Mystery Light

November 2, 2010

2010-11-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

Yifang, 4:45pm.

Today we broke out of the cities and came out to the country. Went to see where Moshan Lioran practiced a thousand years ago -- we chant her name as a notable woman teacher. There is a nunnery there where they are building a complex. The abbess was away, but the nun greeting us served tea, along with fruit they had grown on the grounds. And she handed out malas for everyone, so now we have two of them (we also had tea and malas at Rujin/Dogen's temple).

We are settling into our hotel in Yifang. We will be here two nights, so it is an opportunity to catch up on hand-washing laundry. I got much of mind done last night in Nanching, but am definitely taking advantage of the opportunity here, so I'll be set for a while.

The rooms in this hotel aren't all that great, but will be fine. No carpeting, no shower stall, just a drain in the floor and shower shoes. The bed is very hard, but that was also the case in Ningbo, and my body adjusted there, so I suspect it will do so here as well.

One thing I like is that the windows are open. We are on a highway, so there's a lot of noise. Chinese drivers honk a lot, mostly just to let each other know where they are (tweeting?). Not so much about trying to get someone to do something (Move! Stop!), but just an almost-friendly, or in any case impersonal, imparting of information -- I'm here, coming up behind you. It often implies that it might be beneficial for one to move over a bit (i.e., pedestrians in a road that a car is coming down), but not necessarily.

It was so great to see nuns today, all involved in building this place. One of our groups said she would like to move in for a while.

Andy mentioned that in their eyes (Chinese monastics), we're all lay people, because we haven't left home. I'm pondering that a bit. What exactly does it mean to leave home in an American context? In my context?

One sentence on a scroll in the hall where we drank tea reads: "The Dharma Rain in the Nine Mountains transforms the Ten Directions." I liked that place very much.

November 1, 2010

2010-11-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally made it on to the Internet. I've had no luck connecting at all in China until now. There's an ethernet connection in the hotel room [in Nanching] that finally seems to work just fine. We've discovered that facebook and blogspot are evidently blocked in China, so there go those plans to keep in touch. Kyogen has been connecting to the Internet just fine, but is now sending e-mails to the office and having Jyoshin post to the blog he set up. Ah, well.

Both yesterday and today we visited temples. This morning in Ningbo we also went to a library garden that was really beautiful, and I would love to have spent more time there. But we were hurried along to eat lunch early so we could catch our plane to here in Nanching. Had another wonderful dinner, and now back to the hotel. I'm not the only one who tends to crash during dinner and go to bed early, only to wake up around 4am. I'm gradually adapting to local time.

Back to temples. Today's wasn't exactly on our itinerary, being optional if we had time. And we did, as our flight was earlier than they expected. So we went to this temple in downtown Nanching. I don't know the name of the temple -- I just can't keep all these Chinese names in my head. But we were greeted by a monk guestmaster standing in for the abbot, who was on his way to Beijing. He took us upstairs and served us tea. An assistant brought in peanuts, and also gave us all mala bracelets. Very sweet.

This monk who made the tea today did this odd thing of pouring the first batch of tea he brewed out, and then brewing with the same tea again, over and over. Evidently the first batch (in this lovely little tea pot that looked a little like a french press -- I want one!) is for "washing" the tea, to get out any dust, etc. They discard that and then brew from the washed tea. Maybe I'll figure out a way to do something like that the next time I cook Sunday breakfast. We'll see.

Yesterday we visited two temples. The first was King Ashoka's temple, and the second was the one where Dogen trained under Rujing (which won't mean a lot to many of you -- he is considered to be the founder of Soto Zen in Japan -- he went to China to find answers, having studied under many Japanese teachers, and found Rujing at this temple we visited yesterday. Then he brought that back to Japan.). It was really cool to join in practice there -- we participated in Evening Service in the afternoon. It was strange in many ways, and lasted well over an hour. By the time it was done the sun was going down, a little after 5pm. Some elements were familiar, and I saw some things I had seen at Tassajara last fall. Of course, I couldn't chant along, as it was all in Chinese, and most of it was sung, so after a while I was able to get some of the melody and hum or even "ah" along.

It's about 7:30pm, and I'm tired and very interested in bed. On the other hand, I should try to stay up a little later than I really want to so maybe I'll sleep later in the morning. Eric (the Chinese tour guide) told us that the tea we were drinking this afternoon should keep us up until midnight. I doubt that, but maybe it will keep me going a little longer. and of course I'm excited to finally get on to the Internet.

This is the third big city we've been in (the first was Shanghai). Andy (our tour arranger) says tomorrow we leave the cities and go to the countryside. Another temple, a big one, with a lot of construction going on, so we will again stay at a hotel. But we will spend much of the day there at the temple -- Baizhong's, as I recall. I'm not doing a lot of keeping track, just mostly going along and participating as well as I can. There have been some intervals where we could kind of wander on our own, within limits, and told to meet at a particular place at a particular time. So I've been able to do some walking.

The weather has been sunny and pleasant. Cool in the mornings, but generally nice in the afternoons. This afternoon it was positively warm. We are in the south, but even so, I gather this unusual for this time of year.

Sunday, October 31

2010-11-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Nanching, 2:51pm.

In transit between the airport and the city. I realize I've been a day off in my reckoning, which I suspected. Not that it really matters. I only really need to stay with the group, not know what day it is.

One thing -- I've been enjoying the tea a great deal here. It's so different from what we drink in the states. Reminds me a little of barley tea, mild as I prefer it.

We had a leisurely lunch in a hotel restaurant by the airport and then went to the terminal and found the flight being called, evidently earlier than it had been scheduled. So a scramble to get on the plane -- check bags, get boarding passes, go through security, and of course I ended up in the very last row. The woman occupying my seat got a phone call and wasn't moving, and finally I made and emphatic gesture for her to move over, and she did. They fed us on the flight -- a small container of hot rice, vegetables, and shrimp. Even though we had already eaten, I ate the rice and vegetables, and accepted the bottle of water, keeping the half that was left to drink later.

October 30 - Ningbo

2010-11-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

[In my journal, I put Friday, October 29, but I think it was likely October 30, as it took me a few days to realize we were a day ahead of Portland time.]

8:10am. Beginning to feel more human, that is, beginning to adapt to the rhythms of this time and place. Slept until 4am (an improvement over yesterday's 3am), stayed in bed until almost 6am. Last night I did well until we went out to dinner, about 6pm, when I began to crash. Fell asleep on the short ride to the restaurant, and was able to eat for a bit until my body just basically began to shut down and emphatically communicated "no more." I endured the noise and wait until we got to the hotel and went directly to bed.

We are at the Jiahe Hotel in Ningbo. Our local guide here doesn't know all that much English, and Eric (our national Chinese guide) says he doesn't know all that much about Ningbo, though he did say there's a strong connection between Shanghai and Ningbo in terms of people and families going back and forth.

I went to breakfast, and am getting used to having what I would consider lunch/supper food for any meal. There was fruit, fried rice, noodles, steamed rice, boiled egg, and various other things. It was all good. Had a conversation with Kyogen about connecting with the Internet, and still can't get on. At least my adapters seem to work, and I can keep my electronics charged. I'm tracking my expenses on the laptop, and continuing to blog on paper.

I think today we're going to where Dogen trained with Rujing.

12:10pm. King Ashoka's temple. I didn't take my rakusu in with me, and so of course ended up in a ceremony offering incense and bowing before the Relic. We were each invited to come bow before it individually and look at it. People see different colors, evidently. Kyogen and Richard both saw blue, while Gyokuko and I both saw white. Hard to say.

Right now I'm on the bus waiting for everyone to get out of the gift shop. I looked an at inkin (portable gong), but it wasn't quite what I want. I'd like to get gifts for people at some point.

8pm. This afternoon we went to the temple where Dogen trained with Rujing. Quite an experience. We ended up doing evening service there. Kyogen says this temple is laid out like Eiheiji. There's a Dogen shrine that we bowed to, and then Gyokuko started circumambulating it and chanting the Heart Sutra. Kyogen followed her, and when I saw what they were doing, I joined in. There ended up being several of us processing and chanting.

Evening service lasted well over an hour, and involved standing on a stone floor, wearing shoes. There was some processing and bowing, but I got pretty tired of standing. Still, it was cool to stand with the monks all chanting the service. I wasn't able to join the chants, really, though I hummed along. There were moments when it was amazing to think I was practicing in the same temple where Dogen trained.

It's not all that late, but I'm still getting tired early (and waking up early in the morning). Tomorrow is supposed to be a full day, with our first in-country flight.

Wednesday, October 28

2010-11-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

We are flying west over the Pacific on Korean Air. The weather has been sunny and clear all the way. Korean Air is every so much more gracious than US airlines. At each seat there is a pillow, a blanket, and a small bottle of water. I'm in a place next to an empty seat, so I have two of each. Then they handed out headsets, slippers, toothbrush and toothpaste to each passenger. They even served meals as well as snacks.

I am almost at a loss for what to do, there are so many options. In addition to a stack of paperback books, there are borrowed newspapers, crossword puzzle and sudoku books (those I bought in the San Francisco airport). Finally I settle on journal and pen.

I have not been looking forward to this flight -- 12 hours on a plane seems like torture. Still, so far, so good. My suitcase came in at just under 45 pounds this morning, after I got worried and took some stuff out. There are weight limits to both overseas and in-country flights in China.

We are headed to Seoul. There's a short layover there, and then we get on a plane to Shanghai, where we'll be taken to our hotel. There are 8 of us on this flight from DRZC. We seem to be scattered around the plane -- a massive thing -- 10 seats to a row, 2 aisles, 52 rows, I think I heard. I'm in row 46. Each seat has a video screen built into the seat in front. From there we can watch movies, news, listen to audio programs, etc. I'm doing my best to ignore it for the time being, so far with reasonable success.

Later at the hotel -- not sure of date or time.

I'm writing in the dark -- it's a lovely hotel room, but none of the light switches seem to work. There's a little light from the windows but not much -- it's still dark outside. And I can't find my flashlight -- I know I packed it, but can't seem to find it.

That long flight wasn't nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be. We kept getting pretty good meals at regular intervals, when they would turn on lights, and then turn off the lights for sleep again. I probably did sleep lightly a few times and had few problems with that.

At Seoul the connection was very tight, and we all did some running through the airport, which felt pretty good. Gyokuko said she would almost have paid someone to be able to do that. The last shorter flight to Shanghai, another meal, and finally in to the airport. Went through customs, got our pictures taken, and Polly's bag didn't make it. So I went with her to get that straightened out. She says she has everything she really needs in her carry-on. But it all took a while. Korean Air paid her some money and gave her some packets of toiletries. She gave one of those to me.

We came in to Shanghai after dark, and the lights of downtown were quite spectacular -- light shows on several of the buildings, quite beautiful.

Next morning 7:10am

Solved the mystery of the lights -- they only work when you stick your room card key into a slot and leave it here while you're in the room. So now I have lights. I had set my watch to an hour later than it actually was, so I'm up and breakfasted, and have done some packing. Now I'm thinking of a proper shower and head shave. Maybe a blog entry. We meet in the lobby at 8:30, so I have a little time.

~7:50am

Still no success in getting online. I plugged in the LAN cable, and it seemed to connect (at $1/minute!), but wouldn't let me past the gateway. Ah, well, blogging on paper, as Gyokuko says.

