Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror
39 不用求眞 唯須息見
Pu-yung ch'iu chen, wei hsü hsi-chien.
Shin o motomuru koto o mochiizare, tada subekaraku ken o yamu beshi.
Do not seek the truth;
just release opinions.
The truth or "zhen" 眞 is the Vast Way that is breathing in and out as you and as everyone else in the room. It is the room, the floor and walls and ceiling and lights and fan. It is outside the windows and extends in all directions all around the curve of the world and into the farthest regions of interstellar space. Although it extends that far and even further into dimensions of space unknown it is always right here. Whenever there is a here, here it is.
In releasing opinions and opening attention, the truth about who you are and what the world is becomes obvious, revealed and undisguised.
Experience simply presents itself, and people naively assume that there is "something" which is being experienced and "someone" having the experiences. Self-image is inherently afraid of experience because it holds itself to be this knot of attention inside here which makes everything else out there something other. And "out there" is very big indeed. It is everything and everyone else. The feeling of vulnerability and of threat can be towering and so self-image tries to weigh itself down and prop itself up in whatever way that it can instead of just letting itself fall open and cease generating fear and poverty and uncertainty. Opinions often help people to disguise their insecurity. The term "jian", 見 translated here as opinions, is the Chinese term used for the Sanskrit word drsti, which means views.
"Seeking the truth" will tend to lead people to find only the truths that already seem to be true to them. Everyone has opinions on just about anything or can come up with one quite quickly. Whether politics, art, sports, popular culture, cuisine or intercultural relations everyone can come up with something to say even if it's just, "Oh, I don't care about that stuff." Unfortunately people's opinions tend to be unconsidered and based more on conviction than knowledge or experience. In fact their opinions are often solely based upon the opinions of other people that they like or that they want to have like them. People who have never practised zazen or have only cobbled together something they think is zazen from books and web sites can have strong opinions on what a Zen monk should be like and what enlightenment is and how zazen should be.
And so when people sit, they have all kinds of opinions about it. The problem is, that their opinions are exactly what they have to let go of in order to be actually sitting. And most of their opinions are either complaints or self-condemnations. If they put as much as they do into generating opinions into opening around opinions and releasing. the sound "shinjin-datsaraku"-s, dropping through bodyminds, would shake the monastery.
Do not seek the truth. Open to the truth. Practice the truth. Embody the truth.
- Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, beginning teisho 7: Opinions and Opening, from the series
"Without Difficulty: Commentaries on Jianzhi Sengcan's Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness," Thursday, February 16, 2006. (If strange characters instead of kanji appear this means that you need to enable UTF-8 in your Character Encoding settings.)
Bendowa eBook Available
A new translation by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi and Ven. Yasuda Joshu roshi, over thirty years in the making, of Eihei Dogen zenji's "Bendowa: A Talk on Exerting the Way" is now available as an ebook in PDF and ePub formats for free download from the web site. The Roshi has made it available under a Creative Commons license so everyone is free to copy and distribute it as long as it is not for commercial purposes, proper attribution is maintained, and the text is unaltered. The ebook is extensively annotated and provides the Japanese text.
This text is the basis of the Roshi's new teisho series, begun during the recent Rohatsu O-sesshin, "Drawn In, Moving Forth: Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Bendowa: A Talk on Exerting the Way."
Download it here:
http://www.wwzc.org/translations/Bendowa-book.pdf
Retreats and Training Sessions
Steven Karcz sat a two-day retreat in his home in Saskatoon on Saturday, August 21st and Sunday, August 22nd.
To Schedule a Retreat
Please email schedule at wwzc dot org to schedule a retreat, even if you
have made verbal arrangements with a practice advisor or a Dharma
Teacher. Emails sent to that address are routed to all members of the
Practice Council who will need this information for the purposes of
meal planning, preparing tapes for your retreat and planning samu
assignments. Retreats are defined in the following way:
Half-day Retreat
(you would need to arrive 15 minutes before the actual starting time)
Begin at 6:00 a.m., end at noon. Or begin at 9:30 a.m., end at 6:00.
Or begin at 3:00 p.m., end at 9:10.
Partial Retreat
(You would need to arrive 15 minutes before the actual starting time)
Begin at 6:00 a.m., end at 6:00 p.m. Or begin at 9:30 a.m., end at
9:10 p.m.
Full retreat
(you would need to arrive by 5:45) Begin at 6:00 a.m., end at 9:10 p.m.
Please remember to bring a change of clothes suitable for samu
(caretaking practice). If staying overnight, please remember to bring
a sleeping bag, a towel and other such necessities. If you have been
diagnosed by a medical doctor as having allergies to specific foods,
please contact the tenzo, Jinmyo osho at rengezo at gmail dot com, a
week in advance of your retreat to inform her of dietary restrictions
as this affects food purchases and meal planning. The suggested dana
for retreats is $40 a day, which covers the basic cost of food and
other materials. Donations above this figure are very welcome and all
donations are tax deductible. There is also a retreat schedule for
public students posted on our Website at:
http://www.wwzc.org/Resources/Public.student.retreat.schedule.htm
Public Students' Retreats
For retreats to be mentioned in the eMirror, public students are asked
to send an email to schedule at wwzc dot org after they sit a retreat
mentioning the date of their retreat and whether it is a partial,
half-day or full retreat. Please also include the name of the city in
which you live.
