Out Of Office

One seasonal feature I forgot to mention in the last post is that the zendo has been positively festooned with members of Young Urban Zen recently; several each morning, and a good handful in the afternoons. I counted at least a dozen in attendance during Steve Weintraub's excellent dharma talk this morning, and managed to rope most of them into doing nenju.
Now it's not often we get to re-do a ceremony. I guess doing the Full Moon Ceremony on the roof is somewhat equivalent - and I am toying with the idea of having the next one, on the 5th of June, up there as well. But it came up this week that perhaps we should try doing nenju in the Buddha Hall instead of the dining room. So I sat down and rewrote parts of the script for the ceremony, incorporating some things that happen at Tassajara as well, and Rosalie and Wendy, as the practice period leaders, with a few tweaks and suggestions, gave it the thumbs up.
Of course as they say, the proof of the ceremony is in the doing, so there was slightly heightened anticipation as the time drew near.  I had roped in Konin, my new head doan, as the new combined umpan player/doan, and took the kokyo spot myself as I usually do for the first nenju of the practice period. I definitely noticed how different it was to do the dedication right in front of the lovely Buddha statue in the Buddha Hall, and the acoustics seemed more favourable, though I still didn't get the pitch right. During the jundo people seemed more reverential, maybe due to the space, and after the hosan and the 'joyful' big bells, we had a nice semi-formal exit. The consensus was a general thumbs up; the ceremony felt more at home there than in the dining room.
And with that, and the newcomers' table, I started my vacation. More or less. I still have a few loose ends to wrap up, though not as many as I thought I would have yesterday afternoon, when both printers, one thumb-drive and one network connection all seemed to conspire against me by failing to co-operate. I will also do the morning schedule on Monday when we will have leaving ceremonies for Shindo and Yuto, both of whom we will be sad to see going, but then I am off, leaving for England on Tuesday afternoon.
So I am feeling a little excited, but mostly nice and relaxed. This is being helped by the fact that Lucy left me in charge of feeding Paul's cat over the weekend, while she is also away, so Azure and I are currently keeping each other company, and I am discovering that a lap cat and a lap-top are not so compatible. Yesterday I had study hall en plein air with her, in the back yard, which was a first.

Hopefully not jumping the shark with cute kitten photographs; I was studying as well, honest

Finally, just to note that it is my twelve-year arrival anniversary today, a date which seems to have become more significant since I first really thought of it two years ago. Twelve years is the amount of time I spent living in London before I came here, so half my adult life has now been spent here, a quarter of my whole life. At the risk of signing off with a cliche, it does go to show that you never can tell.

Mindful Of Transiency

There was a big crowd at the talk this morning - Liping had brought her qigong students for a visit, as she does from time to time - and I have also been thinking about the big crowd that was not in the room. The sangha here has many forms and layers, residents, former residents, friends, families, people who are just interested or curious, and we are all touched at times like this. This blog has received many more visitors than usual around the deaths that have happened in the past eight months, and since yesterday morning there have been 750 visitors to the first post that I wrote about David. One life spreads out and affects so many others, in a way that none of us can fully dream of.
Paul's talk was perfect for the occasion. When I got up to make the announcements afterwards, I found that I was quite emotional - I had been thinking about nenju, and its purpose of allowing each of us to express in bowing our gratitude to one another for our practice during the week, and wanted to encourage those who didn't want to do that as part of a ceremony just to take the opportunity to express gratitude to each other anyway, and connect with other people who were here today.
For the ceremony itself, which did draw a larger number of people than usual, I was the kokyo, which is always one of my favourite things to do. I was looking back at old posts, and it seems I have posted this before, but it has been a while, so here it is again. Today the words contained for me more energetic significance than they commonly do, and I could feel the emotion coming out again in my voice:

Carefully listen everyone.
24 centuries 97 years ago the Great Tathagata entered nirvana.
When this day is gone, your life also decreases.
Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here?
We are to practice constantly, as if to save our head from fire.
Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care.
Throughout Hosshinji the Dharma safely resides,
      bringing all peace.
Everyone in ten directions knows an increase in joy
      and growth in wisdom.
Thankfully we recite the names of Buddha.

