"Jippo: Ten Directions", sho by

Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi

 

eMirror Vol. 11, No. 36

Friday, September 7th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 


Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

Facing forwards, facing backwards, looking over your shoulder, facing the wall in zazen, the world unfolds in all directions. The world exerts itself as all directions. All directions exert themselves as the world. All worlds, all directions, are sheer exertion. There is nothing behind this exertion, nothing that is doing it.

       We might say that, "what appears as things is the Activity of Aware Space." But that doesn't mean that Aware Space is doing this Activity. This Activity is itself Aware Space. Or we might say, as Dogen does in the text Jippo: The Ten Directions that, "Naked Awareness contains and illuminates the ten directions of the universe because the luminosity of Experiencing is its very bone and marrow." But that does not mean that the luminosity of Experiencing is behind or within the ten directions, the universe, or your bones and marrow, your fingers and toes. Your fingers and toes are themselves luminosity, are themselves not different from Aware Space. Aware Space is not different from your fingers and toes except that it is not only your fingers and toes. It is also colours and sounds and sensations and flavours and fragrances. It is also a stone, a wooden post, a flower. It is also north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, and up and down. It is you and you are not different from it but it is not just you because it is also me.

       Regardless of who you think you are, regardless of your ideas and opinions about yourself or about me or about any one else, you are that which exerts itself as the whole world, the entire universe, the Total Field.

       The "itself" in the phrase "exerts itself" is not a self, not a thing. It is vast openness, like space. But this space is not abstract and vague and general. It is very particular, very specific, very detailed. It has directions; it has dimensionality. But it, itself, is not in any direction because it is in all directions and all directions arise within it. So while it is very concrete and palpable, it is also ungraspable and without substance.

       In realizing that this ungraspability, this exertion, this spaciousness, these ten directions are one's own nature, one realizes what all the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors have realized. This is what all of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors have practised, realized, and Taught.

       When Dogen returned to Japan carrying the Dharma transmitted to him by Rujing, he said that he came with empty hands. When your hands are empty, you can pick up and use whatever is suitable for the occasion. Sometimes you need to take up a knife, sometimes a brush, sometimes to cradle an infant, sometimes to bandage a wound. Dogen takes up the essential matters of Zen practice and lays them out before us in the text Jippo: The Ten Directions. This will be the subject of this series of teisho.

 

-Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi, "Opening Comments" from the teisho series "Five Fingers, Ten Directions: Commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's text 'Jippo'", presented Saturday, April 14, 2001.

 

 

Upcoming Events

 

Fusatsu and the Vow of Samantabhadra

Chanting of the Precepts will take place on September 12th and 26th . The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on September 19th .

 

September Two-day Sesshin

The September two-day sesshin will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, September 7 th and will end at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, the 9 th . On Saturday, September 8th, associate and general students may attend a sitting held in the Zendo. Arrival time is 9:15 a.m. (in time for First Bell). The sitting ends at 11:30 a.m. Students attending are reminded to remain on the first floor.

 

Oryoki for General Students

On Saturday, September 15 th , 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, September 26 th , which will end on Sunday the 30 th , at 10:00 a.m., when he leads monastics in Acalanatha Sadhana. (Please note that these dates were not included in the Practice Calendar).

 

Introduction to Zen Workshop

Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho will present the next Introduction to Zen Workshop at Dainen-ji on Saturday, November 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 .

Recorded Teisho Schedule

Saturday, September 8th associate sitting - Immo: Suchness: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Immo: Reading of the text.

Monday, September 10th general sitting - Wild Time: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Uji: Being Time: "Wild" (teisho 5 of 10).

Tuesday, September 11th formal sitting - Mikkyo-zo: Monastic Jishu: "Invocation of Jnanasattva" (Class 8 of 15).

Thursday, September 13th associate sitting - Immo: Suchness: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin's commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's Immo: "The invisible Sky" (teisho 1 of 18)

Saturday, September 15th general sitting - Turning the Wheel of the Way: Zen Master Anzan 'Hoshin's commentaries on Eihei Dogen zenji's "Gyoji: Continuous Practice": "Not Now This, Now That'" (teisho 3 of 44).

 

 


Congratulations

Congratulations and deep gassho to Sophia Stevenson and Marie-Andrée Gougeon on being accepted associate students by the Roshi. Sophia is a resident of Ottawa. Marie-Andrée is a resident of Gatineau.

 

Retreats

Cesar Aloe sat a three-day retreat on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Deshi Vicki Robichaud is sitting a one-day retreat today (Friday) in her home on Gabriola Island.

