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2024 Entanglement – The Invisible Threads of Sangha

December 27, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Jifu Devyani Sadh

Reading the year-end messages from our teachers, I found myself reflecting on the concept of entanglement. In quantum physics, “entanglement” refers to a phenomenon where particles become linked and inextricably connected even when separated by large distances.

Similarly, within our Sangha, we are bound by invisible threads of interdependence and shared intention. Students meet Dharma teachers when the time is right. Often from vastly different paths, Sangha members find each other through practice. Places of practice emerge to cement these connections.

Entanglement is not merely being caught in the web of life; it is the realization that this web is the very fabric of existence. Every action, thought, and breath reverberates outward, touching lives in ways we may never know. This is the heart of pratītyasamutpāda, or dependent origination, and it invites us to embrace the entirety of our being, knowing that our practice resonates through the whole.

In the first year-end message, Chigan Roshi affirms, “An essential step in our spiritual journey is to examine the workings of the two-dimensional mind and look deeply into the nature of duality.” Through zazen and the cultivation of stillness, we transcend the delusion of separation and awaken to the indivisibility of all existence.

In the next message on “interesting times,” Hokuto Osho invites us to find refuge in the example of the Buddha and the living Bodhisattvas among us, the teachings, and the community of like-minded practitioners, practicing for no other purpose than to find the wisdom, compassion, and joy that is everybody’s birthright.

Finally, Shinge Roshi reminds us that our intensive training and dedicated zazen can help us develop the open, attentive mind—the mind of radical acceptance that excludes no one and no situation. It’s an embrace in which we feel our utter unity.

At Dai Bosatsu Zendo, New York Zendo, and online, the Sangha thrives in this spirit of shared entanglement, offering a refuge for deepening practice and realizing our oneness with all beings.

As we step into the new year, let us honor these bonds. Your continued support—through practice, presence, and financial contributions—ensures that this shared refuge will flourish for generations to come.

Please give as generously as you can to sustain this precious community and the transformative teachings that arise from our shared entanglement.

Filed Under: Jifu Devyani Sadh

2024 Year-end Offering from Shinge Roshi

December 23, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Shinge Sherry Chayat Roshi

More than 40 of us came together for Rohatsu Sesshin at Dai Bosatsu Zendo from November 30 through the morning of December 8. The sesshin was deep and still. As the snow accumulated around us, I was reminded of the poem by Santoka Taneda that Eido Tai Shimano Roshi quoted in his last teisho, which he presented at ShogenJi Junior College in Gifu, Japan, just before his passing on February 18, 2019:

Snow falls endlessly amidst life and death.

For Rohatsu at New York Zendo, a strong group, with many more joining online, sat every morning and evening, through the last night and the dawn of December 8, commemorating the Buddha’s enlightenment.

Rohatsu. This kind of strenuous and intensive training done in the traditional way is one of the Zen Studies Society’s most important offerings; it’s the culmination of the year’s practice, which is grounded in the essential consistency of day-in, day-out sitting. What develops is the open, attentive mind, the mind of radical acceptance that excludes no one, no situation. It’s an embrace in which we feel our utter unity. This is what we learn, what we experience, through our dedicated zazen. This is what we offer, naturally and gracefully, to all beings.

D. T. Suzuki said, “To practice is to open up to the fundamental sacredness of this mysterious world where we don’t really understand what’s going on; we don’t even understand what’s possible until we try our best.” When we open to this sacredness, it’s no longer about understanding; in the midst of no-knowing, we try our very best. At this time of global instability and challenges of every sort, let us be here for each other. We sit with all our might. We sit down, and then we get up, ready to respond appropriately and clearly to the urgent calls of our time.

The darkest day and the longest night have come and gone. Subtly at first, then more noticeably, dawn comes earlier; soon our morning zazen will be bathed in light, which is none other than the light of Buddha’s wisdom.

Filed Under: Shinge Roshi

Poetry – Psithurisms

December 13, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Shigyo Alexander Marrero

quietly porous
this body vast like the wind
roars in all leaf colors

Filed Under: Shigyo Alexander Marrero

2024 Year-end Invitation from Hokuto Osho

December 11, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Hokuto Daniel Diffin Osho

May you live in interesting times.

This curse, supposedly from ancient China, was first pronounced in a speech by a British diplomat in 1936. At that time, the Great Depression had a grip on America and Europe, Hitler was building the German army and threatening neighboring countries, and the great international debate centered on whether it was communism or fascism that would eventually rule the world. Interesting times, indeed.

Once again, we live in interesting times. The world seems filled with madness, badness, and worse. And yet, we have no choice but to go on, turning to one another to lift each other up.

At times like these, the concept of refuge becomes increasingly important. How do you take refuge? Where do you take refuge? When the world is filled with madness, where do you find sanity, purpose, and community?

