Harmonies

When Alan and Danny first proposed the Revelation Zen evening as part of the Soundwave Festival, there was a concern that we didn't simply replicate the Bold Italic evening, although from our side of things, that was always going to be our reference point. It was another occasion to open the doors of City Center to people who don't usually come - and I heard several people saying that they lived in the neighbourhood but had never made it through the front door - and to open up our activities in a less formal and forbidding way and in completely different contexts. I was only peripherally involved in terms of organising; this meant I wasn't particularly stressed about Saturday rolling around, but I was busy all afternoon helping carry, fetch and find - tables, extension cords, the usual little things. It was almost a surprise when at 5:30 a steady line of people started flowing through the front door. Even more surprising was how quiet everyone was - at least until the music started.
We had a full Buddha Hall by the time we had got through the introductions, and David led some zazen, which segued into Marielle's performance. She started with the big bell, worked the recordings of the bell in, and then moved onto violin, with harmonies building from the deep bass resonance of the bell. I had tipped Keith off, and he was sitting right next to the bell to get the feel of it, his hands cupped around a blown-up latex glove, which I guess was standing in for a balloon as a vibration detector (just visible in the photo below).
Gretchen led as many people as we could fit into the courtyard in walking meditation, accompanying which Sean ran a whole bank of tapes, creating a wash of sound; we wrapped up with a chanting of the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo, during which I could mostly hear Blanche, who was luckily keeping count for me as I played the mokugyo, and as we got to the end of the chant, En came in with some increasingly processed crash cymbal leading into some pretty intense layering of fequencies and harmonies.
I deeply enjoyed all the music, and appreciated how our focus on meditative activities added an extra dimension and attention. I was also musing on the role trance music has played in spiritual activities for many centuries: it occurred to me that while there can often be noise within silence, as our minds start to chatter to fill the disquieting void, within sound, especially unstructured sound which give the brain nothing to cut up and count, there can be a real silence and spaciousness.
After which, there is always the cleaning up. Luckily, since it was past our bedtime, there was a great crew of volunteers, with special mention to Jorge, the Soundwave engineer who was on top of everything all day, and the half-dozen or so YUZ members who descended on anything that needed to be put away, mob-handed and full of energy.

Tova led a couple of tours of the building

Lien offered zazen instruction

Marielle played her violin along with the big bell

Sean acquires a peace bell halo

Sean and kinhin taken from my room

En, with special effect caused by having my hand in front of the lens before taking the picture

Time Being

Today's offering from the second half of Uji:
''The time-being of all beings throughout the world in water and on land is just the actualization of your complete effort right now. All beings of all kinds in the visible and invisible realms are the time-being actualized by your complete effort, flowing due to your complete effort. Closely examine this flowing; without your complete effort right now, nothing would be actualized, nothing would flow. Do not think flowing is like wind and rain moving from east to west. The entire world is not unchangeable, is not immovable. It flows."

Time Being

We are underway with the retreat, easing our way into an unfamiliar schedule. People have been asking me lots of questions about what is happening, and I don't always have the answer. Great time for everyone to practise with don't-know mind.
For noon service, we are chanting half of Uji per day (throwing in the Loving Kindness Meditation a couple of times during the week as well). This is an ambitious thing to do, given its length and legendary impenetrability, but today I found that parts of it leapt out in an unexpectedly clear way. Following on from the extract the other day, I might lift a few more sentences out, as and when. Here is a little something for you to chew on today:

"Do not think that time merely flies away. Do not see flying away as the only function of time. If time merely flies away, you would be separated from time. The reason you do not clearly understand the time-being is that you think of time only as passing. In essence, all things in the entire world are linked with one another as moments. Because all moments are the time-being, they are your time-being."