Sunset from the roof last Sunday night

The Working Week

As Jordan was doing the dedication for nenju before lunch today, I was having a flashback to standing on the engawa at Tassajara, the doors to the zendo open, and the kokyo chanting the same words, past the leader of the practice period, who would be standing on the other side of the threshold, into the empty zendo. As I have undoubtedly written before, nenju marks the end of the practice week - here more clearly than at Tassajara, where there is still an evening and a morning of sitting before the personal day begins - and is a way for everyone to offer gratitude to each other for their support in our practice.
I had just one more thing to do, sit at the newcomers' table, which was, as ever, a wonderful way to meet people. Today's conversations were quite inspiring and moving, how people's lives are unfolding and how events have brought them here today, how Mark's talk this morning spoke to people in their difficult situations.
This week has been a fairly tranquil one for me, especially after the busy-ness of last week, and compared to how it will be in a couple of weeks with Lou's funeral, which we are already planning seriously for. There were no ceremonies, no special events, though of course I went to the zendo every morning and every afternoon, and noon service every day. I had a chance to really take care of some things in the ino realm that required some focused attention, which is not always afforded me in the working day: I spent a whole morning doing the accounting for the big order of incense, breaking down the costs and apportioning them to the different areas; I managed to put eight or nine talks online, including a batch from the first sesshin of the current practice period at Tassajara; I wrote out a proposal for new sound equipment for the Buddha Hall and dining room to take into account our greater need for flexibility with events and formats, and to be able to incorporate the livestream more easily, and having taken care of those things, I feel a certain amount of relief that they are not hanging over me.
And now, since the forecast snow does not seem to be materialising, I am going to go out and enjoy myself.

Shoe-gazing

I have been telling people that this is my first free weekend in two months, but that means free from after lunch on Saturday - there was the usual seven hours of busyness first. The combination of the Full Moon Ceremony and oryoki was always going to cause timing problems; even though we finished zazen early, and had a very strong and energetic ceremony - thanks to Joan and Barbara - there was a delay getting breakfast downstairs, so we didn't get out of the zendo until 8:55. For me, that means barely time to drink coffee and pee before going back for zazen (it would be more expeditious if I didn't have to take off my okesa and koromo for the latter activity), for the meditation instructor - thanks Lien - it means having to wait before bringing people into the zendo and then having to hurry them through that part...
Joan and Barbara also did the doanryo honours for nenju, with Vicki as the doshi - with the board retreat at Tassajara, she and Blanche were holding the fort this morning. As I stood in the dining room with my head bowed, I watched everyone's feet as they passed in front of me, and thought that, although the head-lowering part is a normal gesture of respect, I like the fact that it also means that you can't necessarily see who is in front of you, so you can't start thinking, 'oh, I feel grateful to this person, but not so much to this one, and that one I don't like at all'. Except of course that in a community, it is easy to recognise someone from their footwear. Suzuki Roshi famously used to say that when everyone was wearing robes, as you do in the winter at Tassajara, then he could really see who each of them was. I had the experience there many times of just seeing somebody in the dark twenty yards away and immediately knowing who they were just from the sway of their body or the energy of their movement, and it was true as I watched people in the jundo today. Beyond the innate familiarity that comes of living and practising together, people can't help but reveal themselves in every action.
All of which brings me to blogs and links. This being the ino's blog, I try to keep it ino-related, though I know that my personality comes through in many different ways, most of which I hope I am aware of. Similarly, I wanted the blog list on the right just to be other inos' blogs. Now if Blogger were cleverer (and maybe if we move to Wordpress, as has been mooted by our web development people, this might be possible), I could divide my blog list into inos' blogs and other blogs I enjoy, most of which I have come across in the course of writing this and seeing who is reading it. For example there are some koan blogs I have discovered: the Shobogenzo Koan Workshop, and thence to the Koan Zone (where I was excited to discover the Kidlington sangha - if the dharma flourishes in deepest Oxfordshire, there is hope for us all).
More tangentially there is the Bike Snob, which is ino-related in that Greg, having mentioned the site to me some time ago, recently delighted me by giving me the book, which has been making me laugh in my off moments, and which may provide a subject for Study Hall yet.  And I would like to plug again Sandy's Witterings, which I have been finding great value for money. I don't think I need to give Brad much of a plug, but I do read him from time to time. So if you find yourself subject to a wet and dreary afternoon such as we are having here, you could do much worse than spending time with these people.

