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2024 Year-end Affirmation from Chigan Roshi

November 25, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Chigan Roland Jaeckel Roshi

As winter draws closer and we approach the last few weeks of the year, the days get shorter and darkness outlasts the sunlight hours. Along with the natural phenomenon of the changing seasons, change is also unfolding simultaneously in our society and the world. As a spiritual person, a human being who is walking the path of the Bodhisattva, how do we move forward in difficult situations? How do we embrace societal challenges as opportunities for practice instead of falling into despair, anger, or fruitless struggle? How do we make a real difference?

In a world where division, polarization, and fear are used to compete for power and influence, the promise of a path that guided a human being named Siddartha Gautama to become a liberated being—a Buddha—is of the utmost importance. Although we practice as individuals, we inevitably awaken to the insight that life is indivisible. 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. We learn that viewing the human condition exclusively from a dualistic perspective reinforces the cycle of suffering, known in Buddhist teachings as samsara. Concepts like victory and defeat, winning and losing, or us versus them, are dear to the dualistic perspective and fuel the workings of a limited, self-referential mind. Through introspection, cultivating stillness, and quieting this mind, we discover that these two-dimensional concepts are delusions. Another aspect of the self-referential mind is identity, a function crucial in society and interpersonal interaction. As long as we understand that identity, at its core, is merely a set of safe limits that allow us to interact, all is well. But when we attach to a fixed identity, we imprison ourselves in just a tiny compartment of our whole being and inevitably suffer the effects of spiritual poverty.

When events in the world provoke fear, disappointment, or concern, we tend to react with opposition, resistance, and anger. As practitioners, we are called to step beyond the two-dimensional mechanics of opposition. Merely reacting in this way only perpetuates fragmentation and strife.

Formal Zen training is a unique way to realize and experience the indivisibility of all existence. Continuous and diligent practice is needed to ripen and mature our ability to embrace challenges and act in a more holistic and wholesome manner. New York Zendo Shobo-ji and Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji are rare places that offer this time-honored practice of introspection and awakening. We offer the world access to this practice and are grateful to everyone who chooses to walk this path. The need for places of refuge and safe practice, such as our temples, where this exploration is available in a supportive environment, is of increased importance in times of significant challenges.

As a token of our appreciation, we have shared an affirmation to help refresh our commitment to the path of the Bodhisattva. Let it remind us of the need to awaken, be clear, and walk with determination and unwavering curiosity.

Filed Under: Chigan Roshi

Engaged at ZSS – The Infinite Teacher

November 24, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Michael Fayne

“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious coworker, every illness, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.” Charlotte Joko Beck

Charlotte Joko Beck (1917-2011) was an esteemed American Zen teacher who led sanghas in California and in the Southwest. This statement, which appears in her book “Everyday Zen: Love and Work,” is a particularly concise expression of a truth we all aspire to realize in our practices and lives. It is one facet of the concept of non-duality – that any experience we face, any situation we find difficult, no matter how minute or massive, can be regarded in its fundamental nature as simply a call. It invites us to let go of yet one more of the inexhaustible desires and urges us to slip free just a bit more from the stranglehold that our sense of a separate self has on us. Every moment a teacher.

Joko Beck in this quote speaks of small daily “teachers.” But our life these days presents us with some monstrous and terrifying teachers – ongoing war, the erosion of human respect and decency among so much of our leadership, and of course the ever-looming reality of climate destruction. (As I write this, one more “unprecedented, record-breaking” hurricane rages across the Southeastern U.S.)

However, during our most recent climate-oriented Engaged Buddhism meeting (held each 4th Wednesday), we listened to a podcast conversation in which climate activist Christiana Figueres highlights three climate change trends. The first is the pervasive deterioration of the climate; the second is the ever-accelerating development of technological innovations to combat it; and the third is humanity’s slow but steady transformation toward being a species that sees itself as not separate from the natural world.

This is not to view our climate catastrophe through rose-colored glasses. It may well be that nothing averts destruction in the long run. But in light of the truth-seeking that brings us all together as a sangha, Ms. Figueres’ third trend is pointing toward a slow movement away from the egoistic and materialistic illusions that have driven our species for centuries, toward a dawning awareness of the not-separate truth of our nature.

This is the work that life presents us with in every moment: to realize, not as an intellectual concept but as a visceral and lived truth, that there is no separation. We are all every sentient being, we are all earth and trees and oceans and sky and all the vastness of space, and every grain of sand and every set of bones in every grave. (How easy to say, how seemingly impossible to truly feel.) 

May all beings attain, and live, this wisdom. 

May we not squander the opportunities for insight that tragedy can bring.

Filed Under: Dr. Michael Fayne

Poetry – Me

November 13, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Keigetsu CM Brown

What is this me
that walks across the
surface of the Earth?
Is it like a jar of pickles?
Is it like some statuette
sitting on the table
in the hallway?

I hear that this
particular me can speak.
I see that it can curl its
fingers around a pen and
write words that approximate
a thought.

