February 27, 2010
Dear Sangha and Friends,
The February three day sesshin gathered in some folks who have been away from Prajna Zendo for a long time, as well as some who have never sat sesshin with us before. I am always intrigued by the paths our lives take and grateful when that path brings someone to practice the Buddha Way with me. Perhaps the meandering path of my own 40 years of practice makes me especially attuned to those who’s practice has unfolded in a similar way.
There are many ways of being intimate. I am sometimes astonished by how intimate the connection in sesshin can be. After all, there is almost no physical contact and very little verbal contact. The intimacy of sesshin, I believe, arises from our shared effort to realize our True Nature. We share the difficulty, the discipline, the frustration--and then the deep sense of fulfillment when glimpses of our True Nature arise.
Since intimacy surrounds you, it is fully intimate; it is beyond intimate. You should clearly study this. thus the person becomes the correct heir of Buddha ancestors. Right now is the very moment when you are intimate with yourself and intimate with others.
Dogen Zenji
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The weekend before sesshin, after a new snowfall, I decided to climb Picacho Peak. It is not a difficult climb--three or four miles and a thousand vertical feet on good trails. I hiked most of the morning, breaking trail through the fresh snow, while the overcast sky cleared and brilliant sunlight illuminated the trees and rocks, their outlines softened and merged in the snow.
Almost to the summit, I saw fresh footprints. Someone else had hiked up from the other side. I was wondering who I might meet in this glorious landscape, when I encountered an angel. Coming down from the peak was young woman, radiant from her ascent. There we were, male and female, young and old, sharing our delight with the fresh snow and sunlight. Only a few words were exchanged before we went our separate ways, and yet, another sort of intimacy.
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The week after sesshin, I sent out an invitation to those in our sangha who sometimes accompany me on my more strenuous hikes. Nate joined me, and together we spent 9 hours exploring the amazing rock formations of the Ojito Wilderness. This is dry country South and West of Santa Fe, where gnarled and twisted junipers are the predominant tree and sandstone has been sculpted into fantastic shapes, known locally as “hoodoos”
Traces of Spring were few--not a green leaf nor a flower--but the wind out of the Southeast was warm, Spring was in the air. In a stock pond we saw some beautiful black and white ducks, already eager for the journey North, and toward the end of the day two mountain bluebirds, their vivid mating plumage so intense in that landscape of earthtones that it brought tears to my eyes.
This is another form of intimacy that I treasure--intimacy with this land, its waters, plants and creatures. Walking in the wildlands of Northern New Mexico over many years, in all seasons, these place have claimed me. I come here for refuge, for adventure, and to experience the life here as my own life.
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On March 20, Prajna Zendo is holding a zazenkai. This day of practice includes zazen and a dharma talk. We start at 9 AM and finish around 4:30 PM. This is a good way to explore more intensive practice if you are a new to Zen, and all of us can benefit from setting aside a day to deepen our practice. Bring your own lunch. The suggested donation is only $25.
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April 24 and 25 I am leading a two day Big Mind workshop. The first day is a basic Big Mind workshop, and the second day we will explore just how we create this seemingly well-defined entity that we call a self and which the Buddha taught is non-existent. We will go on to examine how, in a practice based on Vast Emptiness and No-self, we can live an ethical life and engage in moral behavior.
I have been leading Big Mind workshops for several years now. In my first encounter with Genpo Roshi’s new way of presenting the Buddhadharma, I knew that this was a teaching that could convey the subtleties of the Dharma with immediacy and clarity.
Big Mind is a process for investigating the nature of mind at the confluence of authentic Zen practice and Western psychology. In this work, developed by Genpo Merzel Roshi, we explore disowned voices of the dualistic self, experience Original Mind, and discover the integration that is the Awake Self .
(from the Big Mind flyer)
The important work of investigating and maturing the self is not neglected in this process, as it so often is in spiritual practices. Integrating the insights of Western Psychology and the liberation offered by Zen practice, Big Mind offers a path to living an awakened and empowered life
These workshops are aimed at Mental Health professionals, who can receive Continuing Education Units for participating. All who wish to deepen and clarify their Zen practice, as well as those investigating Zen for the first time, are welcome to attend. Contact me at 505-982-3110 or musai@prajnazendo.org for more information on the workshops.