Back from China

2010-11-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it was a crazy wonderful, incredible experience. Turns out I was unable to blog while in China. Somehow they have blocked facebook and blogspot there. I was able to do e-mail, at least when I was able to connect to the Internet, which wasn't always the case. I started out doing a lot of what Gyokuko called "blogging on paper" in my journal. As the trip went on, I found it more possible to get online, depending on where we were staying. In any case, it wasn't as though we had a huge amount of time for such things, though Kyogen did make efforts to keep a blog, found a way to get around the China block first by sending e-mails to Jyoshin in the office here and then by way of a proxy server. He also is putting photos up on flikr, though he hasn't been able to do much, I wouldn't think, since getting home, because he got sick on the flight back.

Anyway, I don't know whether I'll be able to post much here about China, but I'll do what I can. I did send a bunch of e-mails to a bunch of people, and those should be reasonably easy to put up, but the early journal entries will need to be hand-entered.

One thing I did yesterday, which came directly out of the trip, and which I alluded to some years back when contemplating going to China, was to go to Tao of Tea and get some tea, which I came back and brewed China-style, and drank most satisfyingly while reading a mystery novel. Yes, I discovered tea in China, and have been enjoying it. Turns out they brew it very differently than we typically do in the States. I'm guessing a lot of people here drink coffee and like things bitter and strong. Too bitter and strong for me. But that's not how it's brewed there. You can get multiple steepings from a bunch of tea, and the first one is discarded (sometimes called washing the tea). And it's not steeped for very long, so it appears weak to some. When it's brewed this way, I can actually taste the tea and enjoy it.

We'll see whether I can actually incorporate tea time into my day -- I'd like to if at all possible.

Countdown to China

2010-10-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

We leave in two days, that is, Wednesday morning very early. The flight leaves at 7:15am, but we have to be at the airport much earlier than that, of course. There is no way I can get everything done between now and then that I need/want to get done. And there are still several events between now and then that I have to attend. Prison tonight. CWC Clergy brunch tomorrow morning. Lotus Sutra class tomorrow evening. Somewhere in there I need to pack, finish newsletter mailing, get newsletter up on the web site, and general odds and ends of office-y stuff.

I'm planning to take my laptop with me, even though it's a pain. I figure it will be good to be able to check e-mail, post to facebook and/or here, and keep people in general updated on where I am and what I'm doing. Kyogen is talking about putting up a map on facebook to show people where we are. Alas, I cannot take my camera. I ordered a replacement battery for it online, and it goes dead after about 7 photos. It's not going to be useful to me to have to recharge my camera battery every 7 photos. So I'm just not going to take it. Maybe Kyogen will loan me some of the pix he takes. Maybe I'll take some pix of the teachers, as well as our fellow travelers. At some point (probably not until I get back) I will return one of the two batteries I ordered, requesting a refund and complaining about the quality of the merchandise. The price was great, and now I know why.

But I digress. And there are still many things to do this afternoon before I head off to Coffee Creek for prison services. So off I go to do them.

September / October

2010-10-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well, September completely caught me by surprise (don't know why -- it's on the calendar in order, every year), as it often does, and I found myself feeling like I was playing catch-up the whole month. October has felt more like I was just losing, falling farther and farther behind.

It's been busy, grant me that. In addition to our usual busy October schedule (start of term, which means more on the schedule, classes and whatnot), we added co-hosting a national (international, really, including Canada) conference out at Great Vow Zen Monastery. The Soto Zen Buddhist Association, that is, including priests and teachers from all over the place, a total of about 80 of them/us. We coordinated transportation (that is, I didn't, but my fellow monk Jyoshin did). It took all of our ordained out of the temple for 4 days, leaving everything here to be covered by lay people. The place didn't seem to fall apart while we were gone, so I gather they did just fine without us.

I came back to a newsletter that was overdue and all sorts of other things that just didn't seem to be possible to finish. And now I'm looking at the fact that some of us are leaving for China in a little more than a week, and I'm ever-so-slightly panicked. Well, not really.

On Saturday we had a Zazenkai. I don't know whether I've described that before, but it's basically a one-day retreat, 12 hours (5am-5pm) of silence, including 8 hours of sitting meditation, some chanting services, some formal meals, a few rest breaks. We have these about every 6 weeks or so.

It was glorious for me, absolutely what I needed. I remember a friend talking about "attitude adjustment," commenting that she "needed a bigger wrench." Zazenkai is what you might call a very large wrench. It adjusted my attitude quite nicely, and I'm much happier today. It turns out my troubles were largely of my own making, in my own mind, as I suspect they all are, and letting go of that makes everything much lighter. Funny how I can always see this clearly in retrospect, but not so much when I'm in the middle of it.

So today I'm doing typical day-off things -- laundry, library -- and adding changing out summer and winter clothes and starting to think about what to pack for China. And I'm doing all of this with a light heart. I suppose it helps that it's sunny, even if not particularly warm.

Back from retreats

2010-08-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, retreats plural. I went for a week-long retreat out at Great Vow Zen Monastery, the Grasses, Trees, and Great Earth sesshin. That was wonderful. I went a couple of years ago, and really enjoyed it. Enjoyed it this time, too. They added daily sessions working with clay, and I really got into that. The last three nights we sat out in the woods in the dark after zazen, and I found that simply delightful. There's nothing like the forest at night.

My work practice was in the kitchen, and that, combined with the amount of sitting we did, definitely affected my back. I did okay, though. I worry a little about our week-long retreat in December, as there isn't as much latitude in the way of lying down or other activity than sitting zazen. I may have to ask for some lying-down stations in the back of the zendo -- that worked well in our May retreat this year. If I can lie down for one or two 25-minute periods during the day, I can generally get through okay.

I came back from that retreat and had a couple of days to get our latest newsletter up on the web site. Then, this last weekend, Thursday through Sunday, I went to the farm retreat, Cultivating the Way, at the Empty Field Zendo on Seido's farm. That was also wonderful. There's nothing like fresh organic food -- freshly-picked blackberries and strawberries, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, green beans, all sorts of things picked minutes or hours before serving. This was the first all silent retreat I've done out there, and it was powerful.

The zendo is literally out in an empty field, in a mountain valley, and temperatures in the mornings varied quite a bit. Friday morning was probably around 45 degrees, and felt pretty cold. I was okay, as I had been there before, and was prepared with my wool robe, turtleneck, cashmere vest, wool socks, scarf, and alpaca shawl. Saturday morning was more like 55 degrees, and felt almost balmy by comparison. Sunday morning, though, it was more like 35 degrees, and we were all bundled up as best we could, and just sat through it all. We all survived in great shape, even doing oryoki (formal meal) breakfast in the cold.

My work practice was cleaning the zendo and sewing, and I had one assistant for that. I always enjoy sewing in daylight, and cleaning is something I also enjoy. I was also co-shuso -- that is, Seido and one other person and I shared duties of oversight. The other person took care of most of the outside things, including assigning work practice and ringing bells, and Seido took care of a lot of general oversight. I was primarily in charge of things like arranging (and rearranging as people came and went) the zendo seating and overseeing ceremony forms, chanting, and such like. We all shared communicating with and orienting people who came in late, taking care of special needs that came up, etc. Each of us got to be doshi (celebrant during a ceremony) at least once during the weekend.

It was really a lovely time. I'm hoping to remember and keep in mind and body some of the insights I found there. I did find my sitting zazen this morning on my own to be quite rewarding.

Recovering from camp

2010-07-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

Was too busy to post last week. I didn't go to camp, but most of the rest of the staff did, and many of the residents. It wasn't as though I was actually doing that much more than usual, though I was doing more supervising of cooking and housekeeping than usual. And I was getting out the Events Flyer and Calendar without the usual supports. But you know that sense of extra responsibility, being the senior person in the house, definitely was a weight that I felt.

Still, everything went okay, and people are recovering nicely. The weather has been absolutely perfect, which is always pleasant. This evening is a Strategic Planning meeting. Tomorrow night is our regular Wednesday program, and Thursday evening is Dharma Council meeting. Friday night I'm not going to prison for the first time in a while, which is good, because it will give me a little time to pack for a trip to the coast with dharma sisters this weekend. I'll miss out on a bunch of things happening here, but I suppose once in a while it's good to get out and go somewhere fun.

So, nothing profound to report right now, though there's a parrot in the office at this moment making cawing sounds like a crow -- now she's reverted back to chattering like her owner. She's kind of fun to have around, though I mostly don't let her land on my head any more. She tries to get my glasses, and has been known to poop on my head. Ah, well, she's just being herself.

Need to go iron my robe for tomorrow morning. Mended it this morning, and need to iron it.

doing the next thing

2010-07-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a really great discussion about the fundamental koan "Who Am I?" There were 24 people there, including 4 new people. Lively, thoughtful discussion from many perspectives.

Got the Events Flyer out yesterday morning, and spent the afternoon doing things like sewing, shopping. I feel a bit like a housewife. Spent much of this morning in similar pursuits, especially making this incredible sourdough challah bread -- didn't braid it, just put it into regular bread pans. Wow, is it tasty. This warm weather makes breadmaking easy. Finally, this afternoon getting to putting the Events up on the web site, only a volunteer came in to do treasury stuff on the computer I need to work on the web site. That's okay, there's plenty I can do on the other computer to get ready for web work.

Today it's finally feeling quiet with everyone gone. There's been so much work to do just to keep up that it hasn't felt all that quiet to me. A couple more residents have gone out of town, in addition to the 6 at camp and 1 back east at a conference. I think that leaves (doing quick mental count) uh, 5. Between the 2 houses. I'll be cooking dinner tonight (others have been doing it so far), and I think there's only 2 of us signed in.

Anyway. I just keep doing the next thing, and time just keeps passing. In a couple of days people will be back from camp, and everything will change again.

Prison work blips

2010-07-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

The woman in charge of our prison program is in the hospital. She has been on chemo, and now has had surgery for a bowel obstruction. She's doing well, but it throws a monkey wrench into our schedule. We're all working with it the best we can. She's due to go home in the next few days, but she is obviously not going to OSP in Salem on Tuesday evening, no matter how well she is recovering. So that means either I will go or another guy will take it. Once she gets home, she will take charge of reorganizing the schedule to fit with her chemo, which of course has been disrupted by all of this.

Tonight, another woman who was scheduled to go in to Coffee Creek with me is not coming because she's been asked to assist with an end of life vigil at Providence. So I'll be doing this class by myself. It's the second class of a series on a book that I've not read before, Sharon Salzberg's Lovingkindness.

I figured we'd have the book in our Center library, but it turns out we don't. So I began to cast about for a place to pick up the book, and went through a bunch of rigamarole to get one this morning from Powell's. I had to go to the Burnside store downtown, always a dangerous proposition. It's very difficult to just go in there and get the one book you need, after coming all that way. I mean, might as well check out the Gold Room (mysteries and SF) while I'm there, right?

Well, I found the book I wanted at a very good price, and then also got a few more, most also at very good prices. I got a bag full of books for under $40, and they'll keep me going for a while. Two of the books were ones I've already read, and want to add to my stash of places I like to revisit, and one of those was only 75 cents!

Anyway, I've now reserved my Zipcar for tonight, and have read and copied and highlighted the chapter for tonight, so I'm probably as ready as I'll ever be. And pretty soon I need to check the bread in the oven -- should be just about done. Then dinner, and then I'll head out to Coffee Creek. Should be fun.