“So” says another,
“What’s to worry?
Just breathe and
see what happens.”

“Oh no” says another,
“You must find the goal
across the field.
You must get.
For without getting
you are lost.
You are nothing.”

Okay then, I shall
be nothing. I will
float across the lake
with my face to the sky.
And from the surface
of the moving water
I, like a goose, shall honk.

Filed Under: Keigetsu CM Brown

Poetry – Revisiting Cold Mountain

November 13, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Hokuto Osho

entering the storm
            snow piled on snow: so long a
                          way to cold mountain

                                              no more walking: sit
                           not looking for cold mountain
             I find myself here
 
cold mountain again:
            it is closer than myself
                     this clear moonlit night

Filed Under: Hokuto Osho

Engaged at ZSS – Ecoworks

November 6, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

Are you concerned about the climate crisis and want to explore ways in which you can address it close to home? Would you enjoy working with other Sangha members on a tangible project that embodies Engaged Buddhism?

The ZSS Engaged Buddhism Committee has been exploring ways for Sangha members to connect meaningfully beyond our Zoom meetings. The objective is to create a sustained initiative that benefits our community, the Engaged Buddhism mission, and ZSS at large. However, with members living across the country, finding a suitable in-person activity has proven challenging…and this is where you come in!

We invite you to join the Eco Workshop Planning Group, which will meet monthly on Zoom to plan an exciting Eco Workshop Weekend at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. During this in-person workshop, participants will explore the monastery’s natural and structural environment, and learn about the stewardship solutions that have been implemented. Participants will also be able to collaborate on specific environmental sustainability projects at the monastery.

While the first Eco Workshop Weekend will focus on projects that will directly benefit Dai Bosatsu Zendo, we warmly invite planning members with a diverse range of ecological and climate interests or expertise—such as sustainable urban planning—to share their ideas as well. We are open to all insights that can enrich our discussions.

The inaugural Eco Workshop Weekend will be scheduled for Summer 2025. We envision a small gathering which will initially consist mostly of planning group members. Building on the insights and experiences from this first workshop, we aim to expand and launch a larger event in 2026. While the planning group will ultimately shape the details of the weekend, below are some of the activities we anticipate will be included:

  • Zazen
  • Workshops by Keirin Brian Smith, Kanchi Lucia Oliva Hennelly, and others who can provide specific insights into DBZ and offer in-depth teachings on the environmental issues faced at the monastery.
  • Work on projects that will be identified and agreed upon with DBZ administration

We’d love to have you join the planning group. Once the group is established, we’ll set a time for our monthly Zoom meetings and discuss how our Buddhist vows can guide our collaborative efforts on this project. If interested, please contact us at engaged@zenstudies.org.

Filed Under: Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

Article – Just Grab the Dust Rag

October 9, 2024 by Devyani Sadh

By Eshin Brenda Shoshanna

One afternoon, when I was a sophomore in high school in Brooklyn, as the class was over one day, my history teacher slid over to me. Then he secretly handed me something wrapped in a brown paper bag.

“This is just for you,” he murmured under his breath. “Don’t tell anybody I gave it to you. Take it home. I know you’ll love it.”

Scared, I took the hidden package and ran with it right home. Once safely inside, I went to my room and shut the door tight before carefully opening it up. Inside I found a little book, On Zen by D.T. Suzuki. This has to be a dangerous book, I thought, wondering why he felt it was just right for me. Completely unaware of what it could be about, I flipped through the pages and started to read.

The book was filled with odd little stories based on questions and answers that had taken place between Zen Masters and their students, some of them thousands of years old. The questions and answers, called mondos or koans, were inscrutable. Like life itself, they were impossible to figure out. None of it made any sense at all.  

But I was fascinated, anyway. Even though I had no idea what any of it meant, I couldn’t put the book down. Soon, waves of joy washed over me. The more I read the more I was filled with unexpected happiness. This is it! I thought, delighted. This is right, fantastic, amazing! But of course, I had no idea why I was so happy, or what the koans were all about. I also didn’t realize that it was fine not to understand. In Zen having ready-made answers was just the booby prize.  

Excited and thrilled I couldn’t let the book go. Wherever I went, I carried it with me and read it again and again. When people asked why I loved it so much, I said, “I have no idea.” And I didn’t. When they asked me what the koans meant, I said, “I don’t know.” All I did know was that in an instant something in my life had turned around. 

As the years went by I kept reading that book, but made no progress. I poured over the inscrutable questions, dwelt upon them, read commentaries, and even wrote poems about them at the beach. But I still didn’t understand.  And yet, whenever I engaged with these koans, my world opened wide. Emotional pain often dissipated, and I learned what it meant to be a friend. Out of nowhere, life made sense. What kind of sense? Don’t ask me. I don’t understand.

A few years later I got married and kept reading the book whenever I could. Often I’d ask my husband if he thought my Zen teacher would be coming to this country, or if I would have to go to Japan.

“He’s coming here, I’m positive of it,” my husband reassured me, hoping I would stop asking him the same question again and again. I’m sure he also hoped that this inscrutable teacher I was waiting for would arrive soon.

