's sleep every day might have the same effect. That said, I am still somewhat surprised to see people drinking coffee after four in the afternoon, but since they generally show up in the zendo the next morning, I don't worry about it too much.
Once I sat in on Paul Haller giving zazen instruction, and someone asked him if it was a good idea to drink coffee to combat drowsiness during sitting, and Paul went on to list all the ways that caffeine affects the body before concluding that actually it wasn't really the best thing to do to promote a relaxed awareness of body and mind.
Over the years I have heard many inos and other people declaring that kinhin is not a coffee break - which to me means that since we are participating in the schedule, we should be letting go of our own preferences and needs, and just do the next activity. And I have often heard that as students of Buddhism we should be constantly conscious of our own habits and how they cause us to behave in less than fully mindful ways.
When I first went to Tassajara, I was only drinking tea, and I made a point of only drinking it after lunch so as to keep my zazen 'pure' and uncaffeinated. I would even give that up during sesshins; since I replaced tea with a cocoa and honey drink, I don't think I was really gaining anything by it, but I liked to prove to myself that I could be free of caffeine addiction if I chose. When I went back to live there, I drank coffee during study, and also after lunch, and through sesshins as well. Now I drink three cups a day, and I notice when I don't get time to drink my usual dose in the course of a busy Saturday morning; I also notice that I am in no hurry to try and cut down right now. Maybe we need to run out one day soon to give me a little reminder of my addiction, though of course in this city, you are never far from a good coffee.