Gassho,
Musai Roshi
January 30, 2010
Dear Sangha and Friends,
I have just returned from another of Genpo Roshi’s Mahasangha retreats, on the Island of Ameland, off the coast of Holland, in the North Sea. The participants, almost 300 this year, come from all over Europe and America, and usually a few from Australia, South America, etc. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to participate in Genpo Roshi’s Big Mind workshops and to meet with other teachers to discuss common concerns. I gave a dharma talk there, which I hope to post on the Prajna Zendo website soon, and had numerous dokusan interviews with students at all levels of practice. This community, gathering once a year for a week, is unique, and the meeting set me to thinking about community and communities within communities.
Before going to Ameland, I spent a few days with Tenkei Roshi at his Zen River Community, in the North of Holland. Tenkei Roshi is a dharma successor of Genpo Roshi, so his community is strongly connected to Genpo Roshi’s Kanzeon Sangha. And yet how different they are, each reflecting the temperament of their leader.
While I was at Zen River, I gave a dharma talk on the complementarity of the two opposing impulses that support our practice. When the Buddha was born, he took seven steps, pointed to the sky with one hand and to the earth with the other and exclaimed, “Beneath the heavens and upon the earth, I alone am The World Honored One.” When he experienced his great enlightenment, after sitting for seven days and seven nights, he looked up at the morning star and said, “Wonderful! Wonderful! I and all beings and the great earth itself simultaneously attain the Way.”
These two positions, “I alone” and “I and all sentient beings” constitute the paradox that informs our practice. It is only through my own effort that I can realize my True Nature. A teacher can offer guidance, a community can offer support, a practice can offer skillful means, but, finally, it is up to me. Sometimes we say, “All alone on your black cushion.” Of course, what I realize through my singular effort is that any appearance of separation is a delusion. There is only One Mind, Big Mind, Shunyata--refuge for the yearning, dissatisfied self.
I gave a dharma talk at Prajna Zendo last Sunday, that I hope will soon be on our website, on this subject of individual effort and community. We in America exalt individual effort and have a deep distrust of community. Perhaps that is why Maezumi Roshi, my root teacher often said that of the Three Treasures, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, Sangha (community) would be the most important in the West.
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I wish you all continued realization as this year unfolds, and invite you to participate in our communal practice. Our next sesshin will be February 11-14, beginning the evening of 2/11 and ending around 11 AM on 2/14. You may attend all or only part of sesshin. Please let me know if you plan to attend, so we can plan for food.
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On April 24 & 25 I will lead Big Mind workshops in Santa Fe. These workshops are designed for mental health professionals and anyone may attend. The first day is a basic Big Mind workshop, the second day is titled, “Creating a Self, Ethical Codes, and Great Compassion.” It will explore the basis for ethical behavior from a Zen Buddhist perspective. A poster for this workshop appears on our website.
Gassho,
Musai
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January 1, 2010
Sometimes exalted
on a peak,
sometimes struggling
through broken country--
always the earth
affirms our True Nature
and supports our aspirations
Dear Sangha and Friends,
The old year ended with a full moon and a blue moon (2nd full moon in one month.) The joys and sorrows of the past year are behind us now. As with each full moon, we atone for our greed, anger and ignorance and renew our vows to live according to the precepts and to:
serve sentient beings, even though they are numberless,
put an end to attachments, even though they are inexhaustible,
master the dharmas, even though they are boundless,
and to attain the unsurpassable Buddha Way.
Thank you all for your participation in the practice during the past year and for your support of Prajna Zendo.
This is my heartfelt wish for the new year:
May I and all beings be free of suffering
May I and all being appreciate our True Nature
May I and all beings be at peace.
December 16, 2009
Within light there is darkness,
But do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light,
But do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
Like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.
The Identity of Relative and Absolute
Dear Sangha and Friends,
We just finished rohatsu, the seven day sesshin that honors the great enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha, on December 8, Bodhi Day. This is always an especially powerful sesshin, perhaps because of Bodhi Day, perhaps because it comes at the darkest time of year and we are all a little more motivated to seek the light.
