Zen Studies Society

2024 MRC DBZ Video Series: Together we Build

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By Jifu Devyani Sadh

We are excited to share our latest video, Together We Build: Join the DBZ Legacy, which showcases the crucial projects we need to fund Phase II of the Dai Bosatsu Zendo Monastery Restoration Campaign. In this update, Keirin Brian Smith highlights the key areas where your support can make a significant difference. You may have already seen our videos on completed and in-progress projects in the DBZ Monastery Video Series.

Chigan Roshi’s heartfelt appeal invites us to “carry forward the spark of the energy of Universal Life throughout these endless dimensions, making it possible for new practitioners to encounter the Dharma Jewel at Dai Bosatsu Zendo, and for long-time practitioners to return and continue to walk this path of the bodhisattva.” Similarly, Hokuto Osho encourages us to “search for our original face, our true nature; and, like Kyogen, ‘tend the grounds,’ patiently and humbly, until our true nature is revealed.”

In the spirit of shared stewardship, we invite you to “Adopt A Project.” This initiative offers you a unique opportunity to make a tangible impact on our renewal efforts. Our projects span both the interior and exterior of DBZ, varying in scale and expense, so you can choose the one that resonates most with you:

  • Restore the masonry walls: $12,000
  • Reset the bluestone patio: $61,750
  • Repair fascia/rafter tails on the roof: $13,200
  • Repair stairs to resident quarters: $1,500
  • Install dehumidifiers in utility areas: $7,500
  • Replace 13 handmade oak doors: $50,000
  • Paint interior spaces: $35,000
  • Install a large solar panel (Part II): $55,000

Every achievement and future aspiration at DBZ is made possible through the generous donations of our Sangha. Whether you choose to adopt a project or contribute to the general Monastery Restoration Fund, your timely donation or pledge will enable us to scope out and plan these essential endeavors. Contributions can be made online or by check, while pledges can be made via email.

Together, we can preserve and enhance DBZ, a spiritual home cherished by so many. Join us in this meaningful pursuit and help us build the future of Dai Bosatsu Zendo.

2024 MRC The Original Face Before You Were Born

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By Hokuto Daniel Diffin Osho

Perhaps you know the story of Kyogen Chikan, who studied under the renowned Zen Master Isan Reiyu. Despite years of sincere effort and diligent practice, when Isan asked him to demonstrate the original face he had before he was born, Kyogen was speechless, unable to respond. Frustrated and ashamed, he burned the sutras and notes he’d accumulated and left the monastery, retiring to the gravesite of National Teacher Chu, which had been neglected and become overgrown with weeds. There, he passed months then years, humbly tending the grounds. One day, working in the garden, he dislodged a pebble that struck a hollow bamboo stalk. THWOCK! Suddenly, everything changed! He saw his own original face and the original nature of all things. Afterward, he sent a verse to Isan, who recognized his enlightenment. But Isan’s Dharma Heir, Kyozan, decided to visit Kyogen, to test his enlightenment. In answer to Kyozan’s questions, Kyogen wrote another verse:

Last year’s poverty was not real poverty.
This year’s poverty is finally genuine poverty.
In last year’s poverty there was still ground where I could plant my hoe,
In this year’s poverty, not even the hoe remains.

We are spiritual descendants of Kyogen, searching for our original face, our true nature; and, like Kyogen, we need to tend the grounds, patiently and humbly, until our true nature is revealed and we discover ‘genuine poverty.’ But we live in 21st Century America, not 8th Century China, so how do we ‘tend the grounds?’

For those of us who have chosen the Zen Studies Society and its temples as our spiritual home, we do so by seeking refuge in the beloved community of our Sangha and participating in all the activities that ZSS offers. But we must also ‘tend the grounds’ by caring for the physical condition of our temples.

