Closing The Eye

It's been fully nine months since I cracked open the Shobogenzo, and finishing it leaves me feeling at a bit of a loss. There are books it has taken me longer to read: the first time I took on The Lord of the Rings, when I was eleven or twelve, it took me a whole year to plough through it, though I managed to do it in three weeks a couple of years later, when eating and sleeping were less important; as a student I also devoted an entire year to A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, though since I spent most of that year living in Paris, I did have many other divertissements as well. When I finished that, I had an immediate impulse to start it all over again, which I didn't, and haven't since, though it still sits patiently on my shelf. I am not sure I want to go all the way through the Shobogenzo again, though I imagine I shall be cherry-picking my favourite sections on a regular basis. There are still a few paragraphs I would like to quote, so don't be surprised to see it popping up here - in fact if I get organised, I might pre-load some entries to come out during sesshin...
In the meantime, and somewhat serendipitously, a dear friend asked if I would plug her new venture:

"I am drawn to tweet the Shobogenzo.  My hope is to post the entirety of Kaz's translation, in increments of 140 characters or less.  The project's Twitter handle is @dogenzenji108
Could you mention this on your blog?  I was hoping other people might start tweeting Dogen as well and we could cultivate a sort of Diamond Sutra-style digital entwining chorus of texts".

Only too happy to oblige. I think you can land on this planet here - I am no more on Twitter than I am on Facebook. So if the passages I have posted have been too dense for you, perhaps the condensed versions might trigger something more easily. May we never be without Dogen in our lives.

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".

Study Hall - Shobogenzo

"There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Seek nothing else" - 'Birth and Death', 'Shoji'.

Evening Assembly, Morning Assembly

It was decided that instead of the usual Wednesday evening lecture we would meet in small groups to have a chance to express how we were doing - just residents, the intensive participants, some close friends, and David's two brothers, who arrived yesterday. Seeing them and talking with them earlier allowed for uncanny flashes of resemblance with David, in their features, mannerisms, ways of speaking and the same quick dry humour, even in this situation where propriety counsels staidness.
Michael, the older brother, ended up with the group I was in with the Abbot in the dokusan room, eight of us all together, in a circle on the tatamis, a formal and sombre setting. Of the other residents, I will name Gretchen mainly to have a reason to point people who might not have come across it to her post from a few days ago. We had an hour, which allowed everyone to say what they felt they needed to say. As with last Friday's meeting, many different moods were expressed; apart from the grief and sense of loss, Michael cracked us all up with a story from their childhood. I talked about how I felt I had little space for a personal reaction with all that was going on, and also remembered a Saturday morning when we were having breakfast in the zendo a year or more ago: the server brought the pot with the miso soup, and I was waiting for them to stir it up with the ladle, to see the cloud of miso once again rise from the bottom. Only, when the soup was stirred, it remained clear. I went up afterwards and asked David, who had cooked the breakfast, about this phenomenon, and he slapped his forehead with the flustered realisation that he had made miso soup without miso, which, we both knew, was going to become one of those stories that would get told around Zen Center for years to come.
Afterwards all the groups came together in the grey light of the courtyard, a typical summer evening cool breeze blowing, to fill the space with the chanting of the Refuges.

This morning we had the first of what will be seven memorial services, to take us through the traditional forty-nine day period. During the Dai Hi Shin Dharani, everyone stood up and took a turn to offer incense as we chanted. I am not sure where we got the dedications for these services from; each makes an appeal to a different buddha or bodhisattva, and the phrasing is unlike anything else we use. I was moved by these lines this morning:

Kindly we pray that in the realm of life and death this one person Seizan Yushin, like the precious Dragon Jewel, will shine as the emerald sea, clear and complete, as the clear blue sky, in the Dharma everywhere, and will serve as a guide for the world in ascending the path to enlightenment.

Afterwards, at breakfast, the almonds in our third bowls were still crackling as they cooled.