This year several new members joined us, three of whom received jukai, the ceremony of commitment to the Buddha Way. These students of the Way had already spent several months in preparation before the actual ceremony. There are classes, and each student must prepare a lineage chart and hand sew a garment called a rakusu. This rather complicated, bib like garment is the lay equivalent of the Zen priest’s kesa, or outer robe.
At the jukai ceremony the students receive a dharma name. Now John Talley, in his 80’s, is confirmed as Sodo, The Way Of The Patriarchs; Adam LaVail has opened his Zen Mind as Zenshin; and Maggie Muchmore, who has long identified herself as a fool, is now Daigu, Great Fool. Jukai is a lovely and moving ceremony, and friends and family of the participants joined us in celebration.
Linda Kenji Strong marked the end of her year as Practice Leader at Prajna Zendo with a Hossen ceremony. She gave a talk on Case 20 of the Book of Serenity, in which Monk Hogen speaks of an aimless pilgrimage, Master Jizo asks about the purpose of this pilgrimage, and Hogen says he doesn’t know. “Not Knowing is most intimate,” replies Master Jizo, and Hogen attains great enlightenment. Kenji’s account of the aimless pilgrimage of her own life left her listeners defenseless with laughter, then she finished everyone off with her succinct wisdom in the dharma combat that follows the talk. A deep bow of appreciation, Kenji.
We initiated oryoki meals at Prajna Zendo with this sesshin. Oryoki is the formal, three bowl meal procedure of Japanese Zen. With oryoki, meals become another form of meditation and sesshin is strengthened. Everyone seemed delighted with this development.
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The new Off The Path, On The Way program is proving more popular than I anticipated. (See the website for details.) Several people joined me for the first hike, and several have signed up for a hike this weekend in the red rock country north of Abiquiu. Photos from the first hike are on our website. For me, the Buddhadharma is most vividly apparent in wild places, and while “pilgrimaging aimlessly” in the mountains, mesas, and canyons, of Northern New Mexico, I am most awake. I am very gratified to find that sangha members want to join me in these rather strenuous, off trail adventures.
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On Wednesday, December 23, at 5:30 Pm, I will be giving a dharma talk at Upaya Zen Center on “Jesus, God, and Buddha.” Since childhood, Christmas has been a joyful time for me, and having both a son and a granddaughter born on Christmas Day has only increased the significance. There is so much in common between Christianity and Buddhism, even though fundamentalists in both religions would create division where harmony might prevail.
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We will not have a New Year’s Eve program at Prajna Zendo this year, so I will wish you all a Happy New Year, and hope to see you in 2010.
Gassho,
Musai
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November 14, 2009
To remove oneself from the doting of kin and family,
to sit upright in a grass hut,
to circle beneath the trees,
to be a friend to the voice of the brook and the hue of the hills--
these are the practices adopted from the ancient sages and the model for ages to come.
Ryokan
Photograph: Alamo Canyon, October 2009, Musai Roshi
An Invitation
Dear Sangha and Friends,
Once or twice a month I go on a long hike somewhere near Santa Fe. These hikes are rather strenuous. I am usually out for 8 or 9 hours and walk 10-15 miles. Usually a good portion of each hike is off trail. I have mapped out dozens of hikes within a 1 1/2 hour drive of my home (3 hours is the maximum amount of time I want to spend on the road for a day hike.) I hike year round--in summer I hike the mountains, in winter the canyons and badlands at lower altitudes.
I generally go alone on these hikes and I would like to extend an invitation to you to join me. I am creating a list of those who might enjoy such an expedition from time to time. Let me know if you would like to be on this list, and when I am planning a hike I will let you know. Sometimes I know a week or more in advance when I am going to hike, sometimes only a day or two. No obligation to join me, of course. If you decide that you would like to participate in a particular hike I will arrange a time and place for us to meet, either in Santa Fe, if you live here, or at the trailhead, if you live out of town. We have added a new page to this website: "Off the Path, On the Way" , with photographs I took on our first hike..
Gassho,
Musai
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November 6, 2009
Dear Sangha and Friends,
Only a month now until we begin our annual rohatsu sesshin. During this darkest time of the year, we sit and study together for a week, to experience for ourselves what Shakyamuni Buddha realized 2500 years ago. He vowed to sit beneath the Bodhi tree until he had resolved the questions that tormented him. Why is life filled with so much suffering and dissatisfaction? What am I doing here? Who am I, really? After sitting for seven days and seven nights, he looked up at the morning star and exclaimed, "Wonderful! Wonderful! I and all beings and the great earth itself simultaneously attain the Way."
