Study Hall

More from Returning to Silence: "Repentance is to realize exactly the oneness of merging all sentient beings and buddha, delusion and enlightenment. All sentient beings are allowed to live, and are, from the beginning, forgiven for living their lives in this world. Everything, whatever it is, has some reason why it exists: evil, good, even something neither evil nor good. You cannot destroy devils just because you don't like them. Even though you don't like monsters, still there is some reason why they exist. Everything is entitled to live in the world in peace and harmony beyond our judgment, our evaluation. This is the first condition we have to realize - everything is buddha.
The second condition we have to realize is that the self must readily accept the compassion of Buddha's world. 'Buddha's world' means the Truth, or the same and one ground, or that which is beyond good and bad. Whether we like it or dislike it, we have to accept this. What is meant by readily accepting Buddha's compassion? It means that we must actualize Buddha's compassion in our everyday lives. We have to live our lives in the complete realization that we are already forgiven, that we are already allowed to live, and that we, ourselves, must make our lives come alive...But who is it that lives? We live by our effort, but this is a narrow understanding, so we have to live our lives with the understanding that we are allowed to live. This means we should appreciate our life. Then, if we appreciate our life, we can make our life come alive. To do this, we must not only be passive, but also active. Someone may say, 'The universe takes care of me, so I don't have to do anything'. Of course this is true, but it does not mean we can take a nap in the universe. The universe is always working with us, so if we become lazy, the universe appears as laziness. Then very naturally we are confused. So, constantly, we have to take the initiative. When we do gassho, we have to practice gassho with the forgiving universe, with appreciation for our lives, making gassho come alive. This practice is not a matter of discussion".

The World-wide Web

Tipping the hat in various directions today:  The zen beginner has a great post that I had to look at a couple of times to get straight, as I couldn't believe at first that such a product existed. I guess it does. I prefer his version though.
Second, a new blog for the roll: the aforementioned Michaela and Koji are about to head out from here to land sooner or later in New Orleans. According to the numbers crunched by the stats department, only seventeen people in Louisiana have ever read this blog (the same is true of Belgium incidentally), but I wish for them the support of the wider sangha as they undertake this great venture.
Finally, earlier this week, David Coady's aunt and uncle stopped in at City Center, visiting from Florida; I had the chance to say hello to them, and they said that they were regular readers of this blog, and had found it helpful to read about the community he lived in. I was touched to hear this, and wish them all the best during this painful time.

Study Hall

We are looking for texts to use at Young Urban Zen if we start talking about the precepts, and at Tim's suggestion, I picked up Katagiri Roshi's Returning to Silence. As he said, it is very dense, which also means it is very powerful, and I feel the effect more having not really been studying so much in recent weeks. It is hard even to extract one part of what he writes, but this paragraph ties in nicely with themes that have been floating around this past while:
"Put value on the Dharma, not on individual experience and feeling. This means to put value on the bigger scale of the world, and to open our hearts; even though you may feel pensive, open your heart. Then when you have to help, help; when you have to take care of your life, take care of your life. Whatever you feel, pensive or not pensive, like or dislike, open your heart, and then do what you have to do. From this way of life, you can really take care of individual feelings and experience; your life will bloom. It really helps".

Out And About

We certainly got lucky with the weather for the residents' retreat: Mark, the manager of the Point Reyes Hostel, where ten of us stayed the night, said there hadn't been a weekend like this since June. It probably would have been fun even in the fog, but the clear skies helped; I enjoyed the warm weather, and it was hard not to take good photos with the stunning light.
On Saturday, we all arrived in time to drive down to Limantour Beach and walk along as the sun was setting, returning to find that Gretchen had got dinner mostly prepared. We ate well, looked at the stars, hung out in the lounge of the building we had to ourselves, played games and slept soundly. In the morning a group of us hiked down to the ocean, came back to make brunch, joined by two more car-loads of residents, then we split into two parties - half going off to Abbot's Lagoon and for a swim in Tomales Bay, the rest of us staying local for a different hike to the beach.
I think all of us enjoyed getting out of the city to such beautiful surroundings and some peace and quiet. Like all Zen Center social events, we know each other well enough that interactions are very relaxed. While we were supposedly off-duty, there was something wonderfully joyous about doing the meal chant together before dinner and brunch, as we reflected on the effort that had gone in to making this all happen and looked forward to feasting together.
I'll let the photos tell more of the story.

