Sunday Questions

Good Morning Everyone,




Today I would like to ask you about our Sunday practice. It used to be that Sunday mornings were the times that the entire Sangha gathered together to sit. Out Temple has not coalesced in that way. Instead, we have people that come on Monday, some on Tuesday, others on Thursday, and a few on Friday. But a single day when all of us come together has not been happening. I am wondering why. Perhaps it is because we are meeting at 9:00 and 9:00 is too early? Perhaps if we moved the Sunday service to 10:00? Perhaps there are just too many things at the Temple and people need to select one or two? Maybe we should roll all of our educational groups into one Sunday morning curriculum and just have weekdays be for straight Zazen practice?



Just a thought. Let me know yours,



Daiho

Schedule and Sesshin

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



I would like to change the schedule to make it more consistent across the week. Please consider 6:30 – 7:00 PM Monday through Friday for Zazen. Our Monday and Tuesday Groups would then meet at 7:00 PM, while the Women’s Group meets at 5:30 PM on Thursdays. It appears there is waning interest in the Friday Group. I therefore suggest we cancel it.



So, our proposed schedule:

Monday through Friday Zazen at 6:30 PM

Comparative Religion Group Monday at 7:00 PM

Zen 101 Tuesday at 7:00

Women in Zen Thursday at 5:30.



Lastly, regarding the implementation of a morning schedule. I would like to consider Monday through Friday Zazen at 9:30 AM. The Mesilla Sangha meets on Tuesday and Thursday, in Old Mesilla, at this time for Zazen. I suggest we replicate this at our Zendo on weekdays.



Please offer some comments on this.



July 8, 9, and 10 will be our Summer Sesshin. It will be held in our Zendo on Alameda. Please email me your reservation. We are limited to ten registration. Sesshin will begin at 7:00 PM on the 8th. And close at 12:00 PM on the 10th.



Yours in the dharma,

Daiho

Notes

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



This week many things are happening: We have scheduled a meeting with the Superintendent of J. Paul Taylor Juvenile Corrections Facility for tomorrow morning to discuss implementing a Meditation program there. We are looking forward to establishing this program and hope that it will change the minds and enhance the lives of those youth incarcerated there. We will also meet this week with Claude Anshin Thomas and his jisha, Kenshin, via Skype to discuss a series of workshops to be offered here in November. Disciple Shoji, in California, is meeting this week with the gatekeeper of the prison chaplaincy program at Folsom prison. Lastly, our Ambercare Hospice training program, Solace, is in its second month. We are coming close to having a need for someone to offer their skills at Program Development on behalf of the Order. I would like to see someone volunteer to interview members in order to gather information about service and program needs or possibilities. From my point of view, these areas should include, but not be limited to, practice with vulnerable populations such as those dying, those ill, homeless, poor, and survivors of violence, including veterans. What is yours?



Our Comparative Religion Discussion Group was very well attended last night. We had two Muslim men and the daughter of one of them, attend as guest speakers. We also had three new guest participants. The discussion was far reaching and lively. It was wonderful to see members of such a rich faith tradition speak about their faith and its practices. We would like to seek out and invite members of each faith tradition we encounter along the way. If anyone knows a few Christians well versed in that tradition who might offer their understanding to us next Monday evening, please invite them and let us know if they accept.



Tonight is Zen 101 at 6:00 PM. Please consider joining us for our discussion of the fifth Ox-Herding picture!



Yours, Daiho

Let it be

With palms together,


Good Evening Everyone,



Master Fuke travelled around saying, “If a clear mind comes, I let it be clear. If a deluded mind comes, I let it be deluded. If the wind comes from all directions…I let it be a whirlwind. And if a space comes I will strike it again and again.” Upon questioning, Master Fuke said, “Tomorrow there will be a formal dinner in Dai-hi Temple.”



This makes perfect sense to me. The first part points to being completely present in the moment, the second part is the same as saying, “Three pounds of flax!” when asked, “What is Buddha?”



Life offers us a variety of possibilities, doesn’t it? We can feel perfection and be completely calm and serene on one day. On another day, we might be hurried, frustrated, and crazy with worry. Special one day, common the next, we encounter each moment and respond according to the state of mind we are in. We may seem to be a slave to this “who knows what will happen next” mentality, but our practice reveals that we are not.



Zazen teaches us to accept that this is this and that is that and in this state of being we are to do what is in front of us to do with equanimity. Crazy is buddha. Serene is buddha. Full is buddha. Empty is buddha. Release yourself, as the Beatles crooned, “Let it be.”



Be well.