We sit sesshin because we have precisely the same questions that so disturbed Siddartha Gautama, and we sit with the faith that we, too, can realize what the Buddha realized. That is his promise: undertake this practice and you will realize your True Nature.
This year, in Big Mind practice, we will investigate the teachings of Zen Master Eihei Dogen, in his "Genjo Koan" (Actualizing the Fundamental Point). I invite you to join us--for the whole sesshin or for a day--so we can practice together and actualize the fundamental point for ourselves. [A translation of the Genjo Koan is online at http://genjokoan.com/, but the translator is not acknowledged. The translation I'm using is by Kazuaki Tanahashi in MOON IN A DEWDROP.]
We begin rohatsu sesshin this year Sunday evening, December 6, and end Sunday morning, December 13. Let me know if you plan to attend, so we can plan for meals.
Gassho,
Musai
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September 24, 2009
Nambe Lake from Lake Peak
Climbing to the Summit
Dear Sangha and Friends,
Last Saturday nine people joined me on what I hope was the 1st annual circumnambulation of Lake Peak. It's about a ten mile hike, climbing from 10,000' to 12,500', with about a third of the hike off trail. The scenery is spectacular, from deep forest to exposed ridges and then Lake Peak. Standing on the peak, we could see storms not far away to the East and West, with the Eastern storm an opaque, purple-black density of torrential rain. Above us the sky was clear and the sun shone upon us.
The first and third legs of the hike we socialized in pairs and small groups. The middle three hours of the hike we climbed off trail in silence. I love these off trail journeys, where mindfulness is crucial. The irregularities and the hazards of the terrain demand it. Without a trail, our experience of the mountain is raw and intimate. Climbing above 11,000' is strenuous and, consequently, slow--even slower without a trail. Finding one's way over steep slopes, fallen trees, and boulder fields, engagement with place is vivid and compelling.
At the Summit
At particular locations we stopped and chanted Buddhist sutras and dharanis, and I concluded each chant with a quote from John Muir or Dogen Zenji. Whenever I walk in the mountains I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be immersed in such magnificent country. The gratitude always extends to my companions and at the end of this trip I felt a special bond with those who had joined me. I hope to repeat the journey next year.
Musai Resting
We have a journey of a different sort coming up in October. October 15 through 18 Prajna Zendo will hold a 3 day sesshin. As usual, I will be doing Big Mind work with participants Friday and Saturday afternoons. During the Big Mind work of this sesshin we will examine how we create a self through the skandhas of Form, Sensation, Perception, Discrimination, and Consciousness. What is the value and the limitation of this constructed self, and how can we transcend it to experience our True Nature?
December 6 through 13 we will hold our annual rohatsu sesshin, the retreat honoring the great enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha. Almost 2500 years ago he vowed to sit upright in solitude and silence until he had penetrated the mystery of his existence and brought an end to his suffering. After seven days and nights, he looked up to see the morning star, and realized the culmination of his long search. "Wonderful, wonderful! I and all beings and the great earth itself simultaneously attain the Way."
Come join us for this or the October sesshin--or both--and find out what he was talking about.
Gassho,
Musai
Lars on a Rock
Nate under a Camp Robber (Gray Jay)
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August 16, 2009
Mountain Streams leap and plunge
Gleaming in Sunlight,
Flooding in Spring
They Splash and Tumble
to the Plain
Subterranean water
is without drama.
Flowing slowly, imperceptibly,
All life is its expression.
Dear Sangha and Friends,
I'm just back from my yearly solo retreat in the mountains, hence the photos and verse. This year I returned to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Colorado. These magnificent mountains soar up to 14,000' from the San Luis Valley. Their steepness makes the trails challenging (not to mention the off trail hiking), and makes it possible to walk from camp at 8500' to alpine terrain and back in one day.
Wonderful the Presence
One sees in the present.
