Photograph by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho

 

eMirror Vol. 11, No. 21

Friday, May 25th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 


Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

Dogen zenji says,

 

There are some who say they have had twenty or thirty years of study and yet when they are confronted with a discussion of dharmata they are tongue-tied and wander about their lives blindly. Others have spent years in a monastery and now sit up on a Master’s seat but when they hear or are shown something of dharmata they just bob up and down in subject or object, body or mind, completely confused. Their understanding is that dharmata is only revealed after the entire universe and the three worlds which we presently experience are destroyed, and that dharmata will be something other than the numberless presencing of experiences.

 

     ...This is of course the product of the kind of simplistic thinking that arises from the cartoonish imaginings of self-image trying to make sense of the Dharma on its own terms. I think it might have happened like this: All dharmas are impermanent and without a self but are a presencing and a process. This is always true of everything. Since this is always true then dharmata is unchanging. Since dharmata is unchanging it is permanent. And so dharmata, according to one definition that I have seen on the Web is the “ground for being, the essence of everything; unifying spiritual reality; the absolute from which all proceeds.”

 

     ...And so because dharmata is a term representing essential reality some people made it into the absolute and unconditioned and formless something that is behind the universe that primitive thinking tends to look for. In order to realize such a dharmata you either have to remove everything from existence or to fold attention in upon itself into such a concentration state that there is only a blankness and then confuse this blank state with dharmata. 

     Silly and sad. This is not the samadhi of dharmata.

     And so Dogen says,

 

The true meaning of dharmata is not like that. The intimacy between this world of experiences and dharmata completely goes beyond ideas of sameness and difference, separation and unity. It is not in the past, present, or future, cannot be seen as a thing existing isolated in space and time nor as eternally constant, and is beyond form, reactivity, symbolization, habitual patterning, or consciousness. It is dharmata.

 

-Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, continuing teisho 4: “This is Not the Samadhi of Dharmata,” Monday, December 6, 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 May 30th, June 13th and June 27th. The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on June 6th and June 20th.

 

Samu Weekend

The spring Samu Weekend will be taking place this weekend. Most of the work over the weekend will be taking place in the grounds. We shall be improving the border under the front cedar hedge, applying a finish coat of stain to the new fence and gate, painting some areas of flaking paintwork and making many other improvements to the grounds. Thank you to those students who have registered and will be attending over the weekend to help with the maintenance and improvement of Dainen-ji.

 

Hermitage

The Roshi will begin a period of hermitage on Wednesday, May 30th, which will end at 10:00 a.m. On Sunday, June 3rd 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, June 2nd. 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.

 

Dharma Assembly

On Saturday, June 9th, Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho will lead a Dharma Assembly, the theme for which is “Stainless”. 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.

 

June Two-day Sesshin

The June two-day sesshin will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, June 15th, and will end on Sunday, June 17th, 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, June 16th, 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, June 23rd, 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 at wwzc dot org.

 

Hermitage

The Roshi will begin a period of hermitage on Wednesday, June 27th, which will end on Sunday, July 1st at 10:00 a.m., when he leads monastics in Acalanatha Sadhana.

 

 

Recorded Teisho Schedule

Monday, May 28th general sitting – Without Difficulty: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on “Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness” by Jianzhi Sengcan: “One Thing” (teisho 21 of 25).

Tuesday, May 29th formal sitting – Mikkyo-zo: Monastic Jishu: “Dedications” (Class 15 of 15).

Thursday, May 31st associate sitting – Four Great Vows by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho:  “Endless Obsessions” (Dharma Talk 2 of 4).

Saturday, June 2nd general sitting – This World of Ten Directions: “Each Flake of Snow” (teisho 3 of 10).

 

Retreats

Charles Enman sat a two-day retreat on Saturday and Sunday. Alexis Fisset sat a two-day retreat on Sunday and Monday. Alex Tzelnic sat a two-day retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday. Neil Porter is sitting a half-day retreat today.

 

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 Jinmyo at trytel 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.

 

Spring Garden work

With the arrival of spring much work needs to be done in the grounds. If you are able to offer any time to assist with garden samu please contact Saigyo chiden at saigyo at telecomottawa dot net. Your help will be appreciated. Thank you.

 


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 on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, prior to the evening sitting.

 

Monday Yakuseki

Salad of Cantonese noodles with Korean fermented black beans, coriander, shoyu and sesame oil; Chinese celery soup with puffed tofu; roasted whole cremini mushrooms with shoyu and sesame oil; stir-fried baby bok choy, yu choy, baby Shanghai bok choy, scallions, and red bell peppers with lime; kkukdugi (cubed daikon) kimchi.

 

Tuesday Yakuseki

Roasted root vegetables (rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, daikon, Yukon Gold potatoes, carrots ) with red onions; prime rib roasts, rubbed with chipotle and adobo paste, garlic, and thyme, roasted medium rare and rare; roasted eryingi, cremini, and oyster mushrooms with smoked paprika; celery root slaw with Lebanese garlic sauce and celery seeds; roasted asparagus with balsamico and goat Parmesan.

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Mixed grain (Lundberg Farm short grain brown rice, Korean sticky white and brown rice, buckwheat groats, gohan, barley, wild rice, quinoa, perilla seeds ); Brussels sprouts, Spanish onion, mung bean sprouts, pillow and atsuage tofu braised in kimchi juice with ginger; roasted colossal shitake caps with shoyu, sesame oil, extra virgin olive oil and dried chiles; mesclun salad (frisee, mache, radicchio, baby spinach) with a ponzu and ngoc mam vinaigrette and toasted almonds. 

 

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 vianet dot ca. (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 Chunen ino, “Thank you to the Roshi for the environment of the monastery and the direct instruction given, to Shikai osho on how to not get stuck in fixed perspectives, to Jinmyo osho for several reminders to practice, to Mishin tando for preparing retreatants breakfasts before going to work, to Saigyo chiden for organizing the samu weekend, to James MacAulay for helping with media site issues.”

From Mishin tando, “Thank you to the Roshi for reminding me again and again how to open past dukkha into the inherent joyfulness of experiencing; to Shikai osho for providing a new and larger home to the first floor goldfish, complete with several bubblers that the fish have so much fun with; to Jinmyo osho for ongoing instruction to practice advisers about correspondence with public students.”

From Saigyo chiden, “Thank you to Jido anagarika and Muryo for collecting supplies required for the samu weekend. Thank you to Paulette Theriault for gathering pine cones for the monastery grounds and to Neil Porter and Doug Somers for samu to prepare the side steps for painting. Thank you to Charles Enman for regular samu on a variety of tasks.”

From Senbo shuso, “Thank you to the Roshi for Shukke-tokudo and Shuso-hossen, words cannot express my gratitude; to Shikai osho and Jinmyo osho for the priceless Teachings they are generously providing though action and words; to Chunen ino for being an example of commitment willingness to learn, and for always showing a good sense of humour; to Mishin tando for being a model of integrity and thoroughness, and for the gift of a bottle of wine; to Saigyo chiden for his example of wholeheartedness and commitment, and for the gift of great music and cream of sake; to Tokushin for the gift of a bottle of wine; to Elizabeth Katz for her words of appreciation and the gift of incense; to all students who attended Shukke-tokudo and who offered congratulations and condolences (has the Roshi humorously puts it)."

 

 


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 at trytel dot 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 at wwzc dot 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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