Journal writing about sitting meditation

2010-06-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

as I sit, my body settles
on to the cushion
legs rest on the mat

i notice my posture --
back -- is it happy today?
or is it cranky and
tapping its devil dance
under the shoulder blade
shoulders relaxed? neck?
is the head resting freely
or is it scrunching down
between the shoulders?
if I'm hunched over,
can I straighten with the help of a breath?

is the breath shallow or deep?
easy or labored?
pay attention to the body
with kindness
drop judgment
let it go

notice the mind --
what is it doing today?
active or sluggish?
quiet or lively?

any emotions dancing around?
just notice
let tears come or smiles

look at what is in front of me
windows, wall, carpet
be aware of the room
light, people, sounds

so much to notice, to pay attention to
sometimes overwhelmed by it all
i go off to la-la land
remember something
plan my day
don't forget to ...

increasingly i notice
when i'm doing that
and gently return
to this place, this room, this body
this very body and breath
of Buddha

when i get sleepy
i do the same
maybe take a deep breath
notice the room
my body on the cushion
the light in the windows
sound of traffic
sensation in the legs,
back, shoulders, neck, head

what has changed since
i first sat down?
why did it change?
what am i seeing / hearing /
thinking / feeling
what makes this moment
different from when I sat down?
endless questions
increasing fascination

a sense of freedom in
allowing the mind
to pay attention to
myself, my own
experience, thoughts, needs

luxury! no one tells me
i have to do this their way
i get to find my own way
no one gives me a deadline:
by 2012 you must achieve enlightenment
it's known that it takes as long as it takes

i increasingly relax
into this sense of freedom
of space

this sense of space
the foundation
who knew that you could
make a foundation
out of space?
this sense of not knowing
who I am
what happens next
how to prepare
to do the right thing
once so scary,
now increasingly
a foundation
of confidence

Three Robes Sesshin

2010-05-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

Before I plunge too far into daily activities, I'd like to write a little bit about this last week on retreat at the monastery. We conducted an experiment with retreat forms. One aspect of this was to allow people to adjust the schedule as they needed to -- to sleep later and do zazen later, to rest as they needed to, to sit into the night if they wished to, etc. The other main aspect was that we had four 2-hour blocks of zazen during the day, during which people could sit, stand, walk, or lie down. And they could do this in the zendo, or outside. The monastery has beautiful grounds, meadows and woods, and the weather was really beautiful, so many people opted for outdoor practice much of the time.

I went into the retreat with some uncertainty about what my duties would be, with several things on my mind, remember to bring this, tell so-and-so to bring that, etc. I was officially designated assistant-shuso, and it wasn't altogether clear what that meant, other than that about halfway through the week the shuso would leave to go back to town to take care of work issues. At which point I would take over as acting shuso.

It's not typical for someone who has not been shuso before to take this on during a retreat, and I didn't know what it would look like. Still, I found myself looking forward to this retreat, the silence, time to sit quietly and step out of my daily routine for a little while. I found that there is a ground of quiet confidence and ease that feels new, and stable.

That sense of ease and lighteness persisted through the week. The shuso set things up so well that I didn't have all that much to do other than ring bells at the right times, which I've done before and enjoy doing. I did have one situation to deal with, but again I had plenty of help, and it went well.

I enjoyed the 2-hour blocks without bells. So often there's a posture-adjustment bell before I'm really ready to adjust my posture, but if I don't do it then, 15 minutes later I'm hurting. Most of the time I just go ahead and move as needed, but I'm aware of having the scheduled bells sometimes really not fitting with what my body needs. This way, people were getting up and/or adjusting posture and/or leaving the hall at various times. We all got mindful about walking quietly, paying attention to how the door closed, trying to close it silently, etc. There was an intermittent rustle as people came and went, that was really pretty nice once we got used to it, something like the sounds of birds, leaves rustling, etc., outside. Someone compared it to being in a library, where people move around more or less quietly, pages turning, etc., but all involved in studying in some way. This had some of that quality of all of us being involved in meditation in various ways, together and individually.

One thing some people found difficult at first was that without everyone else doing the same thing at the same time, they realized that they had to figure out for themselves what to do next. They had to take responsibility for their own practice. It felt to me that over the course of the week as the novelty wore off, more people spent more time in the zendo, sitting, recognizing the value of that practice more and more and choosing it more intentionally, rather than just doing it because it's on the schedule.

For myself, I've had to do that for quite a while now, and have had to be very conscious about what's going on with my back over a long day of sitting. There were actually places set up in the back of the zendo for people to lie down for meditation, and I was not the only person taking advantage of that. That and yoga helped a lot.

Oh, that was another point of this sesshin. We had three structured exercise activities or groups. And a little later in the day than we have traditionally done exercise. Both the time and the gentle yoga group that I joined were perfect for me. Helped stretch things out and rest and relax muscles that had gotten really tight. We had a QiGong group that was a bit more vigorous, and a woman doing one-on-one Alexander Technique instruction. Others did use the time to take a walk, or a run, or individual stretching.

Once I took on the acting shuso role, I started getting less sleep, because I had to get up earlier to ring the wake-up bell, and sometimes stay up a little later getting things settled. I actually went and took a nap in my room during one period of zazen, which felt strange, but refreshing. I ended the retreat feeling good, tired but not flattened, not crashing.

We still have to do a debrief, and make some tweaks (we did some tweaks half-way through) for the next time we do this. But overall, I think it was a success, and most people enjoyed it and also found it worthwhile.

Day Off

2010-05-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday fatigue came down like a ton of bricks on my shoulders. My ears are kind of ringing, and have been for a couple of days. Maybe I'm fighting a bug, definitely need rest. So today, with a rare empty calendar day, I'm resting. I have two more books from the library (finished one last night), and will lie down soon with them (or maybe even nap).

Wanted to share the link to a recent dharma talk that I did (April 18). It was a difficult talk to do, since I was talking more about myself than I really wanted to. And there are difficult bits about my family in there. I don't think I could have done the talk, let alone posted the link, much before now. My father is safely dead, and most of that generation. My mother (who might be upset by a line or two in there) is still alive, but confused enough that she is not likely to find the link or hear the talk. My one remaining aunt is open-minded enough to be more curious about the talk than judgmental of it. Still, I don't think I'll post the link on my family e-mail list. Anyone who finds it here will probably be fine. If you want it in printed format (pdf), let me know and I can send that.

Anyway, the talk went well, and I feel a lot better for having done it. I've been in the process of transforming from inside out, and am beginning to see someone emerge from the rubble. Not sure who she is yet, and she's still going through changes, no question about that, but it's interesting to watch. Much less fear now, much more curiosity.

Just finished two weeks worth of house- and cat-sitting. It was far enough away that they left me the use of their car (which worked well as I could take them to the airport and pick them back up when they came in) in order to get back and forth. It took the cat and I a week to figure out each others' schedules (she was out for 3 days and then 4 days), but eventually synced up, and then were fine. She slept on the bed with me at night, whcih I gather her owners don't allow, but it always seems to me that if I'm spending that little time at the house (i.e., I work 12-16 hour days most of the time), the least I can do is have sleeping time together. In any case, I'm now back in my own room, in my own bed, and resting.

House-sitting finished

2010-04-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've been house-sitting for two weeks, and it's been taking pretty much all my extra time. The resident cat and I took about a week to figure out each others' schedules, but then found our way to get along. All is well -- the people returned today, I picked them up at the airport (with their car, which I had the use of for the 2 weeks) and they dropped me off back home.

Along the way I gave two talks, one regular Sunday Student Talk, which went well, though it took a lot out of me, and then the Term Student presentation, which went okay, and felt pretty easy, though I was unprepared, and went overlong. So, I still have stuff to say for the next Term Student retreat -- just go on from where I stopped. Eventually, I can put the two together for another Sunday Student Talk.

Tomorrow, no Sunday, I will do a brief presentation as part of our biannual Sangha Forum. This one is put on by the Dharma Council, and we talk about our scheduling, getting input from the community on such things as our liturgical year, classes they'd like to see, etc. We've gotten good feedback and ideas in the past and have acted on them, and it's always fun to show that we've been working, what we've accomplished, and what directions people might like us to go.

Prison work continues to be rewarding. There are really nice groups in both of the women's prison facilities: Medium and Minimum. I enjoy working with them, because they are really up against their karma in an immediate way, and have few distractions from working directly on it. Those who choose to check out our group are generally motivated to change their lives, and transformation is, after all, what I'm most interested in as an educator. I feel as though my life has been transformed by Buddhist practice, and if I can pass along some of that to others, that's the most rewarding of all.

Going to China

2010-04-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I signed up for the China trip that's happening this fall. You can read more about it here. I signed up and sent in a $250 deposit, so it's pretty official that I'm going. It's exciting -- I'll be traveling with my teachers and several other sangha members, and we're going to see a lot of interesting stuff. I figure I should dust off my ipod and get back to studying Chinese, and also get back to walking and other exercise so the climbing of mountains and stairs won't do me in.

Jukai Sesshin

2010-03-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

We just got done with our annual week-long Jukai sesshin, where we gave the precepts to 21 new lay buddhists. I was jisha (teacher's assistant), and my teacher Kyogen did sanzen (formal interview) during every block of meditation -- 4 times a day! Each time I had to set up a row of cushions for people to sit and wait, and then put it all back away when they were done. At the beginning of the week I was also doing a lot of instruction about how the process works and making sure that people got in okay, etc. It was tiring, but rewarding.

I got through it just fine, even the back, though I was lying down for 1-2 periods each day as well as during rest periods. The ceremony itself on Sunday was beautiful and went very well. We had one fellow who had to sit in a chair, couldn't kneel at the altar, so we (jikko and I) whisked a chair in there, moved the zabuton under the table, and kept handing wagessas and certificates and ketchimyakus to Kyogen. It was very smooth, no glitches this time (the last few ceremonies I've been participating in have had their share of glitches -- Monday night when we did the Kyojukaimon ceremony and I had to bow several times in front of Kyogen with the sambo, I managed to bonk him on the head with it at one point. Ah, well.).

We're having great weather, though today is partly cloudy -- it's supposed to warm up a bit the next few days. Quite lovely, with lots of flowers blooming.

During the week, I found myself enjoying the experience of sitting in that hall as the day unfolded. Here's a bit of a poem I wrote about it:

dark morning meditation
eyelids droop
pipes hiss and gurgle
crows call
construction rumbles and beeps
the world wakes
light grows
daily ordinary miracle

gold light through gold window
lights up gold carpet
rows of black zabutons
topped by people in black robes
sitting like mountains

a flotilla of black boats
on a golden sea

Countdown to the auction

2010-03-01T14:51:00.001-08:00

Today is a day off, but I'm acutely aware that our annual Silent Auction is this Saturday, March 6, and there is still a lot to do between now and then. You can read about it here. From there you can link to our catalog of items available for viewing, and many of them are also available for online bidding. It's going to be great! We are doing many things better than we did last year. Mind you, last year's auction was a great success, but this will be more professional, more streamlined, and hopefully more fun.

Right now ticket sales are lagging a bit behind of where we wish them to be, so there's a little worry there. But a lot of people do things at the last possible minute, and we exceeded our goal last year, so we'll see.

We're using an online software package that allows us to do a lot of things better than we did before, and will require us to have reliable Internet access at the site, as well as to be able to print out things like receipts and such there. So there's been a technical aspect to manage. However, it seems like everything is coming together and should work out just fine.