Islam

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Last’s night’s Comparative religion group was well attended and enjoyable, but clearly, we struggled with the religion of Islam. The behavior of many of its adherents leaves we in the West feeling anxious, if not downright hostile. We have to wonder what it is all about. The thing is, it’s as plain as the nose on our face: submission, which is the core meaning of the word, “Islam” itself. Westerners are not grown up to feel particularly in need of submitting. We stand on our own authority, or like to believe that we do.



Our two faith traditions, Zen and Islam, are very far apart. We speak very different languages and have very different core assumptions. While Islam, like Zen, does not hold humanity is essentially sinful, Islam does hold that humanity is disobedient to God. Whereas Zen, holds that humanity has separated itself from the Universe, this separation is not understood to be malevolent or even necessarily “sinful,” but more a simple by-product of our neurophysiology.



The starting point of Zen is a cosmological view that we are all one, deeply and completely one. So, an “individual self” is a delusion. The starting point for monotheistic faith traditions is the separate nature of God and Man. From a Zen point of view we might say that God is a delusion, man is a delusion, and that, at bottom, there is “just this,” as Master Baso points out in Case Four of Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo. This “just this” is the true reality.



Releasing oneself, letting go of self, and surrender, are Zen practices, which on the surface appear to be similar to Islamic submission, but the tone, aim, and internal sense are worlds apart. We practice to surrender our ego to the cosmos, a weave of living processes, recognizing our illusionary nature in the process. Islamic submission seems to be the act of a self, retaining the idea of self, and surrendering that self to Allah, a separate and superior sentient being. The feel is, I imagine, much like that of a serf to a king.



I would like to know more about Islam. If for no other reason than to understand a faith tradition that is rising and asserting itself in no uncertain terms on the world’s stage. Our group decided to find and invite Muslims to our discussion in order to gain a better understanding.

Be well.

Comparative Religion Discussion Today

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Today at Clear Mind Zen Temple we will practice zazen at 7:00 PM and host our Comparative Religions discussion group at 7:30 PM. The Temple will be open for open zazen at 2:00 PM.



The chapter on Islam will be our focus this evening. I do not expect us to get through the entire thing in one or even two sessions. This is an open group and anyone may join us. So, invite your friends and lets study together.



Be well.

Dokusan

With palms together,


Good Evening Everyone,



A question came up today at the Temple. It had to do with the nature of dokusan in our Order. I tried to answer, stumbling as I am prone to do on occasion. I thought I would offer a more comprehensive answer this evening.



Dokusan is typically a private interview between a student and his/her teacher. In the tradition, the general term is sanzen, and it has three types. The first deals with listening to the teacher’s lectures in a group, the second is the private interview, and the third is visiting the teacher “in secret.”



My former teacher held dokusan in his office which was a small room that acted as a connection between the two bedrooms of his house in the mountains. It had a door on one room entrance and a set of swinging louvered doors on the other. I have done dokusan in my small Zendo in my residence. This had a door. At the current temple, we do not have a door on the office entrance, although I have asked the landlord for one. When we move into the new temple, I am hopeful we will have an office where we could do dokusan in a more private context than we have at this time, if we chose to do so.



Dokusan has a long and varied history in Zen. It is typically a brief encounter where the student is essentially asked to show their true nature, their understanding, or offer something about their practice. Many of the stories throughout the history of Zen are a result of such encounters, although these do not usually take places in offices, but rather on walks, during work, or on some other off-hand occasion. Offices, we might say, are a fairly modern and, I believe, “western” comfort.



I have not often used an office for dokusan. It reminds me too much of being a therapist, and a Zen teacher is decidedly NOT a therapist. My private interviews are much more conversations than tests of a student’s understanding. I see my student’s practice as witnessed in Zazen, kinhin, oryoki, and samu, as its own best “test.” I might say that dokusan is a moment to moment experience of practicing under the teacher’s eye. For scheduled dokusan, I like to see it as a personal dialogue, typically using a text to compliment the process.



There are times, of course, when I might go directly to a student’s understanding. It may be at a time the student least expects it and it may feel uncomfortable. Zen is a practice that often takes us out of our comfort zone. This is a good thing. Comfort zones have become our contemporary places to hide in plain sight. They allow us to decline anything that will challenge us and, as a result, we decline possibilities for growth.



I would like to invite any of you to ask for time with me. This is a first, “out of our comfort zone,” step. I will be happy to see you. We can talk in person or via Skype video conferencing. The procedure is to go to our Temple calendar, find a time, and then email Soku Shin for an appointment. She can be reached at clearmindzen@yahoo.com.



Be well.