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.

By Shinge Sherry Chayat Roshi

In 1974, just 50 years ago, a small group of us began living in the Joraku-an, now known as the Beecher House. The Zen Studies Society had purchased 1,400 wooded acres surrounding Beecher Lake in the spring of 1971, and on September 13, 1972, Soen Nakagawa Roshi led the Kaisanshiki, “ceremony for opening the mountain,” where the new monastery, International Dai Bosatsu Zendo KongoJi, would be built.

As president of the board of ZSS, the young monk Eido Tai Shimano addressed the mountain, asking “forgiveness for our destruction and pollution of all rocks, trees, grasses, masses and nature” and asking “permission to establish a Zen monastery on this very site … May this place be peaceful, calm, creative and harmonious for all the years to come and for all people who may come here, generation after generation.”

Soen Roshi offered this verse:

In this bottomless lake
Let us put sun, moon and all stars;
On this boundless field
Countless bodhisattvas are being born—
Niii!

We residents of the Joraku-an (the name coming from the line “jo raku ga jo” in our Kanzeon chanting: “eternal, joyous, selfless, pure)” sat, chanted, cleaned, planted a large vegetable garden, tapped maples for syrup, and each winter morning before dawn took our old blue pickup truck out to clear and sand the road so that the construction vehicles could get to the building site. We watched in awe as the steel frame and cinder blocks rose higher and the graceful arcs of the cedar roof took form. Then, even before we would carry the Tasmanian oak floor boards up the hill, we did sesshin on the sheetrock underlayment. “The deeper our samadhi went, the higher the roof soared,” Eido Roshi wrote in Namu Dai Bosa: A Transmission of Zen Buddhism to America.

It’s hard to believe that half a century has passed, with all its depths and heights, dark shadows and bright lights. The same ardent love of practice, the same aspiration to offer it to “generation after generation,” has resulted in a beautiful renovation of the Beecher House and now, the badly needed restoration of the monastery itself.

From the earliest days, our focus has been on conserving resources and minimizing our carbon footprint. Living through the long, cold winters at 3,000 feet, we know the dire importance of a dependable heating system. Unfortunately, the original baseboard hot water system, for all its clanking and wheezing, has never been effective, whether we’ve fired up the boilers with wood, biomass pellets, or propane.

Now the technology has caught up with our needs: heat pumps have been installed in the Zendo and Dharma Hall as part of Phase I-a of our restoration (as they have been at the Beecher House and at New York Zendo), giving reliable heat in cold weather and drying up the humidity to create coolness on summer days. The first part of the solar array that will pay for the electricity used for this technology is nearly finished.

Generous gifts from our Sangha and Dharma Friends have also allowed us to start Phase I-b, which includes heat pumps and “splits” for the guest rooms on the first and second floors, as well as the library/yoga room and abbot’s apartment; and installing proper insulation throughout the building.

From my long vantage point, this is an exciting time. In just two years, we will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the formal opening of International Dai Bosatsu Zendo KongoJi on July 4, 1976. Every inch of this building is imbued with the sincere practice and resounding vow undertaken by all of us. How appropriate, how essential it is to do everything we can to restore our spiritual home.

With that in mind, please consider adopting a project in Phase II of the Monastery Restoration:

• Finish the final phase of the solar panel installation $55,000
• Restore the masonry walls, $12,000
• Reset the bluestone patio, $61,750
• Repair fascia/rafter tails on the roof, $13,200
• Repair stairs to residents’ quarters, $1,500
• Install dehumidifiers in utility areas, $7,500
• Replace 13 handmade oak doors, $50,000
• Paint interior spaces, $35,000

Thank you for joining me in this worthy effort. Let’s do our best!

By Shinge Sherry Chayat Roshi

I can’t describe my recent visit to Japan without using a cliché: it was the trip of a lifetime. The last time I was there, in 2017, was certainly a peak experience—Chigan Roshi and his wife, Shuko Rubin; Myogen Conor Keenan and his wife, Kai Sasahara, and Myoku Miyo Hirano and I were guests of Noritake Shunan Roshi, abbot of Reiun-in, who made it possible for us to attend the 250th commemoration of Hakuin Ekaku Zenji at RyutakuJi in Mishima and additional ceremonies at MyoshinJi. It was a rich and fulfilling time, an unsurpassable time—surely my last in Japan, I thought.

Then the invitation came: on May 26, 2024, Yamakawa Sogen Roshi, abbot of ShogenJi and KokokuJi, would be installed as Kancho (supreme abbot) of MyoshinJi, one of the Rinzai School headquarters. The Kyoto temple complex includes 46 sub-temples, including Reiun-in, spread across a vast area connected by stone pathways. I immediately accepted. Chigan Roshi could not attend, but special funding arrangements were made through the generosity of several donors so that I could represent the Zen Studies Society. Read More