Today, though, is a day off. So I'm going to forget about the auction, or try to, and go out for a walk to the library.

Dharma Talk February 14, 2010

2010-03-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

A Tassajara Report: Yogic, Monastic, Religious

Thank you to my Sangha for supporting and sending me, to my Teacher(s) for kicking me out of my comfortable niche here and sending me to what seemed to me a scary place, and to the Ancestors for transmitting the dharma to this place and time.

It is impossible to share everything that happened during 3 months of intensive practice, but here’s a little snippet.

Paul Haller, the Abbot for the fall Practice Period at Tassajara, did classes regularly and also dharma talks during sesshin. One of his teachings was to look at practice within the framework of 3 aspects: yogic, monastic, and religious

Yogic
This term, though obviously related to "Yoga," is not one we use much here, so it may be a little unfamiliar. Here’s some background.

The Sanskrit word yoga has many meanings, and is derived from the Sanskrit root "yuj", meaning "to control", "to yoke" or "to unite." Translations include "joining", "uniting", "union", "conjunction", and "means." An alternate root from which the word yoga may be derived is "yujir samadhau", which means "contemplation" or "absorption."

(The information below is from Wikipedia, based on Doumoulin's Zen Buddhism: A History (India and China).

The most ancient sustained expression of yogic ideas is found in the early sermons of the Buddha. One key innovative teaching of the Buddha was that meditative absorption should be combined with the practice of mindfulness. The difference between the Buddha's teaching and the yoga presented in early Brahminic texts is striking. Meditative states alone are not an end, for according to the Buddha, even the highest meditative state is not liberating. Instead of attaining a complete cessation of thought, some sort of mental activity must take place: a liberating cognition, based on the practice of mindful awareness.

Yogacara Buddhism is a school of philosophy and psychology that developed in India during the 4th to 5th centuries. Yogacara received the name as it provided a yoga, a framework, for engaging in the practices that lead to the path of the bodhisattva. The Yogacara sect teaches yoga in order to reach enlightenment.

[My note: there is more to it than that, of course – much exploration of the mind, especially positive and negative mental formations and how to work with them, and that’s part of what Paul talked about in his dharma classes.]

Ch'an (Seon/Zen) Buddhism
The Mahayana school of Buddhism is noted for its proximity with Yoga. In the west, Zen is often set alongside Yoga; the two schools of meditation display obvious family resemblances. This phenomenon merits special attention since the Zen Buddhist school of meditation has some of its roots in yogic practices. Certain essential elements of Yoga are important both for Buddhism in general and for Zen in particular.

Paul's Notes on Yogic practice
• Presence, awareness, just sitting
• Contact, stay attentive to experience that arises in the body, see the state of consciousness, move toward stillness, stay close
• Stay attentive to what pulls you away
• “The World According to Me”
• How do I sit with the body and mind that I have?
• Working with the mind – what is skillful, what is the process?
• Keep returning to Big Mind, recreate the vow to practice
• Intention brings us back to the experience of the present moment. Notice where you are. Connect to recreate the mandala of body and breath and the disposition of consciousness. Give over to the experience.
• That which sees separation also sees the path to connection. That which notices distraction is already aware.
• Be aware you're aware when you're aware.
• Attend to what arises, not to dwell in it, but to incorporate it into continuous contact
• Progression interweaves distraction and coming back. Experience flows through without being attached to.
• Carry mindfulness into activity

My experience of this was difficult. I read books that inspired me to try to follow my breath – they made it sound easy. Paul spoke of it so precisely, and outlined much of my own experience so accurately, that I thought I would finally get the great insight I needed to get this down. I kept thinking this was great stuff, maybe I would finally get this zazen thing.

But as the time went on, I began to see that I had as much trouble as ever staying present, focusing, keeping my awareness and attention up, and I told Paul toward the end of the practice period that I didn’t think I was any better at this than I was at the beginning of it. His reply was, “Don’t be too sure about that.” Which was a good answer. I’m not sure I’m any “better” at it than I was before, but I do find that when I sit, I more readily enter into the mind of inquiry, curiosity, acceptance of where I am at that moment.

Monastic
Ways that each person at Dharma Rain Zen Center practices monastic forms:
chanting, bowing, moving in the Zendo, kinhin, sitting zazen, putting shoes straight, sangha circle, etc.

Paul’s notes on Monastic practice:
• forms are a container for social development and awareness
• they are a direct expression of practice
• training is learning by doing and messing it up
• Ordinary mind: what's happening? See the complications of personality. Nothing special, just do it
• Monastic forms help us to see what we add to them
• They trigger reactivity. You do it anyway, whether you want to or not. It brings us close [this sounds like an aspect of Yogic practice].
• As the present moment is energized, the activities of self-consciousness are less energized. Through our sincere attention, we shift something. This is not about control, success or gaining. Stimulates arising of way-seeking mind, reveals what's really going on.

I worked with a question about form, given that the particular forms at Tassajara were different from what we do at Dharma Rain. I knew from experience that it can be fruitful to practice with resistance to a given form, anxiety over doing it wrong, etc. In the end, it became clear that the particulars of form matter only in the context of a given community, but in that context they are critically important. It isn’t exactly the specifics of form that matter, but the process of giving over to it wholeheartedly shifts something within ourselves.

Monastic practice supports Yogic practice and is supported by it.

Oryoki – basic description: This is a formal meal practice involving the setting out of a particular set of linens, bowls, and utensils in a particular way. You set these out precisely at the beginning, and there are prescribed ways to serve, receive, and eat food. After eating, we get served hot water to wash bowls and utensils, then we dry bowls and utensils, discard the water into containers to offer to plants, and then put everything back away again, folding and tying it carefully into its original form.

We were all assigned to be on serving crews, which served every 5 days or so. Roles within the crew constantly changed (one being head server, one playing han/drum, another on unpan, and all of us going into the zendo in a different order each time, which dictated which seat we went to first). Other days, being served also required attention – my tendency to watch what servers were doing with critical judgmental mind sometimes made me miss what I was supposed to do at my own place. I reminded myself to return my eyes to “my friend the floor” right in front of me, my awareness to what was happening in a tight circle right around me. At the end of the practice period, I realized that we were all just doing oryoki together, no right or wrong, no better or worse, just all doing it together.

Following the forms is a way of putting your body into a container that allows for dharmic expression and learning that bypasses the cognitive mind. In many ways, I find this easier to do and benefit from than sitting zazen. However, really what I find is that they interweave with each other, they support each other.

Religious
I’ve heard many people say that they are not into religion, but they are interested in spirituality, as though spirituality was dancing in a sunny meadow and religion was a huge oppressive stone building out to crush the life out of us. Unfortunately, many of us have experienced religion in just this way. Kyogen (my teacher) points out that the word religion comes from the Greek, and means “re-linking.” In that sense, it ties back in to some of the definitions of “yoga” – uniting, joining. It’s about connection.

Here’s some of what Paul says about the religious aspect of practice.

• Ceremonies reframe our life from a karmic family to a dharmic family
• Reframing everyday experience, lifting it out of everyday stories (self-intrigue) and joining it with greater being
• to revere and make sacred, not to explain
• iconography, ritual, archetypes, i.e., hungry ghosts (gakis)
• we turn an archetype into a conscious being that can be acknowledged, made offerings to, deeply held -- something deep in our being to revere
• Acknowledge the sacredness of Avalokiteshvara and the hungry ghost
• Enliven wisdom, activity, compassion (Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Avalokiteshvara)
• different archetypes are presented in Zen materials, because we all have an affinity for different ancestors

At Tassajara, we celebrated Segaki/Sejiki. We read Kanromon, the sweet gate scripture, every 5 days. I found that both of these had a profound effect on me, though it’s difficult to explain exactly what that was. It opened up something inside of me.

I find that religious activities allow me to access something in a way that bypasses the cognitive, discursive mind. Maybe it’s a more direct access. It incorporates forms, especially in ceremonies – chanting and bowing, processing, etc., and is thereby connected with the monastic aspect of practice, and shares its ability to transcend thinking.

It turns out that I’m a religious person, and didn’t really know it. I’ve been aware for a while of my affinity for what we sometimes call Other Power: in particular, Kanzeon, Fudo, and Prajnaparamita. My first encounter with the “Universal Gateway Chapter” from the Lotus Sutra was while we were processing, and it brought me to tears. I didn’t know for some years what that was about. Now I think it has something to do with the sense that Kanzeon (Avalokiteshvara) is someone I can call on to activate the power of compassion in my life.

Is this outside myself? Maybe not, but it is often useful to me to think of it as though it were. I stay open to what it may or may not be, knowing that it works on some level for me, without any sense that it also has to work for others the same way. Doing this allows me to access the mystery.

Summary
I appreciated Paul’s framing of practice in this way, and have come to see these three aspects, Yogic, Monastic, and Religious, as intertwined, supporting and interweaving with each other. I had direct experience with each of them at Tassajara, and can see them in play here at Dharma Rain Zen Center as well. I have a renewed appreciation for our practice and our lineage. I appreciate the opportunity to step out of my regular life here long enough to become immersed in the forms, the zazen, and the ceremonies at a Soto Zen monastery for three months. My gratitude to all of you, to my teacher, and to our ancestors.

Kanzeon Festival and more

2010-01-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

Today we had our annual Kanzeon Festival. This involves 3 hours of chanting and bowing, along with a little kinhin (slow walking meditation) and zazen (sitting meditation). In fact, we did 108 full bows (down to the floor) over the course of the 3 hours. Legs feel slightly rubbery, but not bad. We had a good turnout for the event -- I was jisha, and didn't count people in the morning, but we did end up serving about 17 people for lunch.

The festival is designed to raise a lot of energy, and I found today that it definitely did that. We often pair it with work practice in the afternoon to take advantage of that energy, and that's what we did today.

After lunch we had community practice time, and lots of people helped us get two mailings out -- the January newsletter (finally!) and the Events Flyer for February/March (which is actually pretty much on schedule). They got stuffed, stuck, labeled and ready to take to the post office on Monday. It was wonderful to have so much help. Also got the freezer defrosted and some cleaning done -- kitchen and windows. And the Daoren group (5 people, I think) worked in the library, which is their project for the year. It was just fun to have that many people in the house to share all that energy.

Once we had these tasks done, we all sat down for tea, which involved chocolate, cherries, and sugar along with the tea, and some interesting conversation. And then we sat zazen and did Founder's Ceremony to close out the day. I had forgotten that we do Founder's at the end of a community practice day, and so was a bit unprepared, but we all muddled through it, and it was actually quite lovely.

This is a lot more lively than it was last year, as I recall. Our membership is growing. Kyogen tells me that our membership is now up over 220, which is quite a jump from the 180 I remember, and the 160 it was pretty steady at for some years. It's clear that there are quite a few new people, and lots of good energy in the sangha.

After people left, there was more to do on the freezer defrosting, and so I worked on that, and discovered a leak which then involved using a lot of towels to try to sop up a bunch of water -- I think it went from the freezer out to the hallway under the carpet. Bummer. After washing out the freezer and putting the food back, there were a bunch of coolers to wash out and return to the garage. After all that, I just threw all those towels into the washing machine, and they are now in the dryer.

