Unexpected Rain

A big day with many wonderful moments. A beautiful cloudy sunrise that turned into light rain by the time we started work. Two synchronicities that made me happy: first when Susan as kokyo turned towards me during the Diamond Sutra as she had noticed that we were chanting the exact same passage in unintended unison; then, as I knuckled down to a morning of work, finishing up a program for the Stepping Down Ceremony just as Steve emailed me to ask about it. Having orchids, loaned by someone setting up a nursery, all over the building in delicate bright colours. The doshi for noon service signing for a package from the UPS man right before bowing with the jiko and starting the ceremony. Catching a glimpse of Hoitsu sitting at the table by the door of the dokusan room and writing kanji on brush paintings with such practised ease. Getting to witness his lesson in how to flick the whisk from side to side before prostrating, as we rehearsed the zendo part of the Stepping Up. Three hours of rehearsals, and still a moment to breathe before going to zazen. The first appearance in the city of Shogen and Jamie's new baby, Rio, in the middle of a dinner already full of joyful meetings and reunions. Getting to shave my head in a long bath when I had finished work in the evening, knowing that most of the things I had to do were under control.

Approaching The Mountain

I realise that I run the risk of boring the many of you who might not be so engrossed in the intricacies of setting up for the Mountain Seat Ceremony, but it is the big story round these parts this week. And yesterday was a good day. The rehearsals happened in more or less the right time frame with almost all of the right people present and paying attention; in fact I had more than half an hour to spare before evening zazen this time. Even better, having figured out an elegant solution to an audio problem that I hadn't realised we needed to deal with, which had been causing me headaches on Wednesday, and finding that it actually worked, I went off to sit feeling pretty relaxed. As a result of that, I had a flash of inspiration as to how to write out the script for all the instruments relatively painlessly, so I was motivated to go and do that after dinner when I had fewer distractions in the ino's office - though there were still a number of visitors - and then, having despaired for a couple of weeks at the state of the office, and being embarrassed that our arriving dignitaries might see it in that state, I gave it a serious clean as well, which felt good. I was thinking of cutting and pasting the finished script here, but I thought people's eyes would really start to glaze over. Happily, this kind of thing is meat and drink to me.
During the Ryoban rehearsal in the afternoon, I was reminded that while I have been quite immersed in the details of the ceremony, fourteen of Zen Center's finest were either coming to this completely fresh, or doing it for the first time in five years. There are a lot of sequences and movements, and I can't imagine people will retain all the information. We will put all the elements together this afternoon, and see how it looks, and then it might be 'all systems go' for the weekend.
The building is certainly filling up, with Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, his wife, Chitose, his jisha and translator, and a younger monk arriving yesterday, an interesting counterpoint to Christina's four sisters from Switzerland who have been here for a couple of days. We are doing our best to make them all feel welcome, even as we negotiate our way around some of the transformations in the building, not least the mountain seat itself which has been installed in the Buddha Hall, and causes a few adjustments in our service manoeuvres. It's a good time for flexible mind.

The Ryoban wait on the stairs during the rehearsal

Brief Notes

Someone reminded us at work meeting the other day that, although there is an enormous amount of work to do for the Mountain Seat, we should not forget to regard it as an amazing occasion where we all got to pull together to make it happen. Right now I am trying to hold both sides...
It feels like this week mostly involves meetings and rehearsals. On Monday, having failed to get to it last week, I sequestered myself in my room and reviewed all the 2007 footage again, rewriting parts of the script as I did so; having done so I felt much more on top of things. We had another huge Young Urban Zen meeting in the evening, where we introduced a passage from Dogen's Tenzokyokun, which seemed to go down pretty well, and I came away feeling enlivened as so often happens.
Tuesday started with Bodhidharma's birthday ceremony, then I worked on the myriad other things in the morning; after lunch was two hours of Practice Committee, straight into an hour and three quarters of script review with Abbot Steve, from which it was straight to the zendo, and then after dinner I made adjustments to the script, then it was pretty much bath and bed.
Yesterday, two hours of staff meeting, then two hours of rehearsal with the jishas after lunch. I made a sortie to Rainbow so that I don't run out of toothpaste or chocolate before Monday, onto zazen, where my head was full of details, then the Full Moon Ceremony after dinner. I had missed the rehearsal for this, but trusted Konin and Djinn to know what they were doing. I confess that I tuned out in parts of the ceremony and was going over things I needed to remember for the next few days...
Today, after the Young Urban Zen study group, which has been an uplifting addition to my calendar these last few weeks, there is a rehearsal in the morning for Paul's Stepping Down Ceremony, which I have been rather neglecting so far, and for the Ryoban in the afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon will be a full-on dress rehearsal, or flow rehearsal as we call it, as it is about getting the movements in your body. Then the usual Saturday morning program, an afternoon of setting up, the Stepping Down, dinner, and then Sunday will be more setting up and then Stepping Up.
It might sound like a lot, but I am grateful to know how many details other people are taking care of as well - things occur to me and someone else has already done it, or not forgotten that they are going to do it. We are all pulling together to make it happen.

