eMirror Vol. 11, No. 27

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 


Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

Dogen zenji says,

 

            Teachers of doctrine may speak about the term “dharmata”, but it is not the dharmata expressed by Mazu. These sentient beings who have never left dharmata, even if they doubt that this is dharmata, still have it. Even this is just another instance of dharmata. They may think that greeting and speaking, working and acting lack dharmata, but they still are greeting and acting and this is dharmata. For countless eons the sun and moon flow by as the passing of dharmata. So it is now and so it will be in the future.

            We may think of the measure of the bodymind only according to what we can weigh and that it is other than dharmata, but even such an idea is itself still dharmata. We may think of the weight of the bodymind only according to what we can measure and that it is other than dharmata, but this idea is also itself still dharmata. “Thought” and “non-thought” are both dharmata. Although “ta” (sho) means nature or essence we should not take it as something unchanging like water that does not flow, or a tree that neither grows nor perishes. That is the opinion of those outside of the Way.

 

            The true measure and weight or importance of this living bodymind cannot fit within self-image’s nest of old views. It is not my body. It is not your body. There is no one inside this body or that one or that one or that one. It is not a material cage binding a birdlike soul or spirit. The rib cage expands and contracts as the diaphragm makes the lungs into bellows breathing in and breathing out. Whether someone knows it or not, doubts it or not, the coming and going of each sip of each breath is dharmata, essential reality.

 

-Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, continuing teisho 5: “Actualizing the Samadhi of Dharmata” in the series “Essentially Real, commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji’s Hossho: Dharmata”. Presented on Tuesday, December 7, 2004.

 

Upcoming Events

 

Fusatsu and the Vow of Samantabhadra

Chanting of the Precepts will take place on July 11th, July 25th, August 15th and August  29th. The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on July 18th and August 1st, 8th and 22nd.

 

Hermitage

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

 

Yaza

Our annual tradition of Yaza (all night sitting) will take place on Saturday, July 14th from 10 p.m. until Sunday, July 15th at 8 a.m. Zen Master Anzan Hoshin will lead the Yaza. Students attending should arrive by first bell at 9:45 p.m. A light breakfast will be served before the end of the Yaza. All students are welcome to attend. Please register soon as is seating will be limited. The suggested dana contribution for Yaza is $25.00. To register, please send an email to schedule at wwzc dot org or leave a message on the Zen Centre office answering machine at 562-1568.

 

Oryoki for General Students

On Saturday, July 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 at wwzc dot org.

 

Dharma Assembly

On Saturday, July 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 at wwzc dot 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, July 7th general sitting – This World of Ten Directions: “Each and Every” (teisho 6 of 10).

Sunday, July 8th formal sitting - SAkN: Root Cycle 5: “Unborn” (teisho 4 of 5).

Monday, July 9th general sitting – Studying the Mystery: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on Shitou Xiqian’s Sandokai: “Chanting of the Verse and “What We Do Here” (teisho 1 of 4).

Tuesday, July 10th formal sitting – Mikkyo-zo: Monastic Jishu: “Chu-u” (Class 4 of 15).

Thursday, July 12th associate sitting – The Realm of Appearances: “Appearances” (teisho 1 of 3).

Saturday, July 14th general sitting – This World of Ten Directions: “The Cave of Ghosts” (teisho 6 of 10).

 

Jinmyo osho's Notes on Sittings and Forms

 

Attendance – Associate Students

If you are unable to attend a Thursday evening associate sitting, you may ask permission to attend one of the two general sittings instead. But this does not mean that thereafter you have three sittings to choose from. Associate students are required to attend the Thursday evening associate sitting because teisho are played during the sitting which are appropriate to that category of enrolment.

 

Attendance – General Students

A general student may attend as many of the formal sittings as their schedule will permit, but is required to attend a minimum of one of the two scheduled general sitting each week. If you are attending only formal sittings, please adjust your schedule accordingly.

 

Kinhin in the Zendo:

During the associate sitting in the Zendo, students walking in kinhin need to make the turn at the end of the room before they reach the door. Please turn to align with the centre of the window on the opposite side of the room to make space for students entering or leaving the room through the door.

 

Forms at the end of Kinhin:

At the end of a round of kinhin, students should speed up their pace and circle around the practice room clockwise to take their seats. It is not necessary to freeze in place and wait for monastics or formal students to pass you. Keep it simple and just continue to walk until you arrive at your seat.

            When you arrive at your seat, you do not need to wait until students who are senior to you take their seats. Just take your place and arrange your posture. A “meme” has sprung up recently in which students are trying to co-ordinate every single movement with the movements of those they deem to be more senior. Observing and aligning with how a senior moves in order to learn the details of the forms is one thing; turning the forms into a correographed ritual is quite another.