 

 

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.

 

 

Autumn Garden Work

As the summer turns to Autumn, help will be appreciated to keep the grounds of the monastery tidy. If you can offer some time for this please contact Saigyo chiden at saigyo at telecomottawa dot net or by leaving a message on the office answering machine at 613 562 1568

 


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

Cantonese noodle salad with chopped Chinese celery and tamari almonds dressed with shoyu, sesame oil, and slivered ginger; fresh shitake and dried Chinese hua (flower) mushrooms, oyster and white mushrooms and red pepper strips in a thickened mushroom and miso stock; sliced Chinese vegetarian smoked "duck" with wasabi mayonnaise; cotton and pressed tofu rectangles and red onion roasted in sweet red chile sauce; slaw of green cabbage and white onion dressed with Vietnamese roasted chile oil, brown mustard seeds, and lime.

 

Tuesday Yakuseki

Fried rice cakes (barley, gohan, and Lundberg Farm short grain brown, Korean white and brown sticky rice); striploin and rib steaks seared rare and sliced thinly and tossed with blackened strips of red bell peppers; mustard and Chinese chile bean paste soup with dai gai choy and white onion; roasted whole colossal cremini and white mushrooms with shoyu and sesame oil; fennel slaw with crushed coriander and fennel seeds, lime juice, and mayonnaise.

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Vichyssoise (made with stock from Chinese celery stems and scallions and white wine) with Chinese celery leaves; lavash crispbreads; roasted red bell pepper halves filled with chevre; roasted plum tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil, basil, oregano, and smoked chile powder; sauteed cubed baby eggplant, slices of colossal shitake mushrooms, and rectangles of atsuage tofu with Scotch.

 

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.

 

Clear Explanations Concerning Ubuntu Linux

Since the Dainen-ji LAN has been converted to Ubuntu Linux, many students have asked us about using it. There is now a very generous project underway by the Ubuntu community to present a series of daily screencasts to provide information to those who are still using Windows or Mac systems and are thinking about migrating to Linux and those who are new Ubuntu users. We include an article announcing the screencasts here for anyone who would like to watch them:

 

"Month Of Screencasts 2007

Submitted by Alan Pope on Wed, 2007-08-29 17:54. gutsy | MoS2007 | ubuntu

 

Ubuntu Month of Screencasts is a mad plan concocted by the Screencast Team to produce one full length screencast per day for the whole of one month. That month is September 2007.

  The goal is that each video will go into one subject in some depth, to help educate new users about Ubuntu. We will cover a wide range of topics which should answer some questions that new users to Ubuntu often ask. We aim to go into enough detail to be interesting, hopefully without being baffling or boring.

  We can of course not go into infinite detail on every topic, there are limits to our time and resources. So don't expect these to teach kernel hacking or C programming, but there should be enough information to get a new user from "zero to hero" in one month. That's the goal anyway.

  Each screencast will be made available through the Ubuntu Screencast site in three sizes and two formats (OGG and Flash). The screencasts are licensed under the permissive Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License, so you're free to modify, pass on, sell or otherwise distribute them so long as the attribution to us stays intact.

  Update: We now have feeds which work in popular podcasting clients. Use the links in the box on the top right "MoS2007 Podcast Feeds" with your favourite podcatcher. This has so far been tested with hpodder and democracyplayer.

 

http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/"

 


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 Mishin tando, "Thank you to the Roshi and Jinmyo osho for beautifully presented and delicious evening meals for residents prior to evening sittings, and for the chevre-stuffed roasted red peppers and vichyssoise that were part of Thursday evening's meal; to Shikai osho for baking excellent breads of many varieties; to Nathan Comeau for archiving samu; to students who come early before the evening sittings to assist with soji (preparation of the practice halls)."

From Saigyo chiden , "Thank you to the Roshi for the extensive resource he has made freely available on the White Wind Zen Community web site of dozens of teisho, Dharma Talks and translations of classical texts. Thank you to the Ino for collecting recent Caretaking Council purchases; Neil Porter for repairs to the kitchen lights; to Michael Landay and Nathan Comeau for work in the grounds; to Jennifer Comeau and Carys Carrington for samu; to Guillaume Albert for archiving work."

From Senbo shuso, "Thank you to the Roshi for researching and sharing Open Source software and also an amazing array of different kinds of music; to Jinmyo osho for re-organizing the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen and third-floor common room; to Chunen ino for installing Ubuntu Linux on the archiving computer; to Samantha Drouin for ongoing 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 tando at 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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