I assume it will get quieter soon, but it hasn't happened yet this week. Yesterday we got a dozen or so people through tangaryo, and after the morning schedule today, I head off to Green Gulch for the inaugural Young Urban Zen retreat. There should be a couple of dozen of us there, and five or us at least are riding bikes over. Then I am planning to take most of Monday off.
There have been a number of interactions this week that probably would have gone differently if I weren't still recovering from last week: a whispered expletive to the doan in the zendo on Wednesday morning, chewing out the shuso at breakfast yesterday when she did something that I didn't think someone sitting tangaryo should be taking on themselves to do, and an interaction with a resident about turning lights off that came over, as I have just heard back, a little more hostile than it need have been. There have been apologies all round, and hopefully no lasting damage...
Showing posts with label tangaryo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tangaryo. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Monday, October 17, 2011
Entering
I left the tangaryo students pretty much to their own devices over the two days of sitting. They are supposed to be responsible for their punctuality and their effort; when I noticed on Saturday morning that some of them took longer to return to the zendo after oryoki, when people were already coming for 9:25 zazen, I encouraged them to support each other's practice by not lingering on their breaks.
I took the other meals with them, as we all ate together silently in the bustling dining room, and served them tea - with Renee's help on Friday. After dinner I went and sat with them for the last hour, before I walked them through how this morning's entering ceremony would go, noticing how they were at the end of a long day of sitting.
We get to do a lot of leaving ceremonies, but it has been more than a year since the last entering one here, and of course there is a different feeling to it, even if the form is basically identical. Paul noted that they are not really new - as they would be at Tassajara - but encouraged them to see this as a moment to reconnect with why they wanted to be here, to help motivate their practice. Of course we shouldn't need a ceremony to remind us of these things, but it always helps.
I took the other meals with them, as we all ate together silently in the bustling dining room, and served them tea - with Renee's help on Friday. After dinner I went and sat with them for the last hour, before I walked them through how this morning's entering ceremony would go, noticing how they were at the end of a long day of sitting.
We get to do a lot of leaving ceremonies, but it has been more than a year since the last entering one here, and of course there is a different feeling to it, even if the form is basically identical. Paul noted that they are not really new - as they would be at Tassajara - but encouraged them to see this as a moment to reconnect with why they wanted to be here, to help motivate their practice. Of course we shouldn't need a ceremony to remind us of these things, but it always helps.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Chocolate Index
'Tangaryo' has been a popular search word on the blog this week, no
doubt because the new students at Tassajara are sitting right now,
having a hot one I imagine, and probably 'quiet as lambs', as Gaelyn
described one set of students to me. We have our own tangaryo in a
couple of weeks, but ours is for people who have already spent some time
at the temple. So our new practice period students get to be lively
influences on the energy levels of the community right now.
The building certainly feels like it's buzzing this week; of course there are other factors at play, like the Indian Summer weather which settled over the city (and is currently disappearing in a fast-moving fog layer as I write) and the classes and other practice period offerings that draw crowds in. Personally I am in good fettle as well, helped along by the heat and sunshine. I notice that I feel more settled in my spine as I sit, and that I have more energy to tackle the things that need to be taken care of. All these things interweave.
Now, the only two addictions or vices that I readily admit to are coffee and chocolate, and I usually say by way of justification that they are fairly minor in the scheme of things. I know my consumption of both can vary depending upon my mood, and I can definitely report that I don't seem to require as much chocolate to sustain me as I did a while ago. It's not that I eat so much less necessarily, but there is less craving involved.
The building certainly feels like it's buzzing this week; of course there are other factors at play, like the Indian Summer weather which settled over the city (and is currently disappearing in a fast-moving fog layer as I write) and the classes and other practice period offerings that draw crowds in. Personally I am in good fettle as well, helped along by the heat and sunshine. I notice that I feel more settled in my spine as I sit, and that I have more energy to tackle the things that need to be taken care of. All these things interweave.
Now, the only two addictions or vices that I readily admit to are coffee and chocolate, and I usually say by way of justification that they are fairly minor in the scheme of things. I know my consumption of both can vary depending upon my mood, and I can definitely report that I don't seem to require as much chocolate to sustain me as I did a while ago. It's not that I eat so much less necessarily, but there is less craving involved.