 

Form for Ending a Sitting Round:

Associate students are confusing the forms for beginning a round of zazen with the forms for ending a round of zazen. So to clarify:

            When beginning a round of zazen, we bow forward and exhale audibly through the mouth, straighten and inhale audibly through the mouth and then settle into balance point while exhaling audibly through the mouth. And at this point the tip of the tongue should be firmly against the hard palate behind the upper front teeth. There is a reason for this: It's so that saliva does not build up too quickly.

            At the end of a round of zazen, there is a formal bow to mark the end of the sitting round and we exhale audibly through the mouth because that helps everyone to align with each other and to know when to bow. Following that the breath is not audible. We straighten and inhale through the nose, pause for a moment and then move into seiza to take care of our cushions.

 

Exiting the Practice Halls:

At the end of a sitting, the doshi (leader) closes the Butsudan and then turns to leave the room. If the Roshi or a Dharma Teacher are leading the sitting, students should remain where they are until they leave the room. If a practice advisor is leading the sitting, the practice advisor should move towards the door, followed immediately by other monastics in order of seniority. Formal students should fall into line directly behind the monastics, followed by general students and then associate students. There should be no gaps in the line as it would take too long for everyone to leave the room.

 

And One Last Detail:

Please leave the washrooms as you find them. Put the toilet lid down, turn off the lights (with the exception of the second-floor washroom light which is on a timer), and leave the door ajar to indicate that the room is available.

 

Retreats

Gillian Higenbottam sat a partial retreat on Saturday. Senbo shuso sat a one-day retreat on Tuesday. Deshi Vicki Robichaud sat a one-day retreat in her home on Gabriola Island on Thursday.

 

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.

 

Summer Garden Work

During the summer months there is always work to be done in the grounds, including regular watering, weeding, planting, deadheading and tidying. If you can offer some time to help maintain the monastery grounds please contact Saigyo chiden at saigyo at telecomottawa dot net or by leaving a message on the office answering machine at 613 562 1568

 

 


Sho by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi

 

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. Meals served on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, prior to the sitting:

 

Monday Yakuseki

Salad of baby red potatoes and baby carrots dressed with yogurt, onion infused olive oil, slivered ginger, whole mint leaves, lime juice; Chinese celery soup with fresh local peas; curry of Asian eggplant, white and red onions, San Marzano tomatoes, and paneer with toasted brown mustard seeds and cumin seeds; roasted shitake, cremini, hon shimeiji, and eryingi mushrooms with extra virgin olive oil and dried chiles.

 

Tuesday Yakuseki

Salad of yellow udon noodles with steamed gai lan and green cabbage, roasted onions, slivered ginger, sesame oil, and shoyu; thick cut pork loin roasts rubbed with chile miso and surrounded by halved and seeded red bell peppers and cubanelle peppers, halved seed-in jalapenos, and topped seed-in hot cherry peppers; roasted gigantic cremini mushrooms with shoyu and sesame oil; salad of blanched sugar snap peas with lime zest and juice and excellent extra virgin olive oil.

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Biryani made with Thai rice, sauteed mushrooms, onion, diced red bell pepper, fried new potatoes and chopped parsley; Indonesian red lentil dal with fresh coriander; plum tomatoes roasted with tandoori paste; raita made with Lebanese cucumbers, mango, toasted cumin powder, Mediterranean yogurt and lime juice.

 

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 Jinmyo osho, “Thank you to the Roshi for the striking arrangement of a whale bone and glass egg on the floating shelf in the Hatto; to Chunen ino for sorting out a problem with our LAN router; to Saigyo chiden for organizing and documenting shissui tasks”.

From Chunen ino, “Thank you to the Roshi for countless clear and concise explanations on various facets of experiencing; to Shikai osho for practical and often very humorous instructions; to Jinmyo osho for overseeing scheduling matters and providing reminders when necessary; to Mishin tando for many hours of of administrative work each week; to Saigyo chiden for  overseeing samu tasks, many of which he does himself; to John McCaffrey for arranging the repair of clocks.”

From Mishin tando, "Thank you to the Roshi for the practice of Acalanatha Sadhana for monastics; to Shikai osho for care and feeding of the koi in the water garden and the first floor goldfish; to Jinmyo osho for a delicious Thursday evening Yakuseki and for clarifying the space of the Third Floor Common Room; to Nathan Comeau for administrative samu."

From Saigyo chiden, “Thank you to Shikai osho for creating wonderful refreshments for retreatants and to Jinmyo osho for clarifying and organizing the third floor common room; to Chunen ino all of his work recently with the monastery computer systems and to Jido anagarika for building a venting system for the attic hatch to help remove excess heat from the building. Thank you to Michael Landay for his weekly samu period on the grounds and for taking care of the bird feeder and de-humidifiers each day; to Neil Porter for weekly samu and to James MacAulay for work to simplify the sale of recorded teachings on the WWZC web-site."


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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