Photograph by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho

 

eMirror Vol. 11, No. 3

Friday, January 19th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 

 


Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

Many trees, many leaves.

Each leaf drops by itself,

one by one.

Then more and more.

Suddenly, everything is laid bare.

 

-a verse appended to Hekiganroku case 27 by Ven. Hanamatsu Daiji Tenku daiosho, the Teacher of Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi’s Teacher, Ven. Yasuda Joshu Dainen zenji. The annual memorial for his death is on Monday, January 22nd

 

Upcoming Events

 

Fusatsu and the Vow of Samantabhadra

Chanting of the Precepts will take place on February 14th and February 28th. The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on January 24th and 31st and on February 7th and 21st.

 

Oryoki for General Students

On Saturday, January 20th, general students who attend the 6:00 a.m. formal sitting may participate in oryoki practice led by Jinmyo osho. Associate or visiting public students who are in retreat at the monastery on that day may also participate in oryoki. Dana is $10.00. You do not need previous experience of oryoki to attend. For more information or to register please send an email to schedule@wwzc.org.

 

Dharma Assembly

The next Dharma Assembly will take place on January 27th and will be led by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho who will present a Dharma Talk on the theme of “Freefall”. The Dharma Assembly will begin at 9:30 a.m. (please arrive by 9:15, in time for first Bell) and will end at 9:10 p.m. Dana is $40.00, which includes two meals: lunch and supper. Participants are asked to bring clothing and shoes appropriate for samu practice. To register, please send an email to schedule@wwzc.org or leave a message on the office answering machine at 562-1568. Dharma Assemblies are open to all students.

          The general sitting that would ordinarily take place from 9:30 to 11:40 on Saturday morning will be cancelled due to the Dharma Assembly.

 

Hermitage

The Roshi will begin a period of hermitage on Wednesday, January 31st, which will end on Sunday, February 4th at 10:00 a.m. when he leads monastics in Acalanatha Sadhana.

 

Introduction to Zen Workshop

Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho will present the next Introduction to Zen Workshop at Dainen-ji on Saturday, February 3rd. For more information please see:

http://www.wwzc.org/programs/Introduction_To_Zen_Workshop_Ottawa.htm.

            For information concerning our Long-distance Training Program, please visit this Web Page:

http://www.wwzc.org/programs/longDistance.htm.

 

Nehan O-sesshin

The Nehan O-sesshin will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, February 9th and will end on Friday, February 16th at noon. Formal students are reminded to send their schedules to schedule@wwzc.org as soon as is possible.

During the O-sesshin, there will be two sittings held in the Zendo on Saturday, February 10th, which associate and general students may attend. The first sitting begins at 9:30 a.m. (please arrive by 9:15 in time for first Bell); the sitting ends at 11:30. The second sitting begins at 3:00 (please arrive by 2:45 in time for first Bell); the sitting ends at 5:00. Students attending either of these sittings are reminded to remain on the first floor.

 

A Note to Preliminary and Public Students Concerning O-sesshin

During an O-sesshin the schedule is such that there is no time to meet face to face with preliminary students or to reply to email correspondence sent by public students. Public students are asked to send their weekly practice journals, as they will be reviewed. But unless there is something that needs an immediate reply, you will not receive an email reply until the week following the O-sesshin.

 

Oryoki for General Students

On Saturday, February 17th, general students who attend the 6:00 a.m. formal sitting may participate in oryoki practice led by Jinmyo osho. Associate or visiting public students who are in retreat at the monastery on that day may also participate in oryoki. Dana is $10.00. You do not need previous experience of oryoki to attend. For more information or to register please send an email to schedule@wwzc.org.

 

Samu Weekend

The next Samu Weekend will take place on the 24th and 25th of February. Work over the two days will include the project to improve the insulation in the west side of the attic and insulating the ceiling of the workshop. Please keep this weekend clear in your calendar so that you will be able to attend some or all of the two days of work practice. Students may register by sending an email to schedule@wwzc.org or by telephoning the Zen Centre office at 613-562-1568.