Universal Recommendation

Eight years ago, Zen Center unveiled a new chant book. As I understand it, this was the culmination of a process that had gone on for many years to find consensus translations for all the chants that we regularly use. I heard that it was a long and difficult process, and having been at meetings where there have been protracted and sometimes contentious discussions about minor changes in form, I can only imagine how this must have been.
For those of us using the books regularly, there were three notable changes: the list of women ancestors had been bulked up (if you follow the link it will automatically download the pdf from the chant book), which was universally approved, although I did hear a female practitioner mourning the loss from the list of Ambapali; and there were different translations of the Fukanzazengi and the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi (ditto). The latter had even undergone a name change, having previously been the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi. Among my peers, there were mixed feeling about these changes: the 'new' versions turned out to be older versions which had fallen out of favour, and were now re-asserting their place in the canon; so while the more senior people were happy to have them back, I agreed with others who said that the current versions might be more accurate translations of the originals, but the discarded ones had more poetry and were easier to chant. With the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, I found I could overcome my resistance, and take the consensus version on board, albeit with a bit of regret at some of the language lost. The Fukanzazengi was a different matter though; it may be because I had managed to learn the previous version, which was the longest thing I had memorised at that stage. But there were also a number of infelicitous phrases in the consensus version that made me wince . Here is one example:

Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the Way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you still are short of the vital path of emancipation.

Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalade the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.

The imagery is rich in both renditions, but if you don't find much difference in reading them, try chanting them out loud. The first selection, taken from here, is the one I remain more attached to. However, since we are chanting the consensus version for noon service this practice period, perhaps I will finally reconcile myself to the reality of this particular situation.

Coming Attractions

Sejiki has been a popular search word this past week, and I notice that I have been avoiding writing about it. Of course there is an account from last year, which the searchers will have found, but I resisted plugging it after the lecture on Saturday as I wasn't sure how to encapsulate it. On one hand, it is a commemoration of the dead, as we read out a list of names of people we know who have died in the last year - and in this vein, I invite anyone reading to submit the names of anyone they knew who has died and who they would like included in this list (mail to: ccino, care of sfzc.org). That part is always solemn and moving. It is mixed with the Kan Ro Mon, or Gate of Sweet Dew, which is full of esoteric invocations and mantras, with the doshi also performing mudras and blessings to invite and assuage the roaming hungry ghosts; we literally turn the Buddha Hall back to front to make them feel welcome, and the chanting can be spine-chilling if it is done well. And on top of that people, are decked out in Halloween fineries, which personally I am not so bothered about (well, one year I might shock everyone by putting on a costume, but it won't be this year - and I said exactly the same thing last year), and we make a lot of noise with musical instruments, not something that happens every day around these parts.
Doesn't make for a snappy announcement to the assembly, really. Come for 6pm on Monday if you can, and on Monday for morning service if you want to have a crack at the Kan Ro Mon ahead of time -  you can download it from here also.

Postscript - the work leader hung the trunkful of costumes out to air this morning, and encouraged me to take pictures, so here they are:

Back In The Groove

 I offered this photo to Kate to put on the YUZ Facebook page, and when she was a little confused as to what it was, I suggested we could add a title like 'turn it up' (and I like the fact it even goes up to twelve).
It would be nice if we could control our attention levels like that (bringing to mind one of Charlie P's legendary Tassajara skits where he was the inventor of a machine that could do just that), but these things tend to come and go. On Monday and Tuesday of this week I had noticed that my chanting in morning service was pretty lacklustre - I was not getting as far on each breath as I am used to, and there wasn't much oomph there. Similarly I had noticed during noon services thus far in the practice period that I hadn't really connected with the words of the Self-receiving and -employing Samadhi - was I just giving too much of my attention to the new doanryo as they made their best efforts to get things right? Then, yesterday, when I was doshi for the first time in a while, I really felt right there at the center of the energy of the service, and everything came alive - which was nice. It may have had something to do with the sunshine.

I am aware that I pitch this blog with a certain lack of explanation of the basics, a function of who I am and where I am with my practice, so I am happy to send you off to investigate some other blogs in the near environs where people articulate their own dharma positions, which, depending on yours, may be more helpful - first of all Renee who has started one with her own special blend of Tibetan Buddhism, music and dance; also Lynn, one of our YUZ regulars, bringing forward a lot of pertinant questions; not forgetting the compassionate teacher, wrestling with her thoughts, nor the zen beginner, who has good advice for the beginner, as well as reviews. Indra's net in full effect.

Buddhas and Ancestors

One of the things I miss about not being at Tassajara is that here in the city we do not chant the names of the Buddhas and Ancestors every day - we do half of the male list and the women ancestors on Mondays, and the full male lineage on Saturdays.
When I first went to Tassajara, I enjoyed the process of memorising the two lists of names, not least because I felt a clear distinction between those who had been there for some time and who knew the names by heart, and those who did not, and I wanted to be seen as one of the former. These days there is less ego involved in the process, and I mostly find joy in the sonorities and rhythms of the chanting. A number of times as ino I have encouraged people to keep the tempo up while we chant, as otherwise it seems like a dirge to me, and we are, after all, ackowledging our debt to all these people who devoted their lives to practice, as a result of which the dharma is available to us today. As the dedication afterwards spells out: "We dedicate our practice to all the great teachers from whom we have received immeasurable benefit", and it ends "May our life reveal their compassion; let us honour their true being", phrases which always just seem to slip by, but which are huge requests to make, if we stop and think about it.