Study Hall - Shobogenzo

It seems like a mistake to take excerpts from 'Only a Buddha and a Buddha' ('Yuibutsu Yobutsu'), since the whole fascicle is completely wondrous, but time is limited, and I don't have anything else to say:
"When you realize buddha dharma, you do not think, 'This is realization just as I expected'. Even if you think so, realization inevitably differs from your expectation. Realization is not like your conception of it. Accordingly, realization cannot take place as previously conceived. When you realize buddha dharma, you do not consider how realization came about. Reflect on this: what you think one way or another before realization is not a help for realization.
Although realization is not like any of the thoughts preceding it, this is not because such thoughts were actually bad and could not be realization. But since you were seeking elsewhere, you thought and said that thoughts cannot be realization.
However, it is worth noticing that what you think one way or another is not a help for realization. For this reason, you become cautious not to be small-minded. Indeed, if realization came forth by the power of your prior thoughts, it would not be trustworthy.
Realization does not depend on your thoughts, but comes forth far beyond them; realization is helped only by the power of realization itself. Know then that there is no delusion, and there is no realization".

Give Over

When I was sixteen, a couple of school friends of mine declared, after, I imagine, much thought, that the meaning of life was that everything was a container. I thought then, and still do, for why else would it have stuck in my mind for thirty years, that the idea has some merit, while perhaps not being the definitive answer.
Here at Zen Center we are fond of using the word in its more abstract forms, especially the container of practice and the container of community, and both of these have been particularly to the fore this past week. As this second week of the intensive has got underway, I can feel myself settling into the schedule, as I hoped I would be able to, and giving over to what comes next.
This morning during service I looked at the candle on the altar, and saw that Gretchen had taken care of it, in the way that she described recently, and words from Dogen's Tenzo Kyokun came to mind: "Day and night things come to mind, and the mind attends to them". I have always liked this sentence, for its utter simplicity, and when I was tenzo, and we chanted from the Tenzo Kyokun every day, I would get to reflect on it frequently. This morning I realised that I hadn't thought about that line for a long time, and that my feeling of late is that while I have been attending to things as best I can, the doing has been accompanied by the sense that these things are a chore and are taking something out of me. With the nice number of hours we are getting to sit during the intensive, feeling my body relax and release tensions, it feels much more like I can just attend to things, be nourished by the attending, and keep moving forward to the next thing. This is how I understand the idea of being held by the container of practice.

Study Hall - Shobogenzo

I read this fascicle a few days ago, but it is fit for the moment: "Taking refuge in the three treasures, you nurture yourself wherever you are, birth after birth, world after world...The power of taking refuge in the three treasures will never decay...
Initiate this vow aspiring for enlightenment, the fruit of buddhahood. Even though your body-mind is born and dies moment by moment, your dharma body surely grows and attains enlightenment.
'Taking refuge in' means returning and relying upon. 'Returning' is like children returning to their parents. 'Relying upon' is like citizens relying on the king. This phrase implies that you are liberated by doing so.
You take refuge in buddha because he is a great master. You take refuge in dharma because it is good medicine. You take refuge in sangha because it is an excellent friend" - 'Taking Refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha', 'Kie Bupposo'.

The Benji Poem

Friends and family continue to leave moving comments on the various posts from the last few days, and I encourage everyone to read them. I am happy to be able to offer this as a forum for people to express themselves, and today I would like to share this - the benji poem that we referred to on Friday, which was passed on to me. As a bit of context for those not familiar with the set-up, the benji is the attendant - I think side-kick might sum it up best in David's case - to the shuso, the head monk for a practice period. They work together, cleaning toilets, at Tassajara taking care of the trash, recycling and compost, and perform ceremonies together. The shuso meets every student for tea, one by one usually, and the benji prepares the tea and bakes the cookies or other treats - Ren was commenting on the beauty of David's tea arrangements a day or so ago. At the end of the practice period, the shuso ceremony is the chance for the shuso to meet every student's question with dharma words. It is always a special occasion, and the benji pretty much kicks off the proceedings with the poem, which are designed to encapsulate the intimacy of the preceding months.

Ren the shuso - and photographer - and David the benji after the shuso ceremony