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| Morning sun on the third floor |
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Reflections
At last night's Young Urban Zen meeting, after a little gentle prodding, and perhaps in the interest of gaining a few more readers, Shannon acquiesced to my outing her blog, which I had happened across after she left a comment on one of these posts. As with the Zen Beginner, I find it enormously helpful to have other people's perspectives not only on what I do, since I play a bit part in some of the entries, but on what I take for granted, as they figure out their steps on the path to being Buddhists.
At more than one Way-seeking Mind talk, I have heard people from more traditional religious backgrounds describe the relative difficulty of outing themselves to their parents as gay and outing themselves to their parents as Buddhists. For me the question "Am I a buddhist?" was less contentious than "Am I a monk?" - I think the only person who ever asked me if I considered myself a Buddhist was my sister-in-law who is more inclined to ask questions than anyone in my more immediate family.
I don't think I have told the story here about how I spent my tangaryo at Tassajara composing haiku in my head about the very limited number of things that were happening and the many reactions I was having to them. I thought of this again after sesshin as one participant recited for us a haiku she had come up with. One of the better tangaryo haiku was around the observation I had had during oryoki - the servers would approach the tan, and in the curving reflection of their silver pot, I could see a line of people in robes, who sure looked like monks. And so I started thinking that maybe I was a monk - or at least going through the process of becoming one. Obviously the haiku version is shorter than that.
One important part of this equation though, was that I was living in a monastery. It followed that I was a monk. Here in the city, I don't describe myself as a monk, and I find it a little dissonant to read of the residents as monks, or to read about this temple as a monastery as I just did elsewhere. I could just be leaning on semantics, but I think it has a lot to do with what City Center is about. We are here to offer the teaching to everybody, in a formal setting; we are not so internally focused as we would be at Tassajara in the winter, although it may seem that way to the visitor. Having just emerged from the Tassajara-style schedule of the intensive to our more usual spacious and work-oriented days, I am certainly noticing the difference.
At more than one Way-seeking Mind talk, I have heard people from more traditional religious backgrounds describe the relative difficulty of outing themselves to their parents as gay and outing themselves to their parents as Buddhists. For me the question "Am I a buddhist?" was less contentious than "Am I a monk?" - I think the only person who ever asked me if I considered myself a Buddhist was my sister-in-law who is more inclined to ask questions than anyone in my more immediate family.
I don't think I have told the story here about how I spent my tangaryo at Tassajara composing haiku in my head about the very limited number of things that were happening and the many reactions I was having to them. I thought of this again after sesshin as one participant recited for us a haiku she had come up with. One of the better tangaryo haiku was around the observation I had had during oryoki - the servers would approach the tan, and in the curving reflection of their silver pot, I could see a line of people in robes, who sure looked like monks. And so I started thinking that maybe I was a monk - or at least going through the process of becoming one. Obviously the haiku version is shorter than that.
One important part of this equation though, was that I was living in a monastery. It followed that I was a monk. Here in the city, I don't describe myself as a monk, and I find it a little dissonant to read of the residents as monks, or to read about this temple as a monastery as I just did elsewhere. I could just be leaning on semantics, but I think it has a lot to do with what City Center is about. We are here to offer the teaching to everybody, in a formal setting; we are not so internally focused as we would be at Tassajara in the winter, although it may seem that way to the visitor. Having just emerged from the Tassajara-style schedule of the intensive to our more usual spacious and work-oriented days, I am certainly noticing the difference.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Entering
I have done a number of leaving ceremonies since becoming ino, but this morning was the first entering ceremony - though of course on my first morning as ino we had the shuso entering ceremony, but that's a little different. The entering ceremony was for the eleven people who sat tangaryo on Friday or Saturday, and who now become full residents, some of them for the first time, some after returning from Tassajara or living elsewhere.
