Photograph by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi

 

eMirror Vol. 11, No. 6

Friday, February 9th, 2007

Edited by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

 

 


Quotes from teisho are run sequentially in the eMirror

 

The beginning of Dogen zenji’s text “Hossho” or “Dharmata” might seem to be a bit of a jumble. I suspect that this is because he was addressing certain concepts and terminologies that were current in dokusan and meetings with the monastic community, especially those who had come from the Daruma school of Nonin.

    I’ll show you what I mean. Dogen says,  

In our study through practice sometimes we follow the sutras, sometimes we follow a Master; in the end, however, we realize the truth alone, without a teacher. Realizing it alone, without a teacher, is the working of dharmata. Even for those with natural wisdom it is still necessary to meet a Master and question into the Way. Those without such innate wisdom must study and practice yet more diligently. Yet there is really no one who is without natural wisdom. We each must follow the teaching of the sutras or masters until we come to fruition of the Buddha Way, the truth of Awake Awareness. Know that we enter the samadhi of dharmata through meeting the sutras or meeting a Master. To enter and receive samadhi as dharmata is what is called natural wisdom. Thus, we obtain ancient wisdom and the three types of knowledge. This is the authentic transmission of complete and utter Awakening. We learn natural wisdom by meeting natural wisdom. We receive the authentic transmission of untutored wisdom and natural wisdom by meeting untutored wisdom and natural wisdom. If we do not possess natural wisdom, even if we meet sutras or masters we will not be able to hear of or experience dharmata.

        Firstly Dogen says that in the end it is a matter of “mushi dokugo”, or realizing the truth alone without a teacher. In Dogen zenji’s text “Shisho” or “The Document of Transmission,” he uses the same phrase,

Buddhas receive the Dharma only from Buddhas, Buddha-to-Buddha, and Ancestors receive the Dharma only from Ancestors, Ancestor-to-Ancestor. This is the experience of alignment in the Transmission from one-to-one. In this way, it is the unsurpassable Awakening Intelligence. It is impossible to certify the seal of realization without being a Buddha, and it is impossible to become a Buddha without the seal of realization of a Buddha. Who else, other than a Buddha, could seal this realization as the most profound, the most unsurpassable? When we receive the seal of realization from a Buddha, we have realization without a teacher, and realization without self. This is why it is said, “A Buddha receives realization from a Buddha; an Ancestor merges realization with an Ancestor.” Those who are not Buddhas cannot understand the meaning of this. How then can bodhisattvas measure it amongst their ten stages or even in the stage of balanced awareness? How much less then can scholars of the sutras or commentaries understand it? Even if it is explained, still they cannot understand it. A Buddha receives the Dharma from a Buddha; it is Transmitted between a Buddha and a Buddha.

          And so “mushi dokugo” does not literally mean realization without a teacher. Although of course one can have moments of opening or kensho without a teacher and in fact without a practice. But all realizations and true and complete realization is essentially realization of something that cannot be taught or learned from another because it is our own nature. It is who we are. This realization is always without a teacher or “mushi-dokugo” and is also “muji-dokugo” or without a self.

          So now Dogen says that “Even for those with natural wisdom it is still necessary to meet a Master and question into the Way.” “Natural wisdom” or shochi is a Confucian term. In another text from the Shobogenzo, Shizen-Biku, Dogen says, “In the writings of Kong-zi there is the shochi sa or person born with natural wisdom. In the Buddha’s Teaching there are no people of natural wisdom.” Now, this is actually not fair to Kongfu zi or Confucius as he is called in the West. Much more representative of his philosophy is this saying:

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest."

     In any case, Confucian texts and commentaries were prolific even in Japan, and so the term “shochi” apparently has some association with those. So Dogen is saying that even if one had inherent wisdom, one would still need to meet a master and to learn the Way because true wisdom is not static, it is not frozen; but apparently this was the meaning that the term “natural wisdom” had for people. Although what is realized by the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors through practice of the Way is what has always already been true, it is not something remote in the past but is true now as well. It is not something set back from the world witnessing it; it is presencing as the world. When we realize the Original Face as our own face we have to embody it with our own face and feet and hands

 

-Zen Master Anzan Hoshin, continuing teisho 1: “Meeting Natural Wisdom” presented Friday, December 3, 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 February 14th and February 28th. The Vow of Samantabhadra will be chanted on February 21st.