 

Hermitage

The Roshi will begin a period of hermitage on Wednesday, February 28th which will end on Sunday, March 4th at 10:00 a.m., when he leads monastics in Acalanatha Sadhana.

 

Recorded Teisho Schedule

Saturday, January 20th general sitting – Sitting Up Straight: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on Keizan Jokin zenji’s “Zazen Yojinki”: “Into this Step” (teisho 11 of 17).

Sunday, January 21st formal sitting - SAkN: Root Cycle Two: “The Energy of Framing” (teisho 3 of 3)

Monday, January 22nd general sitting – Without Difficulty: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on “Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness” by Jianzhi Sengcan: “Ideas of Emptiness and Oneness” (teisho 5 of 25).

Tuesday, January 23rd formal sitting – Being Between-Being: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s Teachings on practising throughout the process of death: “Rebirths” (teisho 5 of 6).

Thursday, January 25th associate sitting – This World of Ten Directions: “Frost and Snow” (teisho 4 of 10).

 

New Teisho

During the January sesshin, the Roshi presented “Responding” on January 13th, teisho 6 in the series “Doing Not-Doing: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Shoaku Makusa and the Three Pure Precepts.”

 

 

Media Site

The media site has been unavailable recently. It is expected that the problems will be fixed by the end of this week.

 

 

New Publication

“Freedom and Tyranny: A series of Dharma Talks and Zen Mondo presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho” is now available in Myomaku, the monastery’s library, and will soon be available for purchase on the Great Matter web page (http://www.wwzc.org/gm.htm) as a perfect bound, 215 pages, 5.5” by 8.5” paperback or PDF ebook version.

 

Congratulations

Congratulations and deep gassho to Paul Kadziora and Jack Deyirmendjian on being accepted as associate students by the Roshi. Paul and Jack are both residents of Ottawa.

 

Retreats

David Kelleher sat a half-day retreat on Saturday. Ian Hepburn sat a partial retreat on Saturday. Francois Fournier sat a two-day retreat on Saturday and Sunday. Deshi David Clawson, visiting from New York, began a retreat this morning that will end on Sunday afternoon.

 

To Schedule a Retreat

Please email schedules@wwzc.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 Jinmyo@trytel.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@wwzc.org mentioning the date of their retreat and whether it is a partial, half-day or full retreat.  

 

 

Zenga by Sengai

 

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. The following is a list of meals prepared on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, prior to the evening sittings.

 

Monday yakuseki

"Spaghetti": kishimen (flat wheat noodles) with a sauce of caramelized Spanish onion and plum tomatoes with chick peas seasoned with three kinds of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and ground curry spices; sliced eryingi and white mushrooms with cubanelle and jalapeno rings with red bell pepper strips with Tandoori seasoning; roasted slices of Chinese carrots (big like daikon) and elephant garlic in coconut milk with fresh coriander leaf; raita of wosun (celtuce or Chinese lettuce stem) and English cucumber in Mediterranean yogurt with Meyer lemon juice and zest.

 

Tuesday yakuseki

Six mushroom soup with straw, dried porcini, frozen porcini, sliced shitake, oyster, and baling mushrooms with red bell pepper in a shoyu, red wine, and sesame oil broth; stir-fried Shanghai bok choy with XO sauce; roasted chicken thighs and drumsticks with panca chile paste and cumin seeds; gohan (Japanese rice) with gomasio (sesame salt).

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Tamarind and mirin soup with dai gai choy (Chinese mustard greens), chopped scallions, and minced red bell pepper, puffed tofu and rounds of cotton tofu; roasted shitake caps and halved cremini mushrooms with shoyu and dried chiles; roasted Brussels sprouts with Sichuan peppercorns and extra virgin olive oil; Thai red rice; slaw of Chinese lettuce dressed with mayonnaise and chopped Korean green chiles.

 

Monastery Breadbasket

2 pain de Pepin; 6 dozen sugarless chocolate mini-muffins; 4 dozen Kaiser rolls; 4 dozen feta biscuits.