I was glad to come upstairs after dinner in time to catch this

Study Hall - Extensive Record

Dharma Hall Discourse 217: "I can remember, Yunmen asked Caoshan, 'Why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy?' Caoshan said, 'Just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there'.
Suppose this were Eihei and someone asked me, 'Why don't we know that there is a place of great intimacy?' I would just hit his face with my whisk and ask him, 'Is this knowing or not knowing?' If he tried to answer, I would hit him again with the whisk".

Hazy sunshine this morning after the rain has moved on

Bodhidharma's Wake-Up Sermon

We only get to chant this once a year, at Bodhidharma's birthday ceremony, but it is a stirring piece of work.
Since I don't have much time to compose anything today, here is the last paragraph:

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn’t exist. Mortals keep creating the mind, claiming it exists. And arhats keep negating the mind, claiming it doesn’t exist. But bodhisattvas and buddhas neither create nor negate the mind. This is what’s meant by the mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist. The mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist is called the Middle Way.

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.

Full Steam Ahead

As far as I remember, today is my third ino birthday, and I have every reason to assert that it will be my last, for all that I don't know when my term will actually be over, or what I will be doing next. I have tried not to get too busy this week, and I took the afternoon off yesterday between lunch and zazen for some serious relaxation, as I know that the seven days starting next Monday are likely to be full-on crazy, and even with a day off on the Monday after, things will not really slow down that much.
I had the deluded idea this week that I would be able to put other things aside and just devote my attention to the Mountain Seat, but that really hasn't happened yet. The practice period is mostly launched now - people are in their doan jobs, we have done several rounds of noon service training - but there have been other things taking time these past few days: organising new protocols to send out to various groups of people in an attempt to cut back on our incense use for those with sensitivities; sending out invitations to tangaryo, which will be the week after the Mountain Seat; working out with the other resident leaders what response to have to the embarrassment of riches we are currently experiencing with Young Urban Zen, where bumper attendance levels are now making the conference center a bit of a squeeze; not to mention the usual rounds of meetings and floods of emails; and we have to fit in a few ceremonies before next weekend as well: Suzuki Roshi memorials tonight and tomorrow, the Bodhidharma ceremony on Tuesday morning, the Full Moon ceremony on Wednesday night, for both of which rehearsals need to be scheduled before we embark on the many Mountain Seat rehearsals; I have also been thinking ahead to Parinirvana, scheduled for the 15th...
So I haven't got completely on top of details for the big day itself - let alone the Stepping Down, which would be big enough in itself - though I did manage a rewrite of the main script after folding details from the 2007 script into the 2003 script I had been basing my ideas on. Now, having reviewed some of that with Steve, and made changes, I need to check this version against the hours of footage, which I will probably do over the weekend so as to have some uninterrupted time. Then we should have a working document with which to conduct rehearsals, after which is confidently predicted that Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi will come and suggest that we do things slightly differently. But then if I have learnt anything as ino, it is that the ceremony will happen, just not exactly as planned.
And then there are moments like going out to hit the umpan to mark breakfast time just as the sun was peeping over the roofs of houses lower down Page St, when it is easy to exhale and say, just another beautiful day.

It is blossom time here - these quince are in an arrangement on the stairs

These are in the courtyard

Meeting People

Back in the day, as a new practice period student going to afternoon zazen, I remember being struck by how Blanche, who was the abbess in those days, would go round to the end of the gaitan after service, and wait to bow to everyone who came out of the zendo. It was something we read of Suzuki Roshi doing in the early days of Sokoji; it had a profound effect on many of those who came to sit with him then, who felt completely seen and met. I felt the same way at seeing Blanche's kind warm eyes and smile waiting for me to take my place and bow in front of her - such freely offered, abundant love is rarely met.
With the start of the practice period, she has been sitting again most every evening, and heading out to the gaitan to meet people, and these days I am often the first one out to bow with her, which is very sweet.
I was already thinking about writing a few lines about this, when I received this as part of an email conversation yesterday (hoping the person will forgive me for reproducing their words unattributed):
"It has been an overwhelming time at the office lately, which tends to leave me physically drained, emotionally volatile, and generally less available for my non-work life. When I realized Blanche was waiting for me at the end of the gaitan, I about burst into tears from the kindness and patience".
There is nothing more to our practice than this.