Tanya and Heather on Limantour Beach

Richard and Martha walking back

Renee in the sunset

Taking over the hostel dining room

The meal chant at brunch

Once more onto the beach, dear friends

An Opportunity To Give

This was a line from 'Old Plum Mountain', about the Berkeley Zen Center, which was shown last night in the dining room. It was a joy to watch, for a number of reasons: tantalisingly brief colour footage of Suzuki Roshi, most of which was shot at Tassajara; glimpses of familiar faces from the sangha, and familiar activities; a real affirmation of the joy and value of devoting oneself to practice and of building a solid community.
Naturally it acts as a mirror, and I wonder how I am doing with my vows right now. It has been a rich week in many ways. I noticed that I did almost the full selection of zendo jobs in afternoon zazen this week: kokyo, fukudo, doan and doshi, and it was only in the last that I felt dissatisfied - my chanting and energy didn't flow in the way I usually expect them to. I have been watching the unfolding of the tensions in my mind between worldly desires and monastic desires, the personal and the beyond-personal, and feeling how that also plays out in my body. I have been trying to settle more firmly on my cushion to deal with the physical imbalances that have been troubling me these last few weeks. I have caught up with long-procrastinated tasks - going to sewing class on Thursday night to make repairs to my okesa that I have been needing to do for months, and putting my oryoki set back together after a few weeks of gathering dust, which felt good. I have taken care of most of the things that needed taking care of. I also have been out several times for ice cream and coffee with friends, not to mention the ball-game, and enjoyed the sociability. There is more to come this weekend with the residents' retreat, though I will book-end this with hours on the bike alone with my thoughts riding to and from Point Reyes.
On balance, it feels like I am holding back more than I am giving, and in that is the rub of unease that we call dukkha.

The moon rising over the city last night

Words And Phrases

Amongst our visitors from Tassajara this week is the tanto, and my predecessor as ino, Greg. Not content to swan around on vacation, he gave the talk last night, based around Dogen's fascicle on 'All-inclusive Study', 'Henzan', and the story of the exchange between Huineng and Nanyue. This is a great one to chew on, as Nanyue did himself for eight years. In the new translation of the Shobogenzo, Nanyue says, after he has come to his realisation, 'Speaking about it won't hit the mark'.
This morning in service we chanted the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi for the first time in a couple of months, our Thursdays having been given over to the memorial services for David. When we got to the line, 'Although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech', I actually stopped chanting and tried to think how that line and Nanyue's line meet each other. Give me eight years and I will perhaps come up with an answer.
Over breakfast we were discussing this. Renee liked that Greg highlighted the line from the Full Moon Ceremony, 'To expound the dharma with this body is foremost', which as regular readers will know, I am partial to myself, and which, as I don't think I have mentioned, Lou had on the back of his rakusu. "How else are you going to do it?" I chipped in, "To expound the dharma with this iPad?" Gretchen said she had some friends who might advocate for Second Life at this juncture, and we started riffing about the qualities of virtual zazen, since I understand there is a zendo in Second Life - it is undoubtedly less painful, and perhaps less of a time commitment. Nonetheless, I think we mostly tend to think around here that it's better to focus on this first life. "I feel a blog post coming on", I said. "Is that like feeling the flu coming on?" Gretchen wondered. "It's more like feeling a poem coming on, or a painting", replied Greg. Thanks Greg. I promise to put your talks online soon.

Contagion

It shouldn't really come as much of a surprise in a community as close-knit as this one, that moods tend to circulate and be infectious. It can be quite noticable during the check-ins we do at the beginning of senior staff meeting, that several people feel edgy or irritated, or as was the case this week, buoyant. Probable proximate causes for the upswing this week are having the vacationing Tassajara people here, bringing their sense of relief that the summer has come to a close, or the fact that there was an outing to the ballgame planned, and the resident's retreat coming up this weekend, a little lull before the practice period begins, - or of course it could just be planetary alignment.
In the end there were about thirty people connected with Zen Center at the Giants game yesterday, with almost everybody from development, other staff and residents, good friends and a couple of young ones. I had my camera with me, but none of the people shots were universally flattering enough to be posted here, so here are some more generic pictures. Compared to the last outing, it was a monochromatic day - though the game itself was perhaps more lively - except for the food offerings...

Not my idea of lunch

Lincecum was on great form

Hardly a patch of blue sky all day

Six of us got there and back by bike, which was most civilised

Rock The Bells

I have a pretty strong internal clock. I usually attribute this to twelve years of working in live radio, with the days largely consisting of transmissions that were generally thirty minutes long. At the designated time, the red light would go on, and the studio would be live - whether you were ready or not - and twenty-nine minutes and fifty-six seconds later the red light would go off - whether you were finished or not. So these days, if I give any thought to when the doan is going to ring the bell to signal the end of zazen, I am often only off by ten or fifteen seconds.
This morning I had the feeling that the first period had reached its end, but the doan, sitting next to me, was not moving to pick up the bell, There are other indicators - often someone comes through the Laguna Street door just before we get up to do kinhin, and I also had the sense of one or two people shifting on their cushions - perhaps the fukudo, on the other side of the curtain, was looking at their clock and wondering why the bell didn't ring. We have clocks with LCD displays, which I know from experience are difficult to read in the low light of the zendo, especially if I am craning my neck round from the adjacent seat to verify the time, so I didn't move.
I was running a great internal dialogue: I am pretty sure the bell should have been rung by now, but the doan is sitting there in deep samadhi. The practice is to sit until the bell rings. But I am in charge of the zendo, I can reach over and grab the clock if I want to, or nudge the doan. Or I can just sit here. We should run to the schedule, to the second even. That's part of the beauty of practice. It's okay for things to go a little awry. Some people need to leave promptly as they have lives outside the building. Another minute or two won't kill them. It's not as if my legs are hurting. We can just keep going.
In the end the bell was five minutes late - we've had longer overruns. Nobody died, as we used to say after our broadcasts if things hadn't gone according to plan.