Anyway, it's been a fun day, and a full one, and I'm now ready to head up the street to bed.

light and dark - poem

2010-01-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

This was written January 4, about the morning of January 3.

foggy round moon just past full
floats in a pale dawn

bare round tree's delicate branches
keep it company

solid straight fence anchors
our morning offering

A more complete account of Tassajara

2010-01-04T21:24:00.000-08:00

Tassajara Report: a personal account

This account includes some of what I posted before, but is more complete overall. Questions and comments are welcome.

------

Going to Tassajara was difficult for me. Three threads ran through my time there: homesickness, physical challenges, and working with my own personal karma. These three overlapped and were interwoven in significant ways.

Tassajara is a beautiful place, and a Practice Period of three months (of which they do two each year, Fall and Winter) is a wonderful way to step out of your daily life and deepen your practice. I found many aspects of the experience pleasant and rewarding: great food, lots of Dharma, daily study hall, beautiful baths, friendly supportive people, plenty of zazen, and a schedule that supported all of that. And still, there were times when I was miserable -- having, of course, brought my misery with me.

The intensity of homesickness surprised me. It started months before I actually left home, as soon as I knew I was going to go away. At some point I just got determined that I would go regardless of my feelings, and settled into preparation with an almost grim stubbornness, spending hours tweaking my application, making packing lists and travel arrangements, and doing my best to make sure things were covered here before I left (but how will they ever manage without me? and even worse, what if they do just fine without me? what does that mean about my value here?). In the end, of course, I left with some things still undone, but got everything packed up, and off I went.

My travel plans worked out okay, though hauling my luggage up the steep hill to San Francisco Zen Center was not the wisest move I ever made. I spent most of a day and all night at City Center (as they call SFZC) because of the train schedule. I slept in the Buddha hall on a monk's bed, which was wonderful from my point of view, having slept little on the train the night before. The next morning, several of us had breakfast, loaded all of our stuff into a truck and a van, and began the next stage of the journey. Much conversation and two stops for gas and last chance to buy a candy bar -- it occurred to me that I didn't have any ibuprofen, and it might be prudent to get a small bottle, so I did. At Jamesburg, the last outpost, we picked up a few more people for the last leg of the journey, and I ended up in the middle of the back seat -- the van was full with 9 people.

The last 14 miles into Tassajara is a more-or-less graveled county road that goes up and down, around hairpin turns, with significant holes and ruts, and takes an hour. Several people parked their passenger cars in Jamesburg and came in and out with the shuttles. From the middle of the back seat I couldn't see all that well, but got a little sense of the country, lots of steep hills, increasingly rugged cliffs, rocks slanted in chaotic folds, drop-offs on first one side of the road and then the other. People pointed out caves and said we could hike to them to explore (though I never did), and then we were there.

We arrived just at noon, as people were gathering to chant for lunch. We joined the chant and the lunch (I was relieved to note that the meal chant was the same, except for one word, which took me weeks to get used to). After lunch I got my stuff into my dorm room, and found out where the Zendo was, and then we met for Work Circle. It was hot, so we met in the shady courtyard rather than the usual work circle space up on the road.

All of the instructions about what to pack had emphasized that it gets cold at Tassajara, and talked about wool socks, hats, sweaters, gloves, scarves, coats, rain gear, boots, etc. When I arrived it was close to 100 degrees, and I was wearing the lightest thing I had brought, which was heavy cotton samue. I sweltered through the first few days and discovered in the process that there is also warm weather at Tassajara, hot weather, pleasant weather, and that people there don't wear samue all the time, which was pretty much all I brought with me aside from formal robes. I also eventually discovered "Goodwill," where a friend found a sun hat for me, and I found a tee shirt and flip-flops. That helped a lot.

Tangaryo started the next day. That's five days of just sitting in the Zendo for anyone who hasn't done a Practice Period before. There are regular oryoki meals and services morning and evening and 30-minute breaks after meals, but otherwise, sitting, maybe 10-12 hours a day. That actually went pretty well. When my knees got sore after a couple of days, I began taking ibuprofen and relaxing my posture. That was fine, except that it was so comfortable, it led to a lot of sleepiness. But on day five, I decided since it was the last day I was going to go back to half-lotus posture and my best posture and best effort. That day was wonderful, lots of silent, focused stillness.

The hardest thing about Tangaryo was emotional. I was in a place I didn't know, with people I didn't know, and sounds outside the Zendo that I didn't recognize. The birds sounded different, and there was a surprising amount of vehicular traffic for a remote mountain center. They would periodically ring a loud bell or play a loud drum, and I didn't really know why. There were people's voices in activities I didn't understand. I felt bereft, alone, exiled from my own home. My practice thus far, however, helped me simply to sit still through it, let the feelings arise and fall, and my own stubbornness did the rest.

The Tangaryo students (11 of us) were a cohort of people who were in a position similar to postulants here at Dharma Rain Zen Center. We had no ongoing responsibilities, though we were trained in various jobs that rotated on a daily basis (serving oryoki, lighting and blowing out kerosene lamps, cleaning the Zendo, and playing some of the outdoor instruments at various times). We had no authority, and seniors felt free to offer us feedback and correction. Our work assignments (3-5 hours a day, depending on the schedule) were, for the most part, General Labor, which in practice usually meant going to the kitchen to chop vegetables and such. Occasional changes in assignments to wash dishes (not in the kitchen, but in the Dish Shack), or assist with housekeeping, were welcome but few. A few of the Tangaryo students who had spent some time there before during summer had different assignments, in the shop or working on lanterns.

During Practice Period, participants stay at Tassajara, not leaving at all (with a few exceptions for senior staff who sometimes had business in the City). We sat meditation 4-8 hours most days (more during the three silent retreats we had during the Period), ate most of our meals formal oryoki fashion in the zendo, and had a regular schedule of chanting, work, study, and classes. We did get "days off" every 4-6 days (the number of days between varied, which is not typical for a monastery -- usually they are every 5 days without fail) where we sat and did morning service and breakfast, and then had about 8 hours off to take care of personal business (laundry, sewing new setsu tips for oryoki, hikes, naps, shaving, etc.) before evening service, dinner, and sitting again.

One thing I loved was Study Hall, an hour most days when we were to be in the dining room reading. I read through three books during the term (making notes, copying quotes, etc.), and looked briefly at a couple more. There's an extensive library there, but these were books on the "reserve" shelf in the dining room related to the classes being taught by the abbot. Some people used the time to study a language (one guy was studying Sanskrit, and a Japanese man was studying English), and a few were sewing robes.

As we settled into the schedule, I began to notice a strange sensation in my mid-back on the left side. It wasn't painful at first, and I wasn't sure what was causing it or how serious it might be. It gradually, continually got worse, though, until I could barely lift anything without pain, was in pain most of the time doing meditation, was lying down during every single break I could find during the day (including day off), and found many ordinary daily activities painful (eating, dressing, even walking when it was at its worst), never mind chopping in the kitchen.

So I addressed it in three ways, actually four if you count talking with practice advisors. I called Dharma Rain to ask them to send my own zafu, which I had made for myself and is bigger and thicker than anything they had there. I made an appointment with a chiropractor who came in one time during the 3 months. That cost me money, and I couldn't tell whether it helped or not; in any case, it was not immediate relief. And I began to bring mindfulness to my back -- what happens when I do this? how can I sit to find relief? how can I do this activity without hurting my back? When I realized that this problem with my back was not a distraction from my practice, but was actually what I had to practice with, things began to improve. Slowly, very slowly, but steadily. I would say that my back is still not back to "normal," whatever that is, but it is at least no longer painful.

My own personal karma has been a challenge to me for the past four years that I've lived at Dharma Rain, and the experience at Tassajara put me right up against it in a new way. I discovered that I still hold a deep belief that it's not okay to have feelings, much less to express those feelings, and I had a lot of fear that I would get into trouble if I made mistakes or ran into problems. That is part of what was difficult about working with the back problems at first -- it took a long time even to acknowledge that I had a problem, much less let others know about it. In addition, many of my past coping techniques were not available to me, since I wasn't allowed to take charge of anything, and when my back got worse, I couldn't even help people out in the ways I was accustomed to (carrying food from the kitchen to the dining room, helping to move furniture, volunteering to do extra things, etc.). I even had to stop serving oryoki for a month, as carrying pots of food from the kitchen to the zendo, and then carrying them into the zendo to serve people, were all painful and aggravated the back. Talking with practice advisors helped a lot as I navigated the feelings that came up around it all, and they assured me that I was right where I should be in my practice with it. Monastic practice is designed to put people right up against their stuff.

I ended up talking with three different practice advisors, including the abbot. I met with them for 45 minutes to an hour at a time every so often (maybe once a week or so). This happens during meditation times, and everyone is expected to stay in touch with at least one of the practice advisors throughout the Practice Period. I found it very helpful to keep checking in about what was going on with me, and to get some good advice and feedback about my practice. I was familiar with the process, because I get that here too, but it worked a bit differently there, and it took me a while to figure out the system for getting in to see people.

I would like to say that my meditation practice deepened and I got better at meditation, but I'm not sure that's true. When I told the abbot that I didn't think anything had improved in my meditation practice, though, he advised me not to be so sure about that. And I think that's good advice. It's hard to say right now what the overall effect of this three months of practice has had on me. There were no huge breakthroughs, maybe, but definitely some small ones. I feel a bit lighter, a bit less constricted, with a looser sense of identity/self, maybe a little freer. I'm smiling more these days, maybe just because I'm so glad to be back home, and maybe because I haven't entirely gotten back into the groove of lots of work. Or maybe I've let go of some of my misery and left it there.

In any case, it's clear to me that the time was well-spent. Stepping out of my comfort zone and routine here at Dharma Rain was very difficult, and also very valuable. I learned some good things in the process, and I trust that the experience will serve me well as I continue practice and training.

New Year's Poem

2010-01-04T21:23:00.000-08:00

steep rugged cliffs on all sides
draw the eye up
to a sky deep blue in daylight
deep black at night
spangled with brilliant stars
and sometimes moonlight
that invites me out to walk
and makes it easy to blow out lamps
without a flashlight

the music of the creek rushing by
on its way to the sea
draws me forward
into this moment

where the sky is grey
and the music is
the drumming of rain,
traffic on Hawthorne,
and the pounding of radiator pipes

as I sit here among friends
in the middle of a city
far away
I see that it is really close
and that it doesn't require
an 18-hour train ride
to bring me home

Back from Tassajara

2009-12-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

Well, I arrived back home on Monday afternoon, as scheduled, and have been settling in back home since then. The trip back was actually quite pleasant, with a ride from a Tassajara friend to the Amtrak station in Emeryville (thanks, Robin!), and then an uneventful train ride home with a pleasant seat mate, and lunch in the diner with 3 women and more pleasant conversation. Not much in the way of sleep, but of course that got remedied once I got home.

On Tuesday evening we decorated the tree, a wild and crazy tree that was topped from a sangha member's home, and Thursday evening (Christmas eve) we had a dinner at the house for 20 people, with many of us contributing dishes. I made Chinese-style green beans with a recipe I tried for the first time, and it came out pretty good -- I might actually make it a little spicier next time with a little pepper, but other than that, I was pleased with it. It all disappeared before the meal ended.

I've been spending my time catching up with my e-mail (483 posts in my inbox when I got back), unpacking, and yesterday just totally "wasting time," working a jigsaw puzzle with other residents, taking a walk, reading a novel, lots of resting time. I think I may be ready for a more productive day today.