Oh wonderstruck am I to see
Wonder on wonder
The Adi Granth
(The Sacred Book of Sikhism)
I know this experience is available to me anytime, and why so much more on these retreats? The astonishing beauty of the place, of course, and even more, what I am without: relationships with people, responsibilities (I am not a Zen teacher or a psychotherapist out here), entertainment, news of the world, dealing with money.
I’ve done a pretty good job of arranging my life for satisfaction and fulfillment. I have work I enjoy that provides me with sufficient income; I have received inka and preside over a Zen Center; I have a wife who loves me and whom I love in return. I have a loving son and granddaughter, friends, adequate housing and transportation, remarkably good health and fitness for my age, and yet...Attachments form quickly, along with responsibility, disappointment, anxiety, bad decisions--karma. And, of course, every brightness throws its shadow of inevitable loss.
Out here there is respite from all of that. In the walking, the zazen, and the simple tasks of camp life, I attain something quite close to peace of mind. Life is simple, uncomplicated. I am surrounded by beauty that suffuses me. Serenity. Back in my busy life, serenity is a current that flows deep and strong beneath the joys and difficulties. I have my Zen practice to thank for that. Out here the current rises to the surface as the concerns of my life fade.
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One day I walk all day: one day I sit all day--they reinforce each other
Mountain streams leap and plunge.
Gleaming in sunlight,
flooding in Spring,
they splash and tumble
to the plain.
Subterranean water
is without drama.
Flowing slowly, imperceptibly,
All life is its expression.
Shikan taza is like this. Perhaps less a matter of letting go of stories, as I usually say. This can sometimes lead to trying to get rid of stories. Shikan taza is more a matter of settling below stories. What is there cannot be described or grasped or explained, and all flows from and returns to there.
Don’t seek some special state
in zazen.
Even if you find it--
a stagnant pool.
Just let go,
let go of all stories,
it’s only your stories
that sustain the illusion of self.
Old Joshu knew:
“Like a ball tossed on rushing water.”
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I don’t want you to think that I spend most of my time sitting and thinking about zazen. I walk. Here’s my journal entry after a typical hike:
Yesterday was a magnificent day in these mountains. On the trail up to 3 Forks (1 1/2 hours--about 3 miles) cloud cover came in. I thought of changing my plan to climb Pyramid Mountain or Venable Peak, and instead walk to North Crestone Lake. I certainly didn't want to be on alpine slopes if electrical storms seemed at all likely. By the time I reached 3 Forks, the sky was blue again, so I headed up the North Fork trail toward the peaks. I passed one backpack camp at 3 Forks, and otherwise not a soul on the trail all day. This trail is clearly not much used. In some places grass still grows on the trail, at other places I had to push through willows.
I arrived at a point about 1 1/2 miles up the North Fork trail from 3 Forks, where I had to decide whether to climb up Pyramid Mountain to the West or Venable Peak to the East. I decided on Venable, since I was doubtful that I could make it to the top of either, and if I could get up to 12,000’ on Venable, I could traverse over to the Middle Fork drainage and come down there, which would be new territory.
Climbing up off trail from 10,800’, I was soon above timber line. Walking off trail on steep slopes demands complete mindfulness. My mind is emptied of any consideration other than where to place the next foot, and when I stop to gaze around, as I frequently do, the grandeur of the place, or the lovely character of rock and alpine flower so fill my consciousness that all other thoughts are obliterated. The necessity for mindfulness is even more critical coming down. Going up, if I stumble, I tend to fall into the hill. Going down, a stumble could lead to a bone cracking tumble down a rocky slope. I was ecstatic up there, as I always am. I can remember that joy, to some extent, at any time, but when I am there I am always astonished by its magnitude.
Clouds again began to fill the sky, so at 12,000’ I thought it prudent to start down. I didn’t have time to reach the Middle Fork drainage, and so started back down into the North Fork drainage. I traveled down along a spine of rock, sometimes one side, sometimes the other, sometimes on top. No rain after all, so back to camp and a quick bath in the creek before dinner and zazen.
Gassho,
Musai
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July 21, 2009
Dear Sangha and Friends,
We just completed a three-day sesshin, leaving me feeling, as sesshin always does, immensely grateful for this life as a human being and for a practice that reminds me that my True Nature is infinitely more vast than this human life. When I say “remind,” I don’t mean something like an entry in my daytimer, I mean a reminder that penetrates to the core of my being. Nothing else does this with the reliability of sesshin--so gratitude for my life, gratitude for sesshin, gratitude for the fellow practitioners who sit with me for three or seven days.