Last year, the Zen Studies Society launched the Monastery Restoration Campaign, raising funds to repair and upgrade the aging infrastructure and grounds of Dai Bosatsu Zendo. Thanks to your generosity, we have made great progress, updating the heating system for our temples, and beginning the installation of a solar array to lower energy costs and greatly improve our carbon footprint. The beautiful Bonsho bell tower that was in danger of collapse has been rebuilt, and other vitally necessary repairs have begun. Envisioned as a multi-year campaign, we are proud of our success in the first year, having raised just over half of the required funds; but for the work to be accomplished, we need each of you to be as generous as possible this year.

So please ‘tend the grounds’ both through your participation in all the activities that ZSS offers and through generously supporting the Monastery Restoration Campaign.

Article – Do Not Be Confused By Your Confusion

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By Eshin Brenda Shoshanna

“Do not be confused by your confusion.”

–Soen Nakagawa Roshi

Confusion swirls around everywhere. Our words fly past one another. People talk at cross purposes. It is difficult to really listen to one another or separate truth from lies. Games replace reality. Many lose touch with their authentic selves, living instead in a world of assumptions that bring no peace or fulfillment. Much of what we believe to be set in stone vanishes.

Relationships alter and for many their sense of safety and security is destabilized. Zen teachings have always told us that we live our lives steeped in delusion, unable to tell the sour from the sweet, or separate medicine from poison. Often we depend upon friends or teachers, who we later discover are more confused than we are. Where can we turn to dependable guidance? How can we navigate these choppy waters? Where can we find a safe harbor during times of need?

What Can We Truly Depend On?

It is said that times of danger and rapid change are the best times in which to grow. Though painful, these times offer an urgent opportunity to discover our true life compass, to find something real.

Yet confusion is also dispiriting and can stop us from moving forward. The great Zen Master Soen Nakagawa Roshi, told us that to find our footing, we must move forward in the midst of chaos.

“Do not be confused by your confusion,” he said. What he meant was: do not be confused by feelings that arise and depart. Enjoy your confusion and make friends with it, but don’t take it seriously. Look at the confusion and have a good laugh. The confusion is trying to pull you into its web, but you do not have to be trapped.

There is a deeper wisdom within us that goes beyond all the conflicting phenomena that come our way. Know that confusion is simply another dream trying to knock us off our feet.

An Echo of the Wind

Where is this deeper wisdom and how do we find it? We start by not allowing passing feelings, including confusion, to hold sway over our lives. Just be aware of what is happening, and then take the next step. Kinhin is a wonderful teacher for that. We continue to take one step and then another, no matter what we think or feel. Each step is a new moment and experience. “This Moment Will Not Come Again.”

Give passing feelings no power over you. Realize that they are no more than the echo of the wind. Depending upon endlessly shifting phenomena will only make you more confused. Sit down and let your confusion arise and let it pass. Then your true direction will make itself known. “Do not be confused by your confusion” is a pointer about how to wake up from distress.

Just See Confusion as Confusion

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with confusion. Just step back and see confusion as confusion. Don’t believe what it tells you or give it power over your life. Just like thunderclouds, it will inevitably pass. Confusion is natural. When seen simply as a passing phenomenon, it’s easy to realize that confusion is not who we intrinsically are. We don’t have to stay in it forever. There is a way out.

There Is a Way Out

When we do not wake up out of the spell created by confusion, it can claim our lives and turn us into ghosts haunting valleys and trees. We are not really alive, we can’t see what is in front of us. This leads not only to danger but to loneliness and heartache.

The great Zen teacher, Dogen, returned from China after years of hard practice. He was greeted in Japan when he returned and asked what he had discovered. His answer was simple, “My eyebrows are horizontal, my nose is vertical.”

My Eyebrows Are Horizontal, My Nose Is Vertical

Such an amazing discovery. Why does it take us years and years to realize this? Dogen is telling us that he was able to see things just as they are. He added nothing to what he saw. He wasn’t better than someone else because of it, or worse. When you see things just as they are, and allow them to be that way, what happens to confusion? An important point is that we must be willing to allow things to be as they are, then it is much easier to see them.

Life Is One Continuous Mistake

Dogen also said, “Life is one continuous mistake.” We are tormented by the mistakes we think we’ve made and play them over and over again in our minds. Yet right now, right here, as we sit quietly and observe, where are the mistakes we made?