I'm working on a report of my time in Tassajara, but it's slow going. I started it, and wrote 3 pages, and still wasn't even past the first day. So I need to pick up the pace a bit, and will obviously do a lot of cutting. When i get something reasonable, I'll post it here.

I could say very quickly, though, that it was a wonderful, difficult time, and I'm very glad that I went and just as glad to be back home where I belong. I learned a lot, not all of which I can articulate, of course (though I will of course try), and I'm eager to get back into my life here and curious to see what that will look like now, in what ways it might be different and in what ways it might be the same.

Best wishes to all in this holiday season. I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve here, one of my favorite times at Dharma Rain. Happy New Year to all.'

money matters

2009-09-18T05:13:00.000-07:00

It happened again. There have been times in my life when it has just clearly happened that the universe responded to my need. In this case, I made my best effort to take care of my own finances, drew money out of a retirement account in order to have what I need to do this trip to Tassajara and pay the tuition, and when I sat down at some point, I realized I had miscalculated and wasn't going to have enough.

On top of that, last week when the abbots were away on vacation, we ran out of checks. I knew we had more, but one of the abbots had them somewhere in his office, and I didn't know where. So I started writing checks out of my personal account to cover necessary Center expenses. I didn't worry about that, because I knew I would be reimbursed when they got back (which of course happened).

Out of the blue, I got some unexpected money from one friend, and then from another. And this time when I sat down and calculated, I realized I had more money than I needed.

Money is so slippery. It seems like we can calculate and record and figure and analyze and budget, and that's all fine, probably important, but there is another aspect to it that is more fluid, more difficult to pin down. A friend recently commented about trying to get "those wily duckies" in a row, and it feels like that sometimes. I go along feeling just fine, and then suddenly I start to worry that I won't have enough. And then something like this happens and suddenly I have plenty. How much of this is objectively true and how much of it is my own internal feeling about it all?

As a monk, I'm dependent on the community for my living -- well, mostly, because in fact I do have some small retirement accounts as well, and in a couple more years I'll qualify to begin receiving Social Security. But even there, one could argue that I'm dependent on the community around me. As much as we all say that we make our own living, do we really? Even as a lay person, when I was working and being paid, I found that there were aspects to it that were sometimes a little mysterious.

I find myself filled with gratitude, and keep tentatively trusting the bounty of the universe that somehow keeps taking care of me.

Nit-picking

2009-09-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

Those of Head Start vintage (and others possibly) will remember the lovely job of picking lice nits out of children's hair. Yesterday I ended up with a similar task. It all started ...

I was going to mop the kitchen floor. But there was still food from a shopping trip the day before that hadn't been put away. So I took some downstairs to the pantry, and was reminded that there was a 50-lb bag of flour still sitting on the floor, which has bothered me since it was put there a couple of weeks ago. We do sometimes spot a mouse, and it's better to keep that stuff in the plastic tubs in the pantry. But the tubs were still too full for this bag. So I figured I could at least rearrange the pantry to make some room to put the bag up on a shelf. So I did that. At the end I moved an almost-full 50-lb bag of rice off the shelf, figuring that I could find another spot for it, as it didn't take up quite as much room as the other. I noticed that the rice bag had been opened, and the clip securing it wasn't all that secure. So I took the clip off and figured to roll up the opening tighter. But as I did so I noticed that it was invested with pantry moth larvae. Yuk! All that brown rice. This would never do.

So I took it back upstairs to the kitchen, and spent pretty much the rest of the day (with a few breaks, like lunch, but not much else), putting 1/3 cup of rice on a plate, shaking it gently to spread it out, and picking out moth larvae, putting the sorted rice into a ziplock bag to put into the freezer. It was a different way to spend a day, but oddly relaxing.

My back began to protest, and I got a chair to sit in, though I was continually getting back up and then sitting back down, etc. Got through the entire bag, though, just a bit after 5pm, after I had put on a big pot of brown rice to cook for dinner.

Interestingly enough, I got varied reactions to my task. One monk said, I can't believe you're doing that, I'd just put it all in the freezer as is. Another monk said, I can't believe you're doing that, I'd just compost it all. Gyokuko, the executive tenzo, head cook and co-abbot, said thanks for doing that. She's the one who counts. A couple of other people said the same thing.

So now we have a lot of brown rice in the freezer, where it will stay for a while. The kitchen floor never did get mopped. Maybe today? or ...tomorrow?

Accepted at Tassajara

2009-08-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

I just got an e-mail saying I have been accepted for the Tassajara fall Practice Period. So now it's official. They will send me a more formal, official acceptance letter soon, with more information (which I hope also includes maybe some information about travel options), and a liability waiver due to winter flooding that evidently the Forest Service says is more likely there due to the recent fires in the area.

I've been planning, kind of, but with this sense of what-if-they-don't-accept-me unease. So now I can move into high gear (though not today, with the heat) in getting my packing and shopping lists, purchasing a few things, sewing a few things, cleaning out my room, etc.

It's not like everything else around here stops just because I'm preparing to go away for three months. I finally got the newsletter to the printer this afternoon (much later than I prefer to do it). I'm meeting with a guy tomorrow to show him how I put the newsletter contents on the web -- at least he's very web-savvy (probably more so than I am), so I shouldn't have to explain anything except our own particular deal. Tomorrow night is our annual outing at Oaks Park, and I always enjoy that. I went skating Monday night, and will do so again tomorrow night, so that's cool.

Last night I went to Oregon State Penitentiary where we did a memorial service for two parolees from the Buddhist group who have recently died. The one was in ill health, and he died of congestive heart failure, but in a good situation in a nice foster home, maybe a month and a half ago. The other was doing really well, though he was in a lot of physical pain, and evidently he self-medicated and accidentally overdosed. He had been coming regularly to meditation and services here, and though I didn't feel close to him, still he was in my world, and I had a relationship with him. It was a shock to everyone. That happened a week and a half ago. It felt like it would be a good thing to do a formal memorial service, so Getsushin (who is an ordained and transmitted priest, and the head of our prison programs) and I dressed up in our koromos and did a special service for the guys in the group. We picked a hot day to do that on the fourth floor with of course no air conditioning. I'm getting pretty good at sitting meditation in all sorts of conditions (and of course was also wearing my light-weight kimono underneath, for whatever help that could bring), and just sweated through it.

Saturday is an all-day retreat that I have two ceremonial roles for, but even so I'm looking forward to 8 hours of sitting meditation -- that's always rewarding. And next week I leave Wednesday for a 4-day women's retreat down at a farm west of Eugene. Ceremonial roles there, too, of course. And stuff to bring and keep track of. And after that we're into September, and really kick into high gear, with maybe just a touch of panic.

I've been aware of getting ready to put down my responsibilities around here, with mixed feelings of worry and relief, which amounts vary with the task. And I can't put them down too soon! Some things I still have to stay sharp for. It feels like a balancing act, a little like a short-timer, but don't want to slack off before it's time to. And at the same time I genuinely have more to do that's involved in getting ready to go. Kind of a conundrum.

What is ordination?

2009-07-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

I'm 60 years old today, and that seems like the least of my concerns.

Slept poorly last night, mostly because of the heat, but I suspect my emotional state was also part of it. I sat two periods of zazen with ZCO last night in a very warm zendo, and didn't really mind the heat. I find myself more and more indifferent to conditions.

This past week I have struggled with the meaning of ordination. One thought that came up for me was "how could she throw away something so precious?" Her desire to serve the Dharma is clear, and in talking yesterday with another former monk who took off his robes a few years back, he said that at some point it became clear to him that there was no difference between ordination and lay life. I recall another former monk who said the same thing. In the past I remember asking this first monk what the difference was, and he said that a monk is about service 24/7, which is not true of a lay person. I remember thinking that was an easy answer. Now I find it incomplete.

I see more and more how little I can really articulate or explain, and sometimes it's frustrating.

I don't know that I "handled" or "understood" my emotional process this last week any better than formerly, but I think I was more aware than I have been in the past. I watched myself being upset and unable to express it, felt a few things, very faintly. When it finally came up for me yesterday and I had a small break in the action, I just went ahead and cried my eyes out, sobbed for a bit before getting back up and getting on with it. As jisha I was strong and clear and steady. Even though Gyokuko had told me that it was okay to cry during a ceremony, I found in myself a strong desire not to, especially in a ceremony where I had a role. I cried during chanting, when I had no particular duties, but not otherwise.

The ceremony, along with other signs (hair getting longer, clothing changes), have helped me to see her as a lay disciple, not a monk. She is marked, certainly, by her experience as a monk, and she may return, though I wonder about that. I don't think she shares my compulsion for this impossible, crazy, inexplicable path. I am coming around to wishing her well -- the anger is dissipating. She is living her life as best she can, as we all are.

How to affirm and uphold lay life while still maintaining a sense of this precious ordination. Valuing and honoring our lay teachers, which I do, and yet seeing something different in the ordained. It's more than serving the Dharma. I chose this path because of a need for my life to be the Dharma, to have my life be about the Dharma, to have the Dharma be the context of my life. To renounce everything else. As a monk trainee I am exploring how to do this. I don't know how to do it, but I begin to see that doing it without knowing is an important part of the training.

Got through it

2009-07-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

We had the ceremony for monk leaving/lay disciple entering this morning. I was jisha, and had lines, actually just one repeated three times. This morning before sitting my emotions finally came up, and I had a bit of a crying jag, but got through the service okay. It was a bit hard, and still feels hard, but it's moving along, and there's good support.

This afternoon I'm supposed to be working on my seminary paper, and am basically lying on the couch with my computer trying to stay relatively cool. I have thoughts of going to the (air-conditioned) library, going out to eat at an air-conditioned restaurant nearby, where I have a gift card that I've never bothered to use -- this may be a good occasion to use it finally.

I do have plenty of mysteries to read, and no reason to go to the library to read them or get more books out, but it's a nice cool place to hang out for a while. I suppose others may have the same idea, though. And of course there's the whole question of getting there -- my thought is bicycling, which would be faster and ultimately cooler than walking, I think, but still would involve some exertion. However, I know this house will keep getting hotter (there's a window in the kitchen that we can't seem to close), and so pretty soon it may make a lot of sense just to leave for a while and come back later in the evening when (hopefully) the temperature begins to drop.

So, maybe I'll just stay here and veg out at least for a while.

Changes in the Wind (July 22)

2009-07-25T09:39:00.001-07:00

This will be especially challenging since my "little sister" who was ordained last October has decided to take off her robes and pursue a relationship with a guy who is a member of the sangha. She will go back to being a lay disciple. She will stay around for a while, working some, I imagine, but it's uncertain how long and how much. This puts me back into the junior position as a monk, which is okay. I understand there's another person who may be pursuing postulancy in a while, but probably not until I get back from my stint at Tassajara. So all of that will leave our staff a bit thin.

And of course, several of you have heard, either on the Bowerkin list and/or on facebook, that I have a new granddaughter, born July 16 to my older son Nico in Corvallis. Rebecca Nicole Elizabeth Blum. It's their fourth, and the first girl. Gotta make a plan to get down there to see her (and the boys, of course, too).

I haven't been posting much, because it seems like there is always something to do, things going on, and I'm not sure what might be more significant than anything else. My prison work is continuing, and if anything increasing. It's going well, I would say. The Gay Tea group that I facilitate monthly is also going well. I've done some speaking to outside groups, and one dharma talk here on a Sunday morning. In general, I think I'm getting better at facilitating discussions, which is good, because I really enjoy it.