It always astonishes me that such depth and intensity of feeling should arise out of a practice where, for most of the day, we sit silently, without moving.
During every sesshin we spend some time in Big Mind practice. We use this process to investigate in depth some Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Three years ago we took up The Platform Sutra, known also as The Sutra of The Sixth Patriarch. After three years of sesshin, we completed work on Hui-neng’s teaching during this sesshin.
The Platform Sutra is a remarkable work, and Hui-neng’s teaching goes to the heart of Zen practice. The opportunity to unpack his words, to investigate his teaching in depth, has given those of us who participated a gut-level appreciation for this seminal work. Hui-neng’s presence was palpable as we completed our work. I think we all knew that this 7th Century Master was deeply pleased to have 21st Century Zen students incorporating his teaching into their being.
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For my 74th birthday, my son’s mother sent me Tamalpais Walking, a collaboration by the poet Gary Snyder and the woodcut and printmaker artist, Tom Killion. “The Sleeping Lady,” as Mount Tam, as is affectionately known by the residents of San Francisco and Marin County, is a place where I spent many, many hours walking in the 1970s. This beautiful coastal mountain, rising 2500 feet out of the waters of San Francisco Bay, includes a great variety of habitats, from the redwood forest of Muir Woods to the sunbaked slopes of ceanothus and manzanita. There are meadows, streams, wildflowers, and outcrops of the lovely green rock known as serpentine.
During a dark and difficult time of my life, when the most salient feature of my life was a conviction that I didn’t belong anywhere, I began my Zen practice under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, at the San Francisco Zen Center. During the next few years, my dear friend David Lueck, now Daigan Sensei, of Green Gulch Zen Center, walked with me in healing camaraderie through the canyons and over the ridges of Mt. Tam.
In Snyder’s and Killion’s book, there is an account of walks that Snyder led, circumnambulating Mt. Tam. Inspired by this account, I have decided to lead a walk circumnambulating a mountain here that I love and have climbed many times over the years: Lake Peak. The route will follow one that Jim Green, Niels Mandoe and I mapped out in the summer of 2008: North on trail 254 from the ski basin to the Western edge of Puerto Nambe; South, up the North running ridge of Lake Peak to the summit; then on to Deception Peak, West down Raven’s Ridge to trail 254, and back to the trailhead.
I invite you to join me. We will stop to chant sutras at key locations. This is a moderately long hike--8 or 9 miles, and strenuous, as we climb about 2,500 feet from the trailhead to the 12,500 foot summit. I travel slowly these days as I move into the high country. Let me know if you would like to come. A tentative date is September 19, weather permitting. (Mid-September is generally cool and sunny in the Sangre de Cristos.) When I know who is joining the expedition, I will send out more information about gathering place, time, what to bring, etc.
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“Mountains’ walking is just like human walking. Accordingly, do not doubt mountains’ walking even though it does not look the same as human walking. The buddha ancestors’ words point to walking.
If you doubt mountains’ walking, you do not know your own walking; it is not that you do not walk, but that you do not know or understand your own walking.There are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.”
“Mountains and Waters Sutra”
Dogen Zenji
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On August 30th, I head off into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado for a week of solitude. These yearly solo retreats are enormously rejuvenating for me. I return to my work as a a Zen teacher and a psychotherapist with renewed vigor and inspiration.
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Daishin Sensei has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Let us all hold him in our hearts, along with the intention for his full and speedy recovery. He will continue to lead zazen each morning at 6 AM, as per our schedule, until his surgery on July 30th. At that time the 6 AM sitting will be discontinued, until Sensei is well enough to resume his place in the zendo. Wherever you are on July 30th, please join me in zazen, in support of this dedicated student and this wise and compassionate teacher who has contributed so much to Prajna Zendo and to all of us.