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha

We find refuge in the example of the Buddha and the living Bodhisattvas among us; we find refuge in the teachings, accumulated and refined over the centuries, and renewed in each of us every time we sit in the clarity of zazen; and we find refuge in the community of like-minded practitioners, practicing for no other purpose than to find the wisdom, compassion, and joy that is everybody’s birthright.

The three treasures are our refuge; the three refuges are our treasure.

These treasures are available to each of us, and are accessible anytime, anywhere. And yet…discovering and exploring them through practice also requires an actual physical place of refuge and dedicated teachers to guide us deeper into the dharma.

We are very fortunate that the Zen Studies Society provides us with both an urban temple and a beautiful mountain monastery where the Sangha can gather and study with wonderful teachers, especially our Abbot, Chigan Roshi, and our beloved retired Abbot, Shinge Roshi, as well as a growing number of associated Dharma teachers.

Filed Under: Hokuto Osho

Engaged at ZSS – A Crisis of the Bios

December 4, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Gabriel Moreno

We do not just have a climate crisis; we have a crisis of the bios—of the living system itself, of all life, not just the climate or the biosphere. 

The environmental crisis is not limited to the climate. It is a global ecological crisis. What we euphemistically call “biodiversity loss” is in reality the destruction of life on Earth. It is not just the health of the planet that is being badly damaged. Our own health is also in trouble.

In the richest nation in the world, life expectancy has been decreasing for the past several years. Globally, cancer, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and iatrogenic illnesses are on the rise. Depression, anxiety, and burnout have also been on an upward trend. 

The health of our bodies, our psyche, and our planet are not three different issues. Our planet is also our body in a biological sense. The life within us could not exist without the planet. Science has also demonstrated that our psyche and our bodies are not separate. Planet, body, and mind are intertwined. They are all part of one living system. We separate these dimensions only for practical convenience which ironically is turning out to not be so practical. 

Instead of taking the usual approach of seeing all these problems as external issues, perhaps it would be better to pause and see the whole picture. To reflect on what this says about how we are living in late industrial civilization.

Most of us are living hurried, frenetic, and hyper-busy lives that are making us and the planet sick while we go nowhere. Add to this the characteristics promoted by our hectic, competitive way of life, which seem to be increasing in intensity and ubiquity – namely, selfishness, envy, dishonesty, theft, and greed – all of which cause significant harm to people and the planet. Is all this harm done to both personal and planetary life resulting in happier human lives? What if the future of the planet was tied to our own true happiness and health?

The way we live, our current ethos, seems to be against life. There is nothing more precious than life but we do not seem to care much for it, including the life we carry within ourselves. All this exists in the name of a hunger that can never be satisfied. 

The elephant in the room in mainstream discussions about climate change, biodiversity loss, and human health is the sense of hollowness inside us – a void that cannot be filled with the typical offerings of modern industrial society, such as money, social status, and the endless consumption of material goods and luxuries. We modern humans often behave like black holes that suck in everything around us without ever being satiated. Even the few individuals who materially profit most continue to seek more with no end in sight – they are never content with the huge fortunes they acquire, to the chagrin of everyone else.

The only way to fill this inner void is through an experience of life that is radically different from one based on material wealth that is produced at the expense of human and planetary life. 

Our existence needs to be rooted in an embodied experience of biophilia, a sense of love and connection to life in our body, not just our mind. This would result in a new bioethos, or way of life, that supports and respects life, including our own well-being and true joy. If we actually pursued such a path this world would change radically. 

An embodied transformation is, by definition, not going to be achieved by change at a conceptual level or through moral precepts or ideas. An embodied biophilic ethos will require a profound transformation in how we live and experience the world, with genuine practical consequences that allow life to thrive in all its manifestations. This is where Buddhism can be engaged and offer tremendous help. 

One key dimension where Buddhism can help is in providing practices that generate the embodied change we need. Simple practices such as slowing down to engage in mindful doing, being present, observing, listening, experiencing mindful suffering, and embracing silence in meditation or the quietude of being in nature, can all be very powerful in transforming our way of being in the world. 

The ultimate outcome of these practices is an embodied experience of connection with all life – ourselves, our bodies, our fellow humans, and our environment imbued with an enhanced experience of beauty and joy and a deep sense that we already have enough with what we have right now. 

One discovers that the experience of simply being, including doing everyday tasks like cleaning or cooking, is unmatched by anything else. Regaining this connection is fundamental to our joy and to truly satisfying the hollowness most humans carry within, which is the cause of so much trouble. In other words, embodied practices like these are key to recovering a way of being that has been ‘educated away’ and buried by a socioeconomic system that, through competition, frenetic living, and a cult of the self, continues to sever our natural connection to the rest of life – that is, to all that is part of us. 

Filed Under: Dr. Gabriel Moreno

Article – Liftoff

November 26, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Hokuto Osho

When I was a kid, it was the beginning of the Space Age. Each rocket launch was televised live on all the TV networks, and the countdown would fill our hearts with an intoxicating mixture of joy and excitement.  Read More at Lion’s Roar

Filed Under: Hokuto Osho

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