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.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

The great Blogger outage prevented me from posting this yesterday, and as I write, the previous entry is still missing, perhaps taking refuge in a cloud computer somewhere. It brings home the impermanent nature of online things, and how little control we have over them.
Yesterday was a good day for several reasons. To begin with I managed to make it to my first ever baseball game, thanks to a concerted effort by Tim, Joan, Daigan and Wendy to make it happen. We also met Roger down there, he being a season ticket holder, for extra Zen Center flavour. I followed happenings on the field well enough, and even managed to add to my meagre knowledge of the rules.The Giants won, just, so everyone was happy.
I had been concerned that with a 12:45 kick-off (no, that's not what you call it, is it?), it was possible that I might not get back in time for evening zazen, which caused a little anxiety, as we started the day without a doshi, doan or doorwatch. On Wednesday there had been a gap in the doanryo as well, which is problematic during practice period with most people attending the tea, but luckily, the doanryo members who were there all had additional strings to their bows: the doan became the fukudo; the jiko became the doan - having been trained for that on Monday -  and the even more recently trained kokyo doubled up as jiko. Yesterday we managed with volunteers, and since it was a game with not so much hitting going on, we were all done at the park by 3:30, enough time for a leisurely bike ride home and no rush to get into robes.
Those of you with exceptionally tenacious memories might also recall that May 12th is the anniversary of my arrival in this country - which made the ballgame doubly apt - and I was gratified to hear a very strong (/ˈnaɪ.ðər/) being chanted from across the zendo to match mine last night.

Words and Phrases

I have cunningly deduced that the "ino's desire" is some kind of game, as people insist on looking for it, and many people seem to want to play it, as evidenced in the search keywords: "ino's desire игра" and "play ino’s desire". I can only feel sorry for the people that somehow land on this site, which Google insists on putting at the top of the list for those keywords, unless it somehow turns out that the blog is all part of the game too, and no-one let me in on the secret.
Other visitors who I suspect may have left disappointed, if not entirely empty-handed, were those looking for "hardcore zen". I mean Brad and I are in the same general field, but this blog is mostly PG-rated, beyond the odd piece of salty language. And while I would have liked to oblige the person who was looking for "tassajara bike graphics", I don't think I have any here. As for the person who typed in "the aspiration for enlightenment & conditions hold out a sin", perhaps someone else would like to take a guess at what they meant, and perhaps Google can explain to me how they ended up here...
Perhaps more pertinently, I found the phrase "what does the enmei jukku kannon gyo mean?" in the search keywords the other day. I don't believe the answer to that question is elsewhere on the blog, but I could say that it is a chant that revolves around Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, and is chanted for protecting life. I tend to think of it more as a dharani, an invocation where the power resides in the chanting and not in the meaning. I did, however, chant an English version of it at Great Vow when I was there a few years ago, and this is what appears in their chant book:

Chant of Boundless Compassion
Absorbing world sounds
Awakens a Buddha right here!
This Buddha the source of compassion!
This Buddha receives only compassion!
Buddha, Dharma, Sangha – just compassion.
Thus the pure heart always rejoices!
In the light recall this!
In the dark recall this!
Moment after moment the true heart arises.
Time after time there is nothing but THIS!

Speaking of co-opting things from other sanghas, someone asked me today if we could include the people of Egypt in our noon service dedication. I wrinkled my nose at that, as I couldn't think how to fit it in there, but then I decided we could just make our evening service a well-being service. I was just re-wording our usual dedication before zazen when Kathryn came into the ino's office, and on hearing what I was up to said, oh, we had a lovely dedication at Santa Cruz Zen Center that Katharine Thanas wrote for the Burmese monks, whereupon she went back to her room and emailed it to me. I added a line about Egypt and had it printed out and downstairs by the time the han started. The consensus afterwards was that it was a very nice dedication, and a good idea. (Update, the next morning: well, perhaps it helped...):

May all awakened beings manifest through the Three Treasures their luminous mirror wisdom;
having chanted the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo for protecting life,we dedicate this merit and virtue to:

­        The people of Egypt in this time of turmoil and transition in their nation
        The peace and well being of all those injured by acts of violence.
       All world leaders so they may exercise wisdom and care in their actions.