Personally, I keep thinking I'm doing better emotionally as I continue to work through my karma, and I guess that's true, but I have to say it's been a bit of a rough week since I heard about my "little sister." I suppose I was getting too attached and comfortable with the way things were, and it's time to shake it all up a bit. I was already dealing with anticipating the changes of going to Tassajara for 3 months, and this on top of it has given me a bit of a run for my money. I have the sense that if I had gone to Tassajara 2 years ago it would have been extremely challenging, and I may not have been able to complete the 3 months there. Now I suspect it will still be challenging, but I have less fear of completely losing it. More faith in the practice to sustain me.

In any case, it's still 2 months off before I go, and so I'm beginning to make mental lists of things to take, things to do, etc. I will have no access to Internet while I'm there, and so that's pretty significant. No cell phone coverage. I'll have to go back to writing actual letters, I think, and I can receive mail while I'm there, as far as I know. I'll let you know more when it's closer to the time. You can always find them on the web by putting sfzc.org into a search engine, and when you get to San Francisco Zen Center's home page, clicking on Tassajara. It's a pretty interesting place.

Changes in the Wind (July 22)

2009-07-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Or the stars, or the new moon (with a spectacular solar eclipse in Asia this morning, as I understand it), or whatever. I have my application to Tassajara ready to mail, except for my teacher's letter of recommendation, which hopefully will be ready soon. We're starting to try to figure out how the Center will run in my absence, which will be no mean feat. Not that the whole Center revolves around me (well, some days it probably seems like that), but I do take care of a significant chunk of what happens around here.
This will be especially challenging since my "little sister" who was ordained last October has decided to take off her robes and pursue a relationship with a guy who is a member of the sangha. She will go back to being a lay disciple. She will stay around for a while, working some, I imagine, but it's uncertain how long and how much. This puts me back into the junior position as a monk, which is okay. I understand there's another person who may be pursuing postulancy in a while, but probably not until I get back from my stint at Tassajara. So all of that will leave our staff a bit thin.
And of course, several of you have heard, either on the Bowerkin list and/or on facebook, that I have a new granddaughter, born July 16 to my older son Nico in Corvallis. Rebecca Nicole Elizabeth Blum. It's their fourth, and the first girl. Gotta make a plan to get down there to see her (and the boys, of course, too).
I haven't been posting much, because it seems like there is always something to do, things going on, and I'm not sure what might be more significant than anything else. My prison work is continuing, and if anything increasing. It's going well, I would say. The Gay Tea group that I facilitate monthly is also going well. I've done some speaking to outside groups, and one dharma talk here on a Sunday morning. In general, I think I'm getting better at facilitating discussions, which is good, because I really enjoy it.
Personally, I keep thinking I'm doing better emotionally as I continue to work through my karma, and I guess that's true, but I have to say it's been a bit of a rough week since I heard about my "little sister." I suppose I was getting too attached and comfortable with the way things were, and it's time to shake it all up a bit. I was already dealing with anticipating the changes of going to Tassajara for 3 months, and this on top of it has given me a bit of a run for my money. I have the sense that if I had gone to Tassajara 2 years ago it would have been extremely challenging, and I may not have been able to complete the 3 months there. Now I suspect it will still be challenging, but I have less fear of completely losing it. More faith in the practice to sustain me.
In any case, it's still 2 months off before I go, and so I'm beginning to make mental lists of things to take, things to do, etc. I will have no access to Internet while I'm there, and so that's pretty significant. No cell phone coverage. I'll have to go back to writing actual letters, I think, and I can receive mail while I'm there, as far as I know. I'll let you know more when it's closer to the time. You can always find them on the web by putting sfzc.org into a search engine, and when you get to San Francisco Zen Center's home page, clicking on Tassajara. It's a pretty interesting place.

June update

2009-06-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

Ah, well, I'll try to do a brief update here. It's supposed to be a somewhat lighter schedule, and of course it is, but that doesn't somehow mean that things feel any slower. Maybe a little more space in our days, most evenings are free now.

Still, lots going on. Twice a month I have a week where I go to three different prison groups (Tuesday evening OSP, Friday evening Coffee Creek Medium, Monday evening Coffee Creek Minimum). Tonight is that Monday. We had a lot of meetings this week and weekend, and I end up taking notes and typing up minutes for many of them. There are some interesting things happening. In the mean time, the abbots have taken off for a well-deserved vacation, and so we will be handling things here for the next couple of weeks. Their apartment up in the attic is getting remodeled, new carpet, linoleum, and wall repairs and painting, while they are gone.

Two of the meetings yesterday had to do with planning for fall (when I'm not even going to be here, still figuring on going away to Tassajara). One is putting together a seminary class on Issues of Leadership, to include things like ethics, group dynamics and teaching. The other is to plan a kind of inservice day for Dharma School teachers. Both are new. We have several people in the sangha with masters degrees in areas related to these topics, and I think it will be fun to participate in this planning. The actual inservice should be held before I leave, and I may have some role in that.

I do have a couple of papers to write for the seminary class I took this spring. As always, I have a couple of ideas for them, but haven't yet managed to get myself to start them. Need to do this soon.

Today I'm helping put brunch together, since Gyokuko is out of town. Then I'm hoping to meet with a friend this afternoon, and as mentioned, prison tonight. Tomorrow morning I'm meeting with another friend about house-sitting while she is out of town, and after that we're back into the work week. Some of these weekends just fly by.

Classmates.com

2009-05-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Finally relented and signed up to be a Classmates.com gold member. It's a huge ripoff, and irritates me greatly that they do this aggressive push, but I'm curious about some old classmates, and figured I could find out what I can for a couple of months and then do my best to extract myself from it. We'll see. I may regret succumbing, but if I can connect with a couple of old friends it may be worth it.

Update April 20

2009-04-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Sunday, April 19) was a very full day, and I enjoyed it all thoroughly.

Actually, Saturday was quite full as well. We had a Community Practice Day (formerly known as Work Practice, but powers-that-be decided that sounded too much like, well, work, so we changed it). I spent an hour and a half in the morning turning over lawn to become a raised garden bed. The weather was a bit chilly, but I had gloves and waterproof boots, and it didn't take long for my internal heater to kick in, and I was quite comfortable. The soil was perfect to work, not too soggy, but also not dried out to be hard. It was satisfying, and the body held up, though at the end of it, I was happy to be done with that kind of work. The back was definitely tired, there was a threat of a blister forming (though it didn't get that far). During lunch MrK raised the question of whether someone besides him could lead the introductory workshop scheduled for the afternoon, and I volunteered. My "little sister" Jyoshin was assisting, and that was cool.

So for the afternoon I talked with about 10 people about Starting a Buddhist Practice. That went well, and I enjoyed it, though I noticed that my throat was getting a bit hoarse at the end. Jyoshin did the bells and gongs when that was called for, and offered wisdom from her perspective, which was terrific.

After the workshop, I helped Gyokuko in the kitchen with dinner prep (Saturdays being my day to help). A little free time in there allowed me to go up to the office to prep for a Sunday presentation.

After dinner we were blessedly free. I came home and went to bed.

Sunday morning up at 5am (which was actually a little later than I've been getting up) to make breakfast for 14 people. Started breakfast at 6am for a 7am meal bell. Sunday mornings are easy, with a whole hour, and an assistant to boot. There's usually time to take it easy, read the funnies, etc., while other things are cooking. With 14 people to feed, it takes a little more effort because we do two pots of oats, two plates of fruit, two setups of condiments, etc., but it's still not all that bad.

Then service, and I was jisha for that, which meant that I was setting up things for the Teacher in the zendo and in the sanzen room and overseeing sanzen, holding incense for the teacher for incense offerings (and sometimes offering the incense myself when the Teacher wasn't there), and generally making sure things went smoothly.

[Note on photo -- this was actually taken the Friday evening prior, when I was jisha for a Lay Disciple ordination ceremony, that I somehow forgot to mention in this post.]

Then, instead of a dharma talk, we had a Sangha Forum, like an all-member business meeting. What we did was to report on what we've been doing as a Dharma Council. This is a relatively new body, and we're charged with overseeing teaching functions in the temple. That was what my prep was for. I had three flip chart sheets full of things: an agenda, a list of our regular program offerings, and a diagram of our newish mandala organizational structure. That was relevant because the Dharma Council didn't exist before the structure reoganization, and we've been feeling our way into defining what we do more closely. It's been an interesting group to participate in.

The forum went well, with lots of questions and discussion that we had to cut off in the interests of time. Unfortunately, Kyogen (the teacher representative on the council) had to leave because he's suffering from a migraine. Other than that, though, it was very successful, I thought.

Then I worked to get ready for Gay Tea. This is a group that meets monthly that I facilitate. It started as a way for gay people at Dharma Rain to see each other, but has grown to be a community outreach to people who are interested in Buddhism and who may or may not be connected with another Buddhist group. It provides a safe space in which to explore Buddhist teachings with others who have also experienced the particular kind of oppression that comes with being queer in this society. As such, it is developing into a ministry that feels important. The group is usually fairly small, but typically 10-12 people, a nice size for discussion. We sometimes start with a topic and sometimes not, but either way, the discussion ranges over quite a variety of areas having to do with practice.

After the Gay Tea was over, I then worked to get the zendo set up for the Interfaith Service that we hosted yesterday. Setup involves stacking the zabutons and zafus that we usually sit on (on the floor) and getting out chairs for people to sit in. This is a quite different group of people who put on monthly services in various churches/temples in the area. There is usually a theme -- last month I went and spoke briefly at the one about Peace. This month's theme was Nature. They typically invite several speakers from various traditions to come present something from their own tradition in an Interfaith setting. It's interesting to see what people come up with, and how some are more effective than others. Then refreshments, schmoozing, and then a more structured Dialogue time to explore the topic a little further. I stayed for all of that, leaving at one point to help figure out a space conflict with the other group that usually has the building at that point, and then put the zendo back together.

For both the setup and cleanup I had help. I didn't organize that ahead of time. A new fellow who showed up at Gay Tea helped me with the setup, and he and another Dharma Rain member helped me put it back together at the end. Their help was much appreciated, as I've done this stuff by myself before, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and time was a little short.

Still, it all got done. Oh, I sort of forgot to mention that at the service itself I was considered the host, so I gave opening remarks and invocation and a closing benediction, and then also led a guided meditation in the middle. As I mentioned, it's interesting to find the line between presenting something that is a reflection of (in my case) Buddhist teachings and yet still not hitting people over the head with teachings they may not be up for. I think I hit the right balance, and in any case, people did thank me afterwards, so I guess I wasn't too far off.

By the time everything was done and I could go back to the Dharma House, it was 7pm. That looks to me like a 13-hour day. I got some dinner and finally sat down with the Sunday paper, which is my traditional Sunday transition from work to day off. That usually happens much earlier on Sundays, but it had its usual effect, and I became aware that I was tired, and that it was actually a legal time to go to bed (I figure 8pm is legal for going to bed, and 4am is legal to get up -- though my usual times are more like 9-10pm and 5am). With it staying light so much later, it surprises me sometimes.

This morning I was up for 6am meditation as usual, and breakfast with a group of Buddhists with Zen Community of Oregon. Now my laundry is in, and it's going to be a sunny, maybe even hot day, so I'll hang it all outside for the afternoon. Quite lovely. Nothing much planned for today, and I'm contemplating a bike ride in a bit to run some errands, and then back to finish laundry, community brunch, and maybe some sewing this afternoon. Some of that can be outdoors, as it involves a fair bit of hand work, I think. In any case, if it gets hot this afternoon, working in the Zendo basement is really pleasant. Stays nice and cool down there.