 

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@wwzc.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 jinmyo@trytel.com. (Owing to the volume of mail I receive, please note that an email sent to me containing a thank you intended for the eMirror should specify that it is to be included. Otherwise I will likely assume that you are just sending me an email, will think, "Thank you very much," and that will be the end of it).

 

From Shikai osho, “Thank you to Saigyo chiden for making a box table that covers unsightly aquarium wires; to Jido anagarika for kitty hygiene items.”

From Mishin tando, “Thank you to the Roshi for the teisho ‘Responding’, part of the series ‘Doing Not-Doing: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Shoaku Makusa and the Three Pure Precepts’ presented during the January sesshin; to the Roshi and Jinmyo osho for food shopping, menu design and meal preparation for the sesshin meals; to Shikai osho for preparing refreshments each day; to Senbo shramon for dana bookkeeping data entry; to Jido anagarika for securely installing a towel bar in the third floor washroom.”

From Saigyo chiden, “Thank you to the Roshi and Jinmyo osho for the always delightful meals designed and prepared for residents (including an outstanding tamarind and mirin soup this evening). Thank you to Jido anagarika for repairs to the washroom handrail on the third floor and taking care of the preparation of candles used through monastery; to Muryo for repairs to the Kaisando ceiling fan and for improvements to the lighting for the indoor fish pond. Thank you to Gillian Higenbottam, Neil Porter, Melanie Coughlin, Charles Enman, James MacAulay and Graham Mayeda for samu.”

 

 

 


 

Ongoing

 

Samu

Request for Assistance, Office of the Treasurer

As part of clarifying and streamlining the financial processes of White Wind Zen Community, we would like to have pairs of students rotate to help process dana contributions on a weekly basis. To date, most of this work has been done by Mishin tando with the assistance of one or two other students, but it is time to restructure the system so that the work of the Office of the Treasurer becomes more manageable and more students are helping with this responsibility. If you would be available on Saturdays prior to the General Sitting for about a hour (from 8:15-9:15 a.m.), your help will be appreciated. Please email mishin@trytel.com. Training will be provided. No special financial skills are needed other than an eye for detail and accuracy.

 

Archiving Samu

Since 2002 the teisho presented by the Roshi and the Dharma Talks given by the Dharma Teachers have been recorded directly onto CD and copies made available to students. Prior to this time all of the recordings were made on cassette tape. Over the last years the monastics, with the help of several students, have worked to transfer the taped material onto CD, not only because cassette tape technology is fast becoming outdated but because the early tape recordings are deteriorating quickly and may soon become unplayable. To lose these teaching would be disastrous. We are presently making direct CD copies of all of the early tapes so that there is a back-up copy available should anything happen to the master tape which makes it unplayable but there is much work to be done. There are still over 100 tapes from the 1980’s and 1990’s that need to be re-mastered, relabeled and copied and this constitutes many hundreds of hours of work. If you are able to commit to a regular weekly schedule of two or three hours samu to continue this vital work, please let us know by writing to tapes@wwzc.org. Full training will be given.

 

Daily Samu

Samu each day to prepare the monastery for the arrival of the students is a very important practice for the monastics. Any help to assist the monks with brightening and clarifying the practice environment is very much appreciated. If you are able to come early before a sitting to do samu, please consult the samu notice board situated between the side entrance doors to find a task which has not been done recently. If you have any questions about the task please ask any monastic.

 

CDs Available to the Public

A selection of CDs of teisho and Dharma Talks is available on our web-site. The page is found at http://wwzc.org/CDWebSales/CDWebSales.htm or follow the link for Dharma Texts and CDs on the home page. Over time more teisho and Dharma Talks from the over 2500 presentations made by the Roshi, Shikai osho and Jinmyo osho will be made available for purchase.

 

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. Several hundred dollars has been collected so far both in loose change and Canadian tire money which has been put towards the building maintenance fund. Most of the collected money was spent on materials for the new front path and we have also been able to purchase several new tools which will help greatly with ongoing renovations. If anyone would like to contribute to this fund, each penny will be appreciated.

 

 

 

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