Busy Doing Nothing

Jamie Howell gave the dharma talk this morning, and in the course of reminiscing about his time at Zen Center over the years, told of how he would come in to be chiden or jiko in the morning, and because he was driving up from his house, he was often just a couple of minutes late despite his best intentions; he told how the ino at the time, Hekizan Tom Girardot, would invariably be waiting at the top of the stairs, tapping his foot.
I could definitely sympathise with this. Today was one of those days which was full of so many things that it was impossible to hold on to any one emotion that came up. To begin with, I woke up hearing crows, which was much more fun than an alarm clock, and it was already getting light at five forty. I was listening out for the wake-up bell at six, but I wasn't hearing anything. The usual Saturday fukudo (who rings the wake-up bell among other things) is at Tassajara this week, and his replacement had told me, 'oh I've done it before, but if you have the notes for the wake-up bell that would help', so I had given her the notes, and when I went downstairs at five past six, when the bell should be finished, she was just checking her notes before she set off, so I rather impatiently told her to hurry up. One of the things I can get very uptight about is punctuality, so if it says the bell should begin at six, I want it to begin at six. So I got to look at that, and a couple of other things that didn't go completely right, and seeing how I respond to those things, and what I was going to say to the stand-in fukudo. Then as I sat, the sun came into the zendo, and the light was beautifully soft, and in the Buddha Hall for service afterwards I watched the dust floating around in the shafts of sunlight, followed by trails of incense smoke, and at first I got impatient that the mokugyo was not as fast as I like it to be, and then with the stand-in kokyo leading the way, we went through the list of daioshos (the male lineage of ancestors) at exactly the right speed, which was very energising. Then I felt like I had to rush to be ready for oryoki, and get everyone seated in a way that made the servers' job easier, and then watching the new servers as they nervously made their way round, seeing a few mistakes but being happy that things went mostly very smoothly. After breakfast I went out to meet the Saturday Sangha people who were already gathered in the sunny courtyard, checked in with the soku who was worried about some of the things that hadn't gone completely perfectly during breakfast, then had just enough time to drink some coffee and go to the bathroom before putting on my robes again for the next sitting, seeing all the people who only come on Saturday mornings, but who are now familiar faces to me, and then getting the recording equipment and my announcements ready for the talk, and listening to Jamie telling great stories of his years of practice, and reminding us to smile. I made my announcements, which I find easier than when I started being ino, but which I always finish thinking, I could have done that better, or, oh I forgot to mention this. Another cup of coffee and then nenju. I had asked Bernd to be kokyo, and he chose the shorter eko as he finds it more joyful than the other one, and he did it, and the 'hosan' afterwards, very joyfully. Finally lunch with the Saturday Sangha. Last week I had been asked for a glossary, so I brought along the only one I could find, called 'terms used at Zen Center', and people found it very helpful, even though we thought of probably another dozen words that weren't on the list, and it proved to be a springboard for a very wide-ranging conversation about practice life and what it meant to me to be a priest (that could be a whole other entry).
Seven and a half hours of ordinary practice. Then it was time to clean my bike before tomorrow's ride.

Nenju

Each week at the end of the Saturday lecture during practice period, I try to entice people to come to nenju, and yet I find it a little difficult to describe. It marks the end of the practice week, for sure, and it is all about gratitude, as I have heard from a number of people. Last Saturday as I was casting around for words, Tova offered 'connection' as well, which was nice.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, my experience of this ceremony at Tassajara is much stronger than my experience of it here. At Tassajara, nenju comes at the end of the afternoon on three-and-eight days. For those unfamiliar with the traditional monastic schedule (confession - this is a word I pronounce like an American), Tassajara works largely on a four-and-one schedule, that is four days on, one day 'off' - it is usually called a personal day, rather than a day off, as you still have to get up in the morning and follow a limited schedule - and traditionally the personal days fall on the days of the month ending in four and nine, thus they are often called four-and-nine days. With me so far? So nenju comes near the end of the day before to mark the closing of the practice 'week'.
If you ask Tassajara monks about nenju, they will usually mention the waiting. There is a lot of standing on the engawa - the walkway around the zendo - while the Abbot does a procession to various altars, and then there are a few other steps before everyone goes inside for a jundo. It is usually cold outside at that time of the afternoon at Tassajara, sometimes very cold, which tends to colour people's perceptions of the ceremony.
At City Center there is less endurance involved; the Abbot just goes to the Buddha Hall to bow before coming to the dining room, where everyone is lined up in a large horseshoe formation.
 One of the highlights of nenju for me is getting to be the the kokyo, as the eko is one of the most fun things you get to do. There are actually two that are used at Tassajara, but here we just use the longer one, which goes thus:

Carefully listen everyone.

24 hundred 96 years ago the Great Tathagata entered nirvana.

When this day is gone, your life also decreases.

Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here?

We are to practice constantly, as if to save our head from fire.

Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care.

Throughout Hosshinji the Dharma safely resides,

        bringing all peace.

Everyone in ten directions knows an increase in joy

and growth in wisdom.

Thankfully we recite the names of Buddha.


So last Saturday, I offered myself the opportunity to be kokyo, as this was the first nenju of the new practice period, and I wanted to set the tone as best I could. I was doing it from memory as I like to do, and I thought I was doing pretty well until I realised that I had said Zenshinji instead of Hosshinji, somewhat automatically, as I have done this more times there than here, even though I had been telling myself 'Hosshinji' as I went along towards that line. And then, even after what I wrote last time, just dwelling on that mistake for a moment meant that I didn't continue from 'safely resides' into 'bringing all peace', where the pitch is dropped, but paused, forgetting what I was supposed to do for the briefest moment. It is possible that many of the people there did not notice, and I did not beat myself up about it.
So we recited the names of Buddha, and did our jundo, where everyone goes around the group, bowing to and being bowed to by everyone, and then, after a whispered exchange with the Abbot (which is a secret of course), I announced 'Ho-san', which translates as 'no more dokusan', in other words, the weekend starts here. Paul offered us some encouraging words to keep in mind during the weekend so that we are not too tempted to think of it as 'time off'. Because after all, how can you take time off from practice?