Time has its own way in Zen practice. Fourteen years later I met my teacher. Unbeknownst to us, my husband and I had moved into an apartment two blocks away from where he was every day. For two years I walked by that building day in and day out with no idea that he was inside, giving every ounce of his energy to getting things ready, preparing for us, and waiting for me.  

One day, a friend returned from sesshin in Litchfield, Connecticut. “There’s someone you must meet,” she smiled at me and immediately showed me how to do zazen.

Zazen was hard, it hurt. I squirmed as my knees stuck up and wouldn’t go down into the cross-legged position. I just did the little I could each day and couldn’t understand how even a short time of sitting in the morning and evening became so precious it turned my day around. Soon, my sittings grew longer and my knees slowly relaxed and came down.

Finally, I was ready. The zendo was in a beautiful townhouse in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side. Thursday night was beginner’s night, and I lined up outside with all the other new students, waiting for the doors to open. Who knew what would happen then? Little did I realize that now I would receive the teachings in an entirely different way. They weren’t hidden in a secret book. Just the opposite.

At exactly six fifteen the doors opened and the line started to move. The doors didn’t open a minute sooner or later and remained open for forty-five minutes. At precisely seven o’clock they were closed. If you arrived a minute later the door stayed shut and you couldn’t get in. Time mattered here.

As soon as we walked into the small entrance vestibule, we were told to take off our shoes and place them onto the shoe rack, carefully. “Don’t throw your shoes on the rack helter-skelter,” we were instructed. “Pay attention. The way you treat your shoes is the way you treat everything in your life. Messy shoes, messy mind!” I gasped. Oh, it became so clear.

Then we were instructed to put whatever we were carrying with us into a small room on the side. “We don’t carry packages with us here. Empty-handed we come, empty-handed we go.” What a relief to let things go, one package at a time.

As it was our first time here, we were directed upstairs to the second floor and ushered into a long, beautiful, empty room, with flowers on the altar and cushions lined up on the floor. Then we were told to sit down and wait. Wait for what, I wondered. “Wait without waiting for anything,” Jonen, a resident, instructed.

She told us to keep our eyes down. “Don’t look around, don’t look for something.” Out of the corner of our eyes, we peeked at each other anyway. Vinny was there, Harold, Peter, Sara, and two Catholic nuns. This particular group kept returning day after day, week after week, year after year. We became inseparable, and even though many of us are gone now, we will never be apart.

The moment came to do zazen together. “Just sit still with your spine erect, pay attention to your breath, and don’t move until you hear the bell, no matter what.” My mind raced wildly, this couldn’t be it after all those years of waiting. Just this? Where was I really? Was my teacher truly downstairs, sitting like the rest of us?

Finally, the bell rang and we got up from our cushions and bowed in thanks. We were led downstairs to the main zendo, to join other students sitting there. Walking through the wooden zendo, I was transported to ancient Japan. The intense silence, simplicity, and beauty were overwhelming. Suddenly wooden clappers were struck, indicating that it was time to stop at a cushion and sit again.

Was that it, I wondered? Sit down, breathe, get up, walk, listen to the bell and clappers, and then do it all over again? Wasn’t Zen mystical, mysterious, hidden? In the silence that enveloped us all, I kept questioning, who are these people? Who am I? Why am I here? What happens next? It seemed as though nothing happened except what was natural and inevitable. How could that be? And what did my endless thoughts really want of me?

When the evening was over a powerful Japanese monk who’d been sitting at the front of the line stood up and moved to the center. I stared at him and shivered. Here he was after all these years! There was no doubt in my mind.

“Thank you for coming,” he spoke in a deep, resounding voice. “You are welcome to join us for zazen at other times now as well. After zazen tonight, there will be informal tea served upstairs. Other times after zazen there is zendo cleaning.”

Cleaning? Why did he mention cleaning, I wondered. What did it have to do with anything? I wanted to shout out, “When it’s time for cleaning, what do we do then?”

He smiled and glanced at me suddenly as if he’d heard exactly what I’d just thought. “And when it’s time for cleaning,” he continued, “it’s very simple. Just grab the dust rag and dust.”

A gong rang out and the evening was over. That was it. I was completely jarred. What did all of this have to do with the wonderful stories I’d been reading for years? I left quickly and walked back to my apartment, dazed.

My husband, waiting at home, couldn’t wait to hear the news.  “How was it?” he asked.

“It was strange, easy, difficult, beautiful, and my legs hurt terribly,” I uttered.

He was startled.  “Well, at least you tried it,” he said. “You don’t have to go back.”

“I don’t know if I will or won’t go back,” I replied.

But at four o’clock the next morning, as if electrocuted, I suddenly awoke and sat bolt upright in bed. My God, I thought, morning sitting at the zendo was at five thirty am. There was no way I could go back to sleep. I had to get out of bed immediately and get back to the zendo.

 

Filed Under: Eshin Brenda Shoshana

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