Training Sessions For Students Living in Ottawa:
There are a number of options available to associate and general students
who wish to practice more intensively, such as sitting a full or partial
retreat for one or several days, or extending their practice at home to
include two or three rounds.
In addition, associate or general students may register for a "training
session". This requires making a commitment to a one-week, month-long,
or three month period during which they would attend all of the formal
sittings at the monastery, morning and evening with the exception of
Tuesday evening and Sunday morning (which are reserved for formal
students and monastics) while continuing to live at home. The training
sessions are intended to allow students to experience what it is like to
participate in the monastery's full schedule. Formal sittings are led by
Roshi and include chanting practice and more extensive use of the forms.
Students engaging in a training session would also have more
opportunities to meet with Dharma Teachers or practice advisors to
discuss their practice. At the end of a training session, students would
return to their normal schedule. There would be no extra dana involved
in practising a training session.
With the Undo serving as a dormitory space students can register for
periods of residential training at Dainen-ji for anywhere from overnight
to several weeks. This involves attending the practice schedule, evening
meals, participation in regular soji (cleaning the practice halls) and
samu (care-taking). During the days one would go to one's job or could
do extra sitting and study outside of a retreat schedule. The dana for
this is $40 a day; work scholarships can also be arranged.
To register for a training session or residential training, please send
an email to schedule at wwzc dot org or telephone the Zen Centre office
at (613) 562-1568 and leave a message.
When scheduling a training session, please remember not to include dates
that fall within a sesshin or an O-sesshin.
Training Sessions For Public Students:
This requires making a commitment to a one-week, month-long, or
three-month period during which public students sit zazen according to
the following schedule:
Monday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.; Monday evening: 7:30 to 9:10 p.m.
Tuesday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.
Wednesday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.
Thursday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.; Tuesday evening: 7:30 to 9:10
p.m.
Friday morning 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. (Friday is Hossan and there are no
scheduled sittings at the monastery, but students are expected to sit
at home).
Saturday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.
Sunday morning: 6:00 a.m. to 7:25 a.m.
Public students who wish to do a Training Session should send an email
to schedule at wwzc dot org to state their intention and specify the
duration and schedule of their Training Session. After completing the
Training Session, please send an email to Chunen ino at chunen at gmail dot com to confirm that you have fulfilled your commitment and
notice of it will be included in the eMirror.
Who, What, Where, When, & Why? 17:
Bodhidharma rupa
Unfolding the "Mystery" of Monastery Objects
by Shikai osho
(photograph by Nathan Comeau)
Bodhidharma’s right arm punches into space. With the cord of the precepts clutched in his hand the movement is dynamic and deliberate. This 9” tall by 12” wide rupa of cast resin in a burnished deep burgundy is contemporary 20th century. It is at least 30 years old and was in the damp basement dokusan room at Daijozan in 1985, in the second floor dokusan room at Zazen-ji in 1989, and now sits in front of the Wild Fox Koan painting on the second floor landing. Unlike many representations of Bodhidharma on paper and in three dimensional forms this is a very human and realistic portrayal of a vigourous middle-aged man. The figure is wearing monastic robes, is bald with a fringe of hair, and a beard surrounds an open mouth with teeth showing. This rupa is a good example for practitioners at any stage of the active and interested energy that true practise demands.
Update on Shissui (Caretaking Council) Activities
Gassho,
Over the summer months work continued on the renovation of the Kuin (monastery kitchen). As a part of this major renovation the basement pantry was relocated to a more appropriate location directly below the kitchen. This has greatly improved access to the stored goods and overall storage facilities for a lot of items that were previously stored in the kitchen.
The relocation of the pantry allowed moving the monastery workshop to the other end of the basement into a much larger space. As much of the storage units, shelving and work stations being built for the kitchen are to be constructed by the shissui we have had to spend recent weeks creating a functional workshop in which to do this. But in order to make use of the workshop it has been necessary to sound-proof the room as much as is possible as it is directly under the first floor Osho-ryo and near the Zendo.
New tools were bought from donations and from the annual shissui budget including a jointer for making use of the reclaimed attic wood in the building of cabinets and shelves for the kitchen. The shissui bought an excellent new table saw from his savings. After discussion with the Roshi and Practice Council we decided however to sell this saw and use the money, as well as further funds from the annual shissui budget to purchase a “SawStop” table saw. This wonderful saw eliminates the possibility of injury to fingers (a worryingly common occurrence among carpenters) with a patented safety device which withdraws the blade when any contact with skin is made. Although the SawStop is more expensive than some table saws, safety is a priority. As other members of the Sangha who assist the shissui will also use the saw over time it was clear that we needed to put funds into purchasing this saw as a priority.
Subsequently the Caretaking Council funds for the year have now been depleted. We have several other projects to complete this year, including the annual maintenance of the furnace, repairing the broken mechanism of a window in the Zendo, paying for a dumpster to use over the upcoming Samu Weekend, and whatever other unforeseen expenses that we will incur over the next four months.