May the words of this sutra and dedication heal this world of suffering and confusion.
May we with our acts of body, speech and mind dedicate ourselves to wholesome action,
   so that the power of goodness may free beings from ignorance and violence.
May we and all beings find solace and strength in Buddha’s way.

You Say Neither

May 12th marks my ten year anniversary of arriving in San Francisco to take up residential practice. My main reason for coming was actually to get married to someone who was already living at the Zen Center; in fact my application to move in was so light on practice experience that the director of City Center at the time wrote to me to ask 'do you know what you are letting yourself in for?'. I said that I had been given a fair idea of what to expect, though I do remember being somewhat overwhelmed, having gone to bed very early that first day after the long flight from London, to get up and do the entire Saturday morning schedule for the first time.

I have only had one friend in England tell me, on the occasions I have gone back to visit since then, that I sound American, and I think, or I hope at least, that she was referring to my vocabulary more than my accent. Californians tend to assume that I am Australian, which can perhaps be attributed to the somewhat fluid accent I acquired living in London for twelve years, although no-one from England or Australia would make that same assumption.
My pronunciation has caused small ripples during services. This is mainly due to my obstinacy in saying neither (/ˈnaɪ.ðər/)  rather than neither (/ˈniː-//-ðɚ/), which occurs five times in the Heart Sutra. I am also wont to say path, (/pɑːθ/ rather than /pæθ/) chant (/tʃɑːnt/) and so on, but the neither sticks out most plainly. Indeed one Tassajara tanto, even though he was from New England himself, and I heard him say naɪ.ðər on other occasions, just as I have heard other English people say niː-//-ðɚ, went so far as to publicly forbid naɪ.ðər once when we were having a chanting review, though I confess that I just got a little quieter as I chanted those sections rather than give up my natural way of doing things. At one of the first Practice Committee meetings I went to as ino, there was some gentle ribbing from the Abbot and tanto here as to whether I would be imposing my version on the sangha now. I think I have heard a few defectors recently. I know that it would be good if we all sounded the same, but somehow I just can't bring myself to give it up.

Japanese Eko

This evening and tomorrow morning we will be doing our monthly memorial ceremonies for Suzuki Roshi, who died on the morning of the 4th of December 1971. This evening's ceremony is entirely in Japanese, as we chant the Sandokai and use a Japanese dedication as well. This is another of those things we do here that can be off-putting to people who don't see why we should chant something nobody understands.
I was teasing a good friend of mine at Tassajara recently who was the kokyo (that's the person who leads the chants and offers the dedication, and is one of the many Japanese terms we always use at Zen Center, like ino), and listening to her I realised that her style of intoning reminded me of Lady Bracknell, or more particularly, Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell in the classic film version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. She told me that the one time she had felt most comfortable as kokyo was when she did the Japanese eko for the memorial ceremony, as it was the only time she did not try to editorialise as she was chanting.
I think this is a very useful notion. I have enjoyed chanting for many years, as I find it a strong way to continue mindfulness, especially of the breath, after sitting. Nowadays I have memorised almost all the chants we do on a regular basis, so I am not reading as we chant, but letting come out of that part of the brain where these things are stored. The whole process can be very energising; indeed with the dharanis that we chant most days, the Shosaimyo Kichijo Dharani and the Dai Hi Shin Dharani, the point of them is not the meaning of the words but the spirit and energy with which they are chanted, and then whatever positive energy or merit that is created by the chanting, we give away, and the eko, or dedication, tells us to whom we are giving this away.
Personally I love the Japanese chants, as the nature of the language with its strong vowels allows a different energy to come up to a chant in English. But that's not the reason we still chant in Japanese; we do it out of respect and gratitude for our founder, who brought the teachings to us just fifty years ago.
There is much talk these days of how Zen will transform now it is in the west, and eventually I suspect a lot of the Japanese elements will recede and be replaced, but seven hundred years elapsed between Dogen and Suzuki Roshi,  so in Buddhist terms, we are just at the beginning. Which is an exciting time to be around.