Mazu Daoyi

 

eMirror Vol. 11, No. 13

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 


 

Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

So what is the samadhi of dharmata, the harmonization of essential reality?

 

          [After a long pause Roshi does three strikes with his staff to floor, indicating the end of the teisho.

 

          The monastic Sangha and Roshi chant:

 

Fu-eko:

Verse of Closing the Teachings

 

NEGAWAKU-WA KONO-KUDOKU-O MOTTE

AMANEKU ISSAI-NI OYOBOSHI

WARE RA-TO SHUJO-TO-MINATOMONI

BUTSUDO-O JOZEN-KOTO-O

 

May the merit of this

penetrate each thing in all places

so that I and all beings may together

realize the Buddha Way.]

 

         Just kidding.

 

         This phrase actually refers to a teaching by Great Master Ma or Mazu which Dogen will quote from further on into the text. The full passage that the quote Dogen uses is:

 

It is in contrast to ignorance that one speaks of Awakening. Since originally there is no ‘ignorance’ then there is nothing like ‘Awakening’ to fabricate. All sentient beings have never left dharmata samadhi throughout myriads of eons. They are always in the reality of dharmata samadhi, putting on their clothes, eating rice, greeting and speaking, the workings of the six sense organs, all their activities are completely dharmata. Since they do not know how to return to the source they follow words and seek forms, distorted emotions and delusion arises, and all the various kinds of conditioned activity occur. When within a single thought one illuminates everything within then everything is the mind of Awakening.

 

        Each moment, each activity is really real. Each and every thing is always essential reality presenting itself. Since this is how all things abide, it is a zanmai. Through recognizing this fact then this zanmai becomes our practice: harmonizing ourselves in each moment with the Activity of Aware Space that presents itself as us and as this moment. We return to the source when we turn around usual mind’s delusion of knower and known, self and other, and allow each content to point to the context it arises within. Mazu says, “When within a single thought one illuminates everything within then everything is the mind of Awakening.” This does not mean that one should think some glittery kind of thought about Busshin or the mind of Awakening. It means to recognize a thought as an instance of the luminosity of Awareness in its very presencing, in its coming and going. And each thought and each colour, form, sound, and sensation as the radiance of luminosity. When we use each activity as an opportunity to align with the Activity of the Space of Knowing then we recognize and actualize the freedom of dharmata samadhi.

 

-Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, beginning teisho 3: “This is the Samadhi of Dharmata,” Sunday, December 5, 2004, in the series “Essentially Real, commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji’s Hossho: Dharmata”

 

Upcoming Events

 

Fusatsu and the Vow of Samantabhadra

Chanting of the Precepts will take place on April 4th and April 18th. The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on April 11th and April 25th.

 

Hermitage

The Roshi will begin a period of hermitage on Wednesday, April 4th, which will end at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 8th, 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, April 7th. 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.

 

Hanamatsuri Two-day Sesshin

The Hanamatsuri two-day sesshin will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, April 13th, and will end on Sunday, April 15th, at 6:00 p.m. The Roshi will continue the teisho series “Doing Not-Doing: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's ‘Shoaku Makusa’ and the Three Pure Precepts”.

On Saturday, April 14th, associate and general students may attend a sitting held in the Zendo, which will begin at 9:30 a.m. (please arrive by 9:15 in time for first Bell) and will end at 11:30 a.m.

 


Oryoki for General Students

On Saturday, April 21st, 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

On Saturday, April 28th, Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho will lead a Dharma Assembly which 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.

 

Recorded Teisho Schedule

Saturday, March 31st general sitting – Sitting Up Straight: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on Keizan Jokin zenji’s “Zazen Yojinki”: “Inexhaustible Field of Zazen” (teisho 17 of 17).

Sunday, April 1st formal sitting - SAkN: Root Cycle Three: “Surrender Into Radiance” (teisho 7 of 8).

Monday, April 2nd general sitting – Without Difficulty: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on “Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness” by Jianzhi Sengcan: “A Single Suchness” (teisho 14 of 25).

Tuesday, April 3rd formal sitting – Mikkyo-zo: Monastic Jishu: “Invocation of Jnanasattva” (Class 8 of 15).

Thursday, April 5th associate sitting – Eight Awarenesses: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji’s “Hachi Dainin-gaku”: “Not Forgetting Right Thought”(teisho 5 of 8).