WWe are therefore asking for your assistance by making whatever donations large or small to assist in covering these costs. We estimate that approximately $2,000 will be needed above and beyond the remaining shissui funds to cover repairs and maintenance through to the end of the year. Thank you for your generosity.
Office of the Tenzo
Dogen zenji taught that the work of preparing and serving meals was "a
matter for realized monks who have the mind of the Way or by senior
disciples who have roused the Way-seeking mind." In alignment with this,
part of Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's samu for the Community involves
personally overseeing the activities of the ancient office of tenzo.
Jinmyo Renge osho serves as tenzo and Mishin tando and Saigyo chiden
offer assistance as tenzo-anja. The following meals were prepared prior to the evening sittings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday:
Monday Yakuseki
Noodle salad: Shanghai wheat noodles with blanched Chinese long beans and white onion strips dressed with roasted chile oil, lime, and toasted almonds; gardein faux "beef" and "chicken" strips, oyster and cremini mushrooms, and leeks stir-fried with General Tao's style sauce with Sichuan peppercorns; stir-fried gai lan and Shanghai bok choy with lime.
Tuesday Yakuseki
"Barbecue" beef ribs (sliced into individual ribs, brined overnight, poached, rinsed, roasted) with a sauce of Siracha chile, mellow chile sauce, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, olive oil, white mustard seeds, black and brown cumin seeds, garlic; eryingi and oyster mushrooms roasted with thyme and extra virgin olive oil; fennel roasted with extra virgin olive oil and topped with slices of haloomi cheese; Lundberg Farm short grain brown rice with butter, petit pois and corn; slaw of red cabbage and red onion dressed with lemon and mayonnaise.
Thursday Yakuseki
Creamy potato and leek soup with celery and white onion, fresh shelled peas, garnished with fennel fronds; triangle foccacio buns and Normandy cultured butter; gardein faux "chicken" breasts and sliced eryingi mushrooms roasted with a Dijon and white wine sauce with red and green peppercorns; salad of romaine lettuce, middle eastern heritage cucumbers, chopped plum tomatoes dressed with tarragon, extra virgin olive oil, truffle oil, aged balsamic vinegar, and ponzu.
Students attending sittings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings may
make arrangements to join residents for meals prepared by the Office of
the Tenzo. Please email schedule at wwzc dot org at least one day in
advance; Contribution is $10.
Thank You
If you would like to thank someone for a contribution they have made,
please feel free to send an email to Jinmyo osho at rengezo at Gmail
dot com, but be sure to type "eMirror" in the subject line.
From Shikai osho:
Thank you to Anonymous for "Dr. Bob's Ottawa Valley
Red Popcorn"; another Anonymous for "Vers Dadels, Dattes fraiches,
Friske Dadler, Fresh Dates" - delicious!
Thank you from the Treasurer's Office for gifts of dana:
In addition to monthly dana contributions generously offered by students, we would like to thank Saigyo chiden for additional gifts offered in the last week to support kitchen renovations, building improvements, and the ongoing activities of the monastery. All donations are appreciated.
From Mishin tando:
Thank you to the Roshi for showing me how to communicate more clearly and meaningfully instead of getting tangled in feelings about what might be said; to Shikai osho for intensely flavourful wild grape jam (from Dainen-ji's grape vines) and wild blueberry jam; to Jinmyo osho for instruction in oryoki to monastics, deshi, and general students; to Chunen ino for ongoing work to develop the new web site using Drupal and migrate all the documents, a significant task given the size of the web site.
From Saigyo chiden:
Thank you to the Roshi for his translation of the "Zazenshin" by Eihei Dogen zenji which we regularly chant at the morning sittings. Thank you to Shikai osho for making several batches of excellent jams from locally grown produce this week. To Jinmyo osho for more work to clarify the pantry including organizing all of the monastery cleaning supplies. Thank you to Graham Mayeda, Francois Fournier, Michael Landay and Neil Porter for samu this week.
Mountain Gate
Our handmade wooden Mountain Gate has been kicked in three times and repaired by shissui, Saigyo chiden, but it is only a matter of time before that, too, succumbs, so we shall need to work towards replacing the wooden gate with a wrought iron one that will withstand drunken kicking. Donations for this project now total $550.00.
If you would like to contribute to the purchase of a wrought iron Mountain Gate, please contact Mishin tando at treasurer at wwzc.org or leave a message on the Zen Centre office answering machine at 613-562-1568.
Ongoing Project: "All is Change"
Dainen-ji, being a 135-year-old building, is continuously in need of
maintenance and the costs associated with this can be astronomical
when such things as roof repairs or painting are needed. This is
something that we cannot afford to do, yet must do and so the "All
is Change" project has been created. The "All is Change" project is
very simple. Most of us have a bowl or a jar or some other kind of
container that we keep somewhere at home and fill up with loose change
because it's too heavy to carry around. Many hundreds of dollars has
been collected so far both in loose change and Canadian tire money
which has been put towards the building maintenance fund. If anyone
would like to contribute to this fund, each penny will be appreciated.