 

Nehan O-sesshin

The Nehan O-sesshin will begin at 8:00 p.m. this evening, 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 first samu weekend of 2007 is scheduled to take place on the 24th and 25th of February. Work over these two days will include the continuation of the project to improve the insulation in the west side of the attic and also insulating the ceiling of the workshop. We shall also work to find other areas of the building which can use extra insulation, expandable foam sealer, caulking or draft stop in an effort to minimize heat loss and thus help reduce our extremely high heating costs. 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, February 10th associate sittings – This World of Ten Directions: “The Cave of Ghosts” (teisho 7 of 10).

Saturday, February 17th general sitting – Sitting Up Straight: Zen Master Anzan Hoshin’s commentaries on Keizan Jokin zenji’s “Zazen Yojinki”: “A Single Bright Point” (teisho 13 of 17).

 

Website Updates

Shikai Zuiko osho’s Shuso-hossen Dharma Talk from 1991 has been posted on the White Wind Zen Community Website. The direct link is:

http://www.wwzc.org/dharmaTalks/Its_Too_Easy_000.htm.

 

A Dharma Talk entitled “Freefall” presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho during the January 27th Dharma Assembly has been posted on the White Wind Zen Community Website. The direct link is:

http://www.wwzc.org/Jinmyo_osho/Freefall.htm

 

Congratulations

Congratulations and deep gassho to Brian Lakeman and K. P. Ramakrishnan on being accepted as associate public students by the Roshi. Brian is a resident of Kitchener, Ontario. Rama is a resident of Bangalore, India.

 

Retreats

Gillian Higenbottam sat a partial retreat on Saturday. Deshi Vicki Robichaud sat partial retreats on Wednesday and Thursday in her home on Gabriola 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.  

 

 

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

Mixed grain (Lundberg Farm short grain brown rice, Korean white and brown short grain sticky rice, barley, Thai jasmine rice) with coconut and crushed toasted almonds; chopped fennel and green cabbage braised in coconut milk with tamarind and mirin; roasted shitake caps and halved white mushrooms with sate sauce; roasted maka-atsuage tofu squares with a dab of dan dan sauce; salad of Chinese carrots thinly sliced on the bias on the mandolin with slivered ginger, dressed with ngoc mam and key lime juice.

 

Tuesday yakuseki

Scalloped Yukon Gold potatoes with three layers of sliced Fruilano and grated Parmesan cheeses and buttermilk; salad of blanched snow peas and seeded plum tomato spears dressed with extra virgin olive oil and key lime; cremini mushroom soup with baby bok choy and baby Shanghai bok choy; slow roasted pork shanks and crackling; scallion, ginger, and vodka sauce (pureed with lime juice, mirin, chiles, cumin, and oregano) for the meat.

 

Thursday Yakuseki

Mixed grain (Lundberg Farm short grain brown rice, Korean white and brown sticky rice, barley, gohan); tom yum soup with thickly sliced eryingi mushrooms and puffed tofu; stir-fried dai gai choy (mustard greens) with red bell and cubanelle peppers; roasted Asian eggplant bias-sliced with bulgogi sauce and sesame oil.

 

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 Mishin tando, “Thank you to the Roshi for the variety of ikebana that appear every few days on the ikebana shelf in the Hatto; to Shikai osho for baking an angel food cake with me; to Jinmyo osho for leading many Introduction to Zen workshops that have introduced countless people to practice, and for training practice advisors in presenting parts of the workshop; to Senbo shramon and Francois Fournier for administrative samu.”

From Gillian Higenbottam, "Thank you to the Roshi for making the Teachings available, for the teisho series ‘Sitting Up Straight’, and for the amazing Japanese irises and pondwood in the Hatto in January followed by white sand and glass; to Jinmyo osho for the dharma talk on Freefall; to Chunen ino for leading oryoki at the Dharma assembly as well as to the tenzo and monastics who participated in oryoki. Thank you to Shikai osho for her teachings during daisan, and for mustard peas and making sure I didn't miss out on refreshments during the workshop; to Chunen ino and Mishin tando for encouragement and advice on practice issues during my retreat; to Jinmyo osho for the reminders about forms; and to Saigyo chiden for organizing samu and finding that fun door to work on."

 

 


 

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.

 

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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