 

Retreats

Deshi David Clawson, visiting from New York, sat a retreat which began on Friday afternoon and ended on Sunday afternoon. Charles Enman sat a retreat which began on Saturday and ended on Monday morning following the sitting. Jennifer Comeau sat a two-day retreat on Saturday and Sunday. Alexis Fiset sat a one-day retreat on Sunday. Nathan Comeau is in the midst of a 7-day retreat which began on Sunday, March 25th. Michael Hammond sat a two-day retreat on March 16th and 17th, in his home on Prince Edward Island.

 

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.  

 


Tong ho (shungiku, chrysanthemum leaves)

 

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 is a list of meals served prior to the evening sittings on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday:

 

Monday yakuseki

Congee with Chinese celery and peanuts; roasted whole huge white mushrooms with Vietnamese roasted chile oil and shoyu; atsuage tofu triangles with bulgogi sauce; blanched tong ho (chrysanthemum greens) with shoyu, sesame oil, and key lime; Chinese celery stem marinated in dongchimi juice with slivered ginger.

 

Tuesday Yakuseki

Roasted beef ribs with kalbi sauce and pork baby back ribs with char siu sauce; gohan (Japanese rice) with gomasio (toasted sesame salt); tamarind soup with baby bok choy, eryingi mushrooms, and garlic stems; red cabbage and Spanish onion slaw dressed with ngoc mam, key lime, mirin, and extra virgin olive oil.

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Udon noodles in a sauce of blended coriander leaves, ginger, mirin, Xioaxing wine; lightly roasted asparagus, oyster mushrooms and faux "chicken" tvp strips with shichimi chile powder, lime, and shoyu; roasted whole large cremini mushrooms with sweet chile sauce; Chinese long beans with Korean fermented black beans and sesame oil; stir-fried gai lan (Chinese broccoli) ; salad of shaved fennel and white onion with fennel fronds, Vietnamese roasted chile oil, mirin, and shoyu.

 

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 Jinmyo osho, “Thank you to the Roshi for the countless hours he has spent and continues to spend on his translation of the Denkoroku and other texts and for designing and preparing meals for residents and often for retreatants; to Chunen ino for installing Windows Vista on my computer; to Mishin tando for the many hours she spends each week on administrative matters in addition to time spent on archiving and her responsibilities as practice advisor. Thank you to Saigyo chiden for his work to install a new door in the Hojo and to Senbo shuso for making arrangements to reprint ‘Chanting Breath and Sound’.”

From Mishin tando, “Thank you to the Roshi for designing countless delicious ways of preparing many different kinds of mushrooms in the evening Yakuseki (meals for residents prepared before sittings); to Jinmyo osho for reviewing practice journal drafts; to Chunen ino for arranging to do a Vista systems upgrade for my computer; to Cesar Aloe for arriving 20 minutes early before every morning sitting to do samu (caretaking practice); to Jane Brown, Ian Hepburn, and Francois Fournier for dana processing.”

From Saigyo chiden, “Thank you to Senbo shuso for work to create and print a new edition of Chanting Breath and Sound. Thank you to those students who have donated funds towards the renovation of the second floor washroom, which is currently being scheduled. Thank you to Melanie Coughlin, Carl Anderson, Carys Carrington and Charles Enman for archiving 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.

 

Improvements to the Second Floor Washroom

A project that has been on the high priory list for a number of years is the renovation of the second floor washroom. Even though this is the most frequently used washroom in the building it has never had any substantial improvements apart from being painted last year. Work on this washroom, which was scheduled to be taking place late this year or early next year, will again need to be delayed due to the necessity of a urgent roof repair to the west side of the roof. This repair will cost in the region of $13,000 and as this is considerably higher than our available budget we have had to cut back on other important work. Because of this, we have decided to fundraise in order to gather sufficient money to make the improvements to the washroom. The work to be done will include a new sink and cabinet and a new ceiling light, fan and exhaust. This will cost in the region of $1000 to complete. Students are encouraged to donate towards this project so that it can be scheduled some time in the winter and the improved facilities will be available by 2007. Improvements to this room will benefit every student that comes to the monastery for sittings.

Thank you for your generosity to help with this project.

Gassho,

Saigyo chiden, shissui.

 

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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