Hymn To The Perfection Of Wisdom

I hadn't wanted to ask anyone to take over the Friday morning kokyo spot, which David had been doing for a long time - at least not yet. It seemed the easiest thing was to do it myself; I always enjoy being kokyo, and I know how hard it is to do the solo for the Hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom, having got my breathing all wrong one of the times I had done it in the past.
I wasn't expecting to be so moved by doing it. I noticed how much softer my voice sounded than usual; it wasn't that I was trying to channel David's way of chanting, but also, thinking of him as I chanted, I couldn't help but hear his voice, and that was more powerful than anything else.
After the closing bows, the doan slightly mis-hit a bell, and she and I looked at each other and pulled little faces, which changed the mood. And then, when I had gone back up to my office during soji, someone came to say they wanted to take on the kokyo position as an offering; I had had someone else in mind to take it over, who I knew would do a lovely job, but I had also been thinking that I should give a kokyo position to the person who was offering anyway, so it seems to fit very well.
Before service I had dokusan. After I had settled on the cushion, Paul asked, "What is Buddha mind?" I replied, "Thinking about sesshin".

Just Sitting And Not Just Sitting

In my second practice period at Tassajara, I had dokusan with Linda Ruth, and said to her something like, "I love being here, I love living in the mountains, I love the silence, I enjoy oryoki, service, work, the baths, all that stuff. But I am struggling with how much zazen we sit". Her reply, which may have just been her being skillfully kind, was along the lines of, "It's fine to say you struggle with the amount of sitting. It's the people who say, 'I love zazen, I wish I could sit more' who worry me'.
This past week or so I have been loving zazen. I'm not going to go so far as to say I wish I could sit more. And it's not like it has felt effortless; my body has been more wonky than usual since the bike crash a few weeks ago, and my hips and shoulders don't feel properly lined up, but sitting in full lotus feels good for that. I have had several experiences of jolts of energy releasing around various parts of the body, as I have described before; one yesterday was strong enough to jerk my hands out of my mudra. And it's not like I haven't felt tired, but I have been enjoying breathing into my abdomen, and up into the solar plexus which feels like it needs refreshing. And it's not like I haven't been getting caught up in thoughts, but they haven't been as corrosive on the whole.
It has felt good to settle in the zendo as off the cushion I feel like I have been pulled in different directions this week, and today's activity gives a little flavour of that: I took photographs of the lamps in the Buddha Hall which we are replacing, and are going to try and sell on eBay; I printed out the oryoki crew list for the month to post around the building so that no-one expects there to be breakfast in the zendo tomorrow; I worked with Renee on sending some of our chip incense to a well-known actor who has been connected with Zen Center for many years; I put some talks online, including Michael's from Wednesday which got off to a strange start as the clip for the microphone had fallen off - I dashed upstairs thinking that there was a spare one in a box, but then had no idea where the box was and decided the most expedient thing would actually be to bring down the old mic and receiver and plug that in to the new system, though when I took the mute button off, there was a ghastly noise for a moment, which is why the recording starts with a loud laugh - and I fixed a new clip onto the mic and tidied up a lot of cables; I continued with the tenken report for the month, though I am still less than half done; I sent a few emails out thinking about logistics for getting the Young Urban Zen group to be able to meet every week, especially with the Intensive coming up; I sent out pictures from Pride to those who were in them; after lunch I walked up to Japantown since my bike is at the menders, to pick up some oryoki supplies as someone is coming tomorrow to buy a set, and stopped at the pop-up ice cream store in Hayes Valley on the way back for some refreshment, and found Tanya and Jay had had the same idea; had a bath, shaved my head, sat some more zazen and was kokyo for the memorial service for Vicki's mother who died last weekend. I have been loving chanting this week as well; there is nothing like being full-throated to see if there is any tension lingering as you push the last of the air out of your lungs.
And with that, I should be on my way to Anna's house-warming up the street, which should be a very relaxing way to spend the evening.

Inevitably The Fog Rolls In Again

As you can imagine, I have heard a lot of dharma talks over the years, and I know that my response to them is less dictated by the quality of the talk itself and more by the quality of my attention. I had many strong experiences sitting at talks at Tassajara, where I was barely even taking in what was being said, but was completely focused on the experience of having the speaker in front of me, and conversely, sat through plenty of talks unable to keep my eyes open regardless of the fine dharma being presented.
Last night Vicki gave a talk; it was not the talk she planned to give, as she said she had not been able to find her notes. Speaking to me earlier she thought she might just invite questions from the assembly, but instead she spoke eloquently and movingly, and recounted some family history from the time of the Second World War.
Towards the end she talked about names, and how the dharma names of everyone who was wearing robes in the room mean something very deep about their intention.
I was not having a great day yesterday, waking up feeling fragile, and having a long and intense dokusan with Paul where a number of emotions came pouring out. He encouraged me to look at what this situation was teaching me, but I came away feeling unresolved - I still feel too enmeshed to see new lessons, though I see and feel only too clearly that a lot of old deep stuff has been re-activated.
When Vicki talked about names though, I connected again with a feeling that I had had during my trip, about my intention in life, which, as I mentioned to someone the other day, I recognised as being closely related to the second part of my dharma name, understood to be the aspirational side of one's character. In 2004 I was given Kennin as the second half of my name, and it was translated for me as 'building human-heartedness', with other renditions being 'benevolence' or 'the highest virtue'. Paul changed it to Gennin for my tokudo, 'manifesting virtue', and the way I have been relating to this recently, as I have expressed here, has been around the idea of trying to be able, and available, to meet everyone with love. I know I am not doing so well at that right now, but the feeling I had during the talk was of connecting with that as my deep intention, and having faith that, because it will remain deep inside me, it will continue to manifest .

Dokusan

I have never much been one for planning my future. Which is just as well: if I had had any plans for myself eleven or twelve years ago, I would probably not have taken the opportunity to move to Zen Center when it arose. At the time I had a nice life in London, a great job, a lovely flat, a steady group of friends, and a jazz band - but I always had the idea in the back of my head that something else would happen. I just didn't know what.
These days I have formulated something like a five year plan, which includes connecting with the sangha in England, with a view to eventually moving back there, more time at Tassajara, and, when the time comes, being shuso - or as Konin says, perhaps from her Japanese training, doing shuso. All of which sounds very nice, and is perfectly plausible. Except that I have recently been presented with something of a Plan B, which does not completely fit with my Plan A. So, since Paul is in town from Tassajara for a few days, I asked for dokusan with him.

There we were, face to face at six o'clock this morning. There is always a moment, once I have settled on my cushion, robes tucked neatly, sleeves under control, mudra in place, where I exhale deeply and look up to meet Paul's eyes, and in that moment of meeting, I try to figure out which of us is going to speak first. Today he got the first word in, noticing that my brow was furrowed - it's true, I usually need a few minutes to really settle with the situation, and this time I had my opening speech all prepared, and wanted to get to it.
We discussed Plan A and Plan B, and mused as to whether one would be better for my path of practice than the other. There were no conclusions, but I was happy that at least we both knew where we stood at the moment, and now I get to see what unfolds in the next weeks and months, and how attached I am to things turning out the way I want them to.