Gassho,
Musai
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May 27, 2009
Dear Sangha Members & Friends,
Vast is the robe of liberation
A formless field of benefaction
I wear the Tathagata's teaching
Saving all sentient beings
We just completed a seven day sesshin, with the usual components of zazen, Big Mind practice, ceremony, and work practice. We continued to apply the Big Mind process to Hui-neng's PLATFORM SUTRA. This seminal document from 7th Century China, issuing from an illiterate peasant who became the most honored and respected of all Zen Masters, sets forth the fundamental teaching of our practice. While it is composed in simple, direct--even colloquial--language, it is full of surprising leaps, paradoxical twists, and astonishing assertions. By no means easy to penetrate and fully appreciate, THE PLATFORM SUTRA is the ideal document to investigate through the Big Mind process.
We have been examining THE PLATFORM SUTRA in sesshin for over two years now and will probably complete our work during the July sesshin. I believe that all of us who have engaged in this challenging work can offer a deep bow of gratitude to and companionship with Hui-neng as he says, "Good friends, if you all recite this verse ('The Song of Formlessness' that summarizes the sutra) and practice in accordance with it, even if we're a thousand miles apart, you'll always be by my side."
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The source of mind is oceanically calm and the sea of Dharma is fathomless;
one who cannot realize it will wander eternally
and one who realizes it will be immediately at home.
(both verses from the shukke tokudo ceremony)
This was a very special sesshin for me, as I watched my first dharma successor, David Daishin Brighton, give shukke tokudo to my wife, Kathleen Hoju O'Rourke. Hoju has been practicing Zen for many years. She began even before we met, 21 years ago, and continued with my teacher, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, after attending a sesshin with me at his center in the mountains East of Los Angeles. She has maintained a practice since that time, attending many sesshin under the guidance of Maezumi Roshi, Jitsudo Sensei, myself, and, most recently, Daishin Sensei. Trying to balance the roles of husband/wife and teacher/student is a perilous matter, and I am very grateful to Hoju and Daishin for forming their teacher/student relationship and freeing me to work on the challenging task of how to bring wisdom and compassion to my role as husband.
So what is this shukke tokudo? In a monastic setting it is clear enough. The supplicant commits to living by a set of precepts and to a monastic life that precludes marriage, family, and work in the world. The person becomes a monk and a novice priest. In Japan this period of monastic life is usually limited to a few years, after which the person (always a male person) usually marries and takes over one of the many Soto Buddhist temples in Japan, becoming a fully ordained Zen Buddhist priest. Women in Japan become nuns and follow a somewhat different and less prestigious path.
New questions arise for Zen monasteries in the West, where gender equality is honored, and still more new questions for centers with largely or exclusively lay practitioners. Prajna Zendo falls into this latter category, and Zen teachers like myself struggle with and often discuss with one another just what it means to receive shukke tokudo.
I have given shukke tokudo to only three people myself, and only after an extensive discussion with each about what it means. Thus far, I have come up with this:
You have decided that your Zen practice is the most important feature of your life and have vowed to see all conditions and circumstances of your life as opportunities for that practice.
You have agreed to take the Four Bodhisattva Vows as a template for your life:
Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
(I often tell my students that "serve" might be better than "save.")
Attachments are numberless, I vow to put an end to them.
(Attachments to outcomes--all circumstances are opportunities for practice.)
The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.
(Everything is teaching all the time--pay attention!)
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.
(The work of a lifetime--or many lifetimes.)
You have committed to serve the teacher who gave you shukke tokudo and the sangha in which s/he teaches.
I don't say that these statements exhaust the meaning of shukke tokudo. It is a profound and whole-hearted commitment, the meaning of which unfolds for each of us as we live it.
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A short while ago, I sent out an e-mail about our new sutra books. These lovely books, designed by Adam LaVail, will cost about $10 each to print. I asked people to consider donating one or more books to the zendo, to defray the cost of printing. A number of you have done that, and we need more donations. If you would like to contribute to this project, hand or send a check to Kathleen Hoju O'Rourke. Our address is:
Prajna Zendo
5A Camino Potrillo
Lamy, NM 87540
Indicate on the check that it is for sutra books. Also, let Hoju know if you would like to purchase one of these sutra books for your own use. They contain all the chants we do at PZ, with translations of the chants in Sino-Japanese.
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We have a zazenkai (one day retreat) coming up June 20 and a 3 day sesshin coming July 16-19. Please consider joining us for one or both. If you are planning to attend the July sesshin, let me know, so we can plan for meals.