The tradition of tangaryo begins with monks waiting outside the temple gate to be admitted. There is the famous story of Bodhidharma keeping Huike outside in the snow until Huike eventually cut off his own arm to prove his determination to be allowed to enter and study with Bodhidharma. I tend to look on that story more on a metaphorical level these days, but if anyone wants to tell me that it really happened like that, I am happy to stand corrected. In the Japanese system, the monks were allowed through the gate, but kept in a separate room for a number of days, where they had to sit, while they could be observed, unknown to them, to see if they were sitting steadfastly enough (I also imagine this as a sensible kind of quarantine, to see if the new monks had any fever or sickness that might cause problems for the temple). Here at Zen Center, our supplicants sit in the zendo; at City Center for one day, and at Tassajara for five days, from the beginning of the day until the evening, with just short breaks after each meal.
I have sat tangaryo on a number of occasions now - first in the city almost ten years ago. I remember being very sleepy after lunch, and on one occasion being woken up by a noise, which turned out to be my elbow hitting the mealboard as I toppled sideways. Luckily, Lucio, who was in the next seat, was quick enough to catch me before I completely fell off my seat. There was also a garage band, who did seem to be playing all afternoon in a garage a few doors away, and who unfortunately had more enthusiasm than skill...At Tassajara there are always many stories about tangaryo that people enjoy telling the new students; I will never forget that it was over 100 degrees for the first three days, which did make it so hot that there were fewer flies than usual. I had strategised that I would wear my jubons for a couple of days each, but it turned out that I took them off after each meal, rinsed out the sweat in the sink and let them dry in the baking hot cabins ready for the next day. I was also very nervous about hurting my knees, and I squirmed around a lot; at the end of the third day I noticed that my left foot was asleep, and it was still asleep when I woke up the next morning; the ino offered that I could lie down, but I did not want to desert the people who were sitting around me, so I stood at my seat for the last two days, which was scarcely easier than sitting in the end.
After that, in comparison, the two other times I sat for one day when I returned to Tassajara, and the day I sat here a couple of years ago passed easily.
I checked in on these sitters a couple of times during the day, ate meals with them, served them tea, and sat during the last hours of the evening with them, and I was impressed with the steadiness of everybody's sitting. Nobody had to cut off their arm to prove their dedication.
The tradition of tangaryo begins with monks waiting outside the temple gate to be admitted. There is the famous story of Bodhidharma keeping Huike outside in the snow until Huike eventually cut off his own arm to prove his determination to be allowed to enter and study with Bodhidharma. I tend to look on that story more on a metaphorical level these days, but if anyone wants to tell me that it really happened like that, I am happy to stand corrected. In the Japanese system, the monks were allowed through the gate, but kept in a separate room for a number of days, where they had to sit, while they could be observed, unknown to them, to see if they were sitting steadfastly enough (I also imagine this as a sensible kind of quarantine, to see if the new monks had any fever or sickness that might cause problems for the temple). Here at Zen Center, our supplicants sit in the zendo; at City Center for one day, and at Tassajara for five days, from the beginning of the day until the evening, with just short breaks after each meal.
I have sat tangaryo on a number of occasions now - first in the city almost ten years ago. I remember being very sleepy after lunch, and on one occasion being woken up by a noise, which turned out to be my elbow hitting the mealboard as I toppled sideways. Luckily, Lucio, who was in the next seat, was quick enough to catch me before I completely fell off my seat. There was also a garage band, who did seem to be playing all afternoon in a garage a few doors away, and who unfortunately had more enthusiasm than skill...At Tassajara there are always many stories about tangaryo that people enjoy telling the new students; I will never forget that it was over 100 degrees for the first three days, which did make it so hot that there were fewer flies than usual. I had strategised that I would wear my jubons for a couple of days each, but it turned out that I took them off after each meal, rinsed out the sweat in the sink and let them dry in the baking hot cabins ready for the next day. I was also very nervous about hurting my knees, and I squirmed around a lot; at the end of the third day I noticed that my left foot was asleep, and it was still asleep when I woke up the next morning; the ino offered that I could lie down, but I did not want to desert the people who were sitting around me, so I stood at my seat for the last two days, which was scarcely easier than sitting in the end.
After that, in comparison, the two other times I sat for one day when I returned to Tassajara, and the day I sat here a couple of years ago passed easily.
I checked in on these sitters a couple of times during the day, ate meals with them, served them tea, and sat during the last hours of the evening with them, and I was impressed with the steadiness of everybody's sitting. Nobody had to cut off their arm to prove their dedication.
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