As we sit quietly and look within, even though we may be sitting next to one another, we are all sitting in our own worlds. As we breathe one breath together, our mistakes may arise again and again. But where are they, really? Only in our mind. As we practice with the mistakes, notice them, and let them go their way, each time the mistakes reappear, they will be weaker and dimmer than before. When we have absorbed them completely and received whatever nourishment and instruction they have for us, they will disappear.

Rather than try to figure out mistakes, or punish ourselves for them, in zazen we simply keep watching them. Then, not only will new insights arrive, but one day the so-called mistake will be absorbed completely.

You Cannot Make a Mistake

Making a mistake can be terrifying. We live our lives in fear that we’re not doing things correctly. Deep down we’re always saying, “What happens if I make a mistake?” In zazen you cannot make a mistake. When you sit on the cushion you can’t do anything wrong! Whatever comes, comes. Whatever goes, goes. It happens naturally, on its own. Whatever appears is perfect in the moment. Of course, when we realize this, it’s a huge relief. But wait a minute! You also can’t do anything right either. Again, it’s all happening on its own.

Who decides what is right or wrong? Take a moment to notice what would have happened in your life if that so-called mistake never took place. You wouldn’t be the person you are now. Like it or not, something would be missing.

Making the Rock Garden Perfect

A high official was coming to visit a Zen monastery. All the monks worked feverishly to make it perfect. The floors were polished, windows washed and leaves in the beautiful rock garden carefully swept away. All was in order.

The Zen Master watched all that went on. After the work was completed, he quickly climbed to the roof carrying a bag of old autumn leaves. Once on the roof, he opened the bag and let the leaves drift down over the immaculate rock garden.

“Ah,” said the Zen Master, “now it’s truly perfect.”

We fear natural changes and fight chaos and the seeming disorder that appears in our lives. Immediately, we want to clean things up, get rid of debris, organize, and impose order on things. Yet when the wind blows in our direction and tosses leaves all over our well-ordered lives, this too, is perfection. Life is happening as it must. Look at the perfection, don’t be too quick to sweep the leaves away. Live with what has flown into your life and what it shows you. And remember, soon the wind will blow the leaves another way.

Before great clarity, chaos or confusion can appear. Confusion is fundamentally our friend. Our entire need to see clearly is fueled by the confusion we feel. We actually know the truth every moment, we just don’t want to accept it. When we accept it we see that all is an intrinsic, living part of reality. No need to join the mad, whirling mind. Let reality be reality. Let yourself be who you truly are. 

Poetry – Sesshin

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By Jigen Paul Willis

The translator suppressed a smile
as the Zen master explained.
For thirty years he taught the Dharma
as he had been ordained.
But his Japanese was badly rusted
and his English very poor,
and he told us all calmly that
he really doesn’t speak
much of any language
anymore.

Poetry – Zazen

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By Keigetsu CM Brown

We sit in silence, eating our breakfast.
The shapes of tables,
the shapes of eyes and arms,
the shapes of wooden chairs,
the shape of the walls,
all are still and listening.

I walk into the kitchen with
my empty bowl and place it
in the sink. I too am a shape.
I change as I move.
I am a shape that shifts.

I pass into another blue morning
that flows over the tops of the trees.
The stars and the half-moon
gradually fade into light as
this body, that I mistakenly call
“me,” sits down on the black cushion.

I have no ambition.
The shadows of the evergreens
flow along the brown pine needles.

Shadows have no ambition
and I listen as silence returns.
Always a returning;
a body, a thought, a cough,
a silence.

And the round bell on the Zendo floor
is calling us home again;
home to the shape of space that has
never left, nor has it ever arrived.
Can you ever arrive where you
already are?

Locations

Dai Bosatsu Zendo
223 Beecher Lake Road
Livingston Manor, NY 12758

New York Zendo
223 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10065


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Contact Us

Dai Bosatsu Zendo
office@daibosatsu.org
(845) 439-4566

New York Zendo
office@newyorkzendo.org
(212) 861-3333