Gassho,
Musai
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April 24, 2009
Father and son
mountains and sky
we are all contained
in one another
Dear Sangha and Friends,
April has been a month of Big Mind workshops. The evening of April 3, I gave a dharma talk to about 50 people in the Grange Hall of Twisp, WA. The next day I presented a Big Mind workshop. These events were organized by Nancy Jisho St Clair, our webmaster, who lives in Winthrop. Twisp and Winthrop are small towns in the Methow Valley, a lovely valley in the foothills of the Northern Cascade Mountains. These and adjoining communities are an eclectic mix of long time residents and newcomers, including Buddhists, Buddhist sympathizers, and Unitarians, whose sympathies seem remarkably inclusive.
The participants were very enthusiastic about the programs, including a very special participant, sitting in the front row. My son, Dan, was experiencing one of my Big Mind workshops for the first time. In fact, it was the first time for him to observe me in my role as a Buddhist teacher. Dan and I have always been close, and having him there that day was deeply satisfying and represented the completion of a cycle. I believe he suffered neglect from me as a young child, because of my intense involvement in Zen practice, and I considered this workshop a kind of offering to him.
On April 18 and 19, I presented my annual Big Mind workshop aimed at psychotherapists in our community. A diverse group attends these yearly events, and therapists can receive credits for continuing education, which all licenses require. This year, as always, the first day was a basic Big Mind workshop. The second day we investigated The Path of the Human Being, Genpo Roshi’s version of Tozan’s Five Ranks.
In 9th Century China, Dongshan (Tozan in Japanese) developed a model of psycho-spiritual development that he called The Five Ranks. Each of these Ranks represents a stage in the integration of the Relative and the Absolute, or Dualistic Mind and Big Mind. The culmination in the 5th Rank, Tozan calls Unity Attained, and Genpo has renamed The Fully Integrated Free-Functioning Human Being. So we see that this notion of the dualistic self having value, rather than being something to get rid of on the path to liberation, goes back at least to Tozan in the 9th Century.
As a psychotherapist and a Zen teacher, I am tremendously enthusiastic about the Big Mind process. I am convinced that to ignore the development of a strong, flexible, ego in the pursuit of spiritual goals is foolish. Not just foolish, but a cause of suffering for self and others. In the words of Yung-chia, “Getting rid of things and clinging to emptiness is an illness of the same kind. It is just like throwing oneself into a fire to avoid being drowned.”
Sunday, April 26, I will give a dharma talk at Prajna Zendo on the subject of "Mutual Indispensability." I heard this term on a Charlie Rose interview with a writer on international relations named Carlos Pascual. I doubt that Mr Pascual is any sort of a Buddhist, yet his term coincides with the Buddha's teaching on Dependent Co-arising. These two terms are implicit in the Big Mind world view. We (and I do not refer only to human beings) are mutually indispensable to one another. Everything I consider other is precisely and exactly what I need now in my life. I need you, not as I wish you were or hope you will be, but as you are. To realize this and to fully accept it is liberation. This is my field of practice. I am not subject to it, I choose it, and therein lies liberation.
Looking forward, we are offering a 7 day sesshin at Prajna Zendo in May. May 17 through 24, we will dedicate ourselves to investigating our True Nature, through zazen, work practice, and Big Mind Practice. In the Big Mind work, we will continue our investigation of Hui-neng’s Platform Sutra, arguably the most profound expression of Ch’an Buddhism. I encourage you to join us for all or part of this week. Lodging is available at Prajna Zendo--minimal but comfortable. If you plan to participate for one or more full days, let me know, so we can plan for meals.
Spring seems finally to have arrived in Northern New Mexico. The earliest wildflowers have begun to bloom in the pinyon/juniper woodlands--Milkvetch, Verbena, Bladderpod, and Perky Sue. I wish you all a joyful season of new growth.
Gassho,
Musai Roshi
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Our webmaster, Nancy Jisho St Clair, continues to refine our website. Quite a few of my dharma talks are available now on the website. I invite you to listen: www.prajnazendo.org
If you are receiving this letter, and you are not a member, consider becoming a member and supporting Prajna Zendo financially, Contact Kathleen Hoju O'Rourke.
All Photographs taken by Musai Roshi