So we'll see how the day goes. What a treat to have an unstructured day for a change. Mind you, I enjoy and appreciate the structure, and really love opportunities to work with groups -- I think that's my favorite thing -- but also realize that I need a little down time for more solitary pursuits.

That's enough for now.

Anger

2009-04-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting couple of days, and am basically recovering. This time it isn't so much the press of work (though there's plenty to do all the time), but a flash of anger that I was able to work through.

I tend not to be aware of anger much. I either supress it or rationalize it away, or am overwhelmed by it and shut down. This time, an observation by a fellow monk made sense when I heard it, and I just smiled and acknowledged the truth of it. Later on, when I was no longer involved in any interaction, suddenly I was aware of a lot of rage around that observation. I imagined myself defending myself angrily, and even wanted to hit something (or maybe someone). All the time I knew it wasn't about the person making the observation, but realized that this was triggering something in me.

I was able to stay curious about it without attacking or rationalizing it. I allowed the feelings just to be there without either cultivating them or trying to get rid of them. I became aware of tears, of grief, of loss, along with the rage. Just kept noticing. Found myself inarticulate, not able to really say much (even to myself) about what these feelings might be. Kept going, kept sitting still with the feelings.

That evening (Saturday) I was able to go to bed early (8-8:30pm), and woke up early enough on Sunday morning that I was able to explore this further. I did an imaginary Sanzen with my teacher, and began to figure out what it was about.

The observation that triggered the whole thing had to do with a little practice dharma talk that I shared with other students who also shared dharma talks. Mine was titled "Getting it Right," and had to do with the Noble Eightfold Path. The questions I got from others afterwards had to do with my talking about my fear of getting it wrong, fear of failure. I talked about how when I make a mistake sometimes I feel intensely unworthy, like I'm not worthy to breathe, eat, or take up space on the planet. The observation that got to me was that this seemed like a very young response. There was something about my eventually taking my place as an adult.

Then a question about What sustains me? This place and the people here. That led to more questions about what if this place burns down tomorrow? I don't know. What happens when I go off to Tassajara this fall. I don't know, we'll see.

That was the interaction as it happened, more or less. The later emotional reaction of rage was, as I mentioned, not in the moment, but later when all attention was off of me. I was supposed to be listening to others at that point, but found this wave of anger washing over me, and paid attention to it.

As I reflected on it the next morning, it occurred to me that I had projected "shoulds" into my fellow monk's observation: that I shouldn't be in such a young place, that I should be an adult, that I shouldn't be dependent. That was totally my own projection, of course, and I realized that. Didn't really change the anger, which I wasn't attaching to anyone, just noticing that it was there. I realized that I was reacting to a sense of expectation that I should be doing things differently from how I'm doing them, and the anger was a way of saying, no, this is what I'm doing, I'm being young and dependent right now, and it's what I have to do, and it's the right thing for me to do. In that sense, it was healthy (and uncharacteristic). It actually seems like a hopeful sign to me that I can begin to defend myself and my life. And that I was able simply to watch and wait and find what is the truth here.

When I took this to my other teacher later in the morning in real-life f2f Sanzen, she told me that the real work happens in that inarticulate space, where we simply sit and observe. Yes, finding words to explain what happened and to understand it is also part of the work, but it isn't the most important part of it. I told her that feeling inarticulate is not very comfortable, and she just smiled. I have to say, it's getting easier to stay there, not to struggle or panic so much.

I guess that's why they call it practice.

whew!

2009-03-16T09:26:00.001-07:00

I log in and realize that I haven't posted anything since January 11??!! Wow, lots happening. One thing happening is that I have bought a new laptop computer. Dell finally came out with mini computers at about half the price (or less) of traditional laptops, and it finally made it possible to think about. I've wanted a laptop ever since I moved in here, both because it's nice to have my very own computer and also because we sometimes get crunched with computers in the office -- we have two reasonably good working computers that get the bulk of the workout during the day, and another one in the library that is slower and sometimes in use by other residents or guests. Two other monks have their own laptops that they sometimes use for office work to take the pressure off, and I've wanted one for quite some time. But I looked at the price tags and just couldn't figure out how to justify spending $800-$1000 on something when I have basically no income.

But $350-$450 seemed possible, so I sprang for it. And to top it all off, I got it with a Linux operating system rather than Windows. I did that because it was an option, and a fellow monk ordered that system. I was intrigued. I don't know a lot about it, but people who use it seem to like it a lot. Our abbot Kyogen is also intrigued, and is considering it both for a personal laptop and also for an office upgrade. I figured it might be time for me to learn about it.

It hasn't been that simple, of course. I really haven't had the time to sit down and figure it all out. That's not how it works anyway, of course, as I know well. I work on a little bit here and a little bit there. (This is the first blog post on the new baby. Now I have it bookmarked, and will probably do most of my posts here.)

In any case, I still have access to the office computers, so it isn't as urgent as it might be otherwise. I do have the Internet set up on the laptop at both the Dharma House and the Sangha House (we have wireless Internet in both places), so that gives me a lot of capability right there. I can check my e-mail and post stuff right here in my room, instead of having to go down the street. I can't get on our office network, but I do have thumb drives, and sometimes e-mail myself (or others) documents or we sometimes use Google docs to be able to have access to things.

So things are progressing slowly on that front.

One thing I am doing on the computer is posting a poem a day. We have a poetry challenge at Zen Community of Oregon to write 30 poems in 30 days, with the rule being that you post one poem each day. To do that, we lower our standards and just post. I've done it every day this month (we started March 1). It would be good to post at least some of them here, and maybe I'll do that. It's been fun, really. Some of the poems are even not too bad. And it's a lot of fun to read others' posts.

As far as work goes, I've been extremely busy. We had a spectacularly successful silent auction. Final numbers aren't in yet, but we know we have taken in at least $21,000 (I think the final number will be close to $24K), with something like $6K expenses. People had a great time, and we did a lot of things right (along with, of course, a few things we will do better next year). Many people came who we didn't know, which has been a long-time goal -- to have others come in and have a good time and contribute to a good cause (our budget) at the same time. We're getting there. We have committed to doing this annually, and last week we had an evaluation meeting that also started plans for next year. Making it an annual event is putting us on the path of having more successful events, as we will continue to build on what we learned this year. We have already set the next planning meeting for a month from now. I feel good about it, and my part in it, and was also pretty tired.

Not to mention that I did a lot of work on the auction that caused me to put off other work that needed to be done. So a lot of this last week was trying to catch up with some of that. Today, my day off, will involve at least some work time this afternoon as I take the Events flyer to the printer and follow up on some stuff.

And I just found out yesterday that I will be Tenzo for Jukai. This is our annual week-long sesshin (silent retreat) here in town. Being tenzo, for those of you who have forgotten, means that I will be in charge of cooking all meals for the retreat. Numbers of people at meals are typically between 9 and 24, and they can vary that widely. Breakfast is pretty easy -- oats, tea, and fruit. But all of the other meals will require a bunch of planning, and I will have assistants to supervise. It's scary, but I feel almost ready to do it. It helps if I think of this as another opportunity to make mistakes, even to fail abjectly. Thinking of these things I am assigned to do as training positions, as practice, helps me to be less afraid of NOT DOING IT RIGHT. Even so, it will involve a fair amount of my time in planning this coming week. MrK will help, and of course Gyokuko, our executive Tenzo extraordinaire, will be looking over both our shoulders. I've been assistant tenzo for the last two years of Jukai, and have at least some idea of what's required and how it goes. [This photo was taken during Jukai and added later.]

So I think I'll close this post and look into getting some of the poems up here. I won't do all of them, but I may start posting the daily poems here as well as on the poetry blog site. I sometimes do them in the early morning, between when the alarm goes off and when I have to get up to dress for meditation. It's nice to be able to do that.

FAQ? At least one person asked ...

2009-01-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

This is adapted from an e-mail correspondence with a woman on one of my e-mail lists. Just in case anyone else might be interested in some details about my life here.

Q. I never thought about women practicing Buddism. Are there just as many women as men who practice?

A. Yes. At least in our sangha (community) there may actually be more women than men, and the balance varies back and forth over time. We have two teachers, a married couple, and their teacher was an Englishwoman named Jiyu Kennett (Jiyu being her Dharma name; before that she was known as Peggy).

Q. When did you first think about trying Buddism? What attracted you to the practice?

A. I don't know when I first thought of it. But how I got into it was because my partner was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, and knew that she needed to learn a bunch about death and dying, and when she looked around she didn't see much that was helpful. Enter Gilda Taylor, an American woman who was ordained and transmitted as a Tibetan Buddhist. She came and gave a talk one Sunday at the Unitarian church we were then attending. She and my beloved hit it off immediately. Gilda was also a breast cancer survivor. They then both showed up at the cancer support group at the hospital, and found that they had many things in common, including a passion for getting down to brass tacks when it came to talking about death (a topic that many people prefer to ignore).

My partner got involved in Gilda's group, and I was intrigued by the teachings, but didn't click with the group in the same way. So I became the silent supportive partner who occasionally participated, but more often gave my partner rides. At some point, she had a falling out with the group and stopped practicing. I saw the difference in her, and told her she needed Buddhism in her life, and maybe we should try Zen. The Tibetan group rents space from the Dharma Rain Zen Center, so we were somewhat familiar with the space at least, and had attended a DRZC event on New Year's Eve. My partner thought that was a great idea, so we went to their introductory workshops and began to attend regularly. Both of us felt like we had found our spiritual home, and I still feel that way.

DRZC has supported me in so many ways from the beginning when I was a caregiver, through my partner's death and the grief after that, and I found the tools I have learned here in practice to have immediate practical application to real-world problems, especially around death, but also around life. That just continues to deepen and grow.

Q. How long do you have a teacher and is there a graduation time from school?

A. My teacher will be my teacher as long as he lives. The teacher-student relationship is almost more like a parent-child relationship in that way. In fact, I find my teachers here to be a lot like parents to me, and I mean that in a very good way. And it is irrelevant that they are only a year older than me. In some ways I am two years old. This can sound like I am giving up all of my power to them, and there is a way that this is true, but another way that it isn't. It is a choice on my part, and I see the value and wisdom in it. I trust them a great deal, obviously.

Graduation is not that easy to define. I suppose what we call transmission is the closest I can come to that, and it's a little mysterious. The way I have heard it described is that the teacher sees that the student is embodying the Dharma, is carrying the teachings in his or her own body. Transmission is a recognition that this has happened, and at that point the student begins to learn about becoming a teacher in his or her own right.

Q. Are the teachers the equivalent to a minister?

A. Not quite. Our teachers are also abbots, but that’s not how it's done everywhere. We use the word Teacher (in Tibetan they use the word "lama") to recognize that transmission I just talked about. The abbot is more of an administrative function. Many ministers do both the administrative piece and the teaching/service piece, depending on the size of the organization. As the organization grows (as ours is), the function changes somewhat. Our Teachers are the spiritual guides for the community.

We do use a lot of the English terms for positions. For example, I'm called a "novice monk," which isn't quite accurate, but somewhat close, and the word "priest" could also be close, but it's not quite equivalent to how the word is used in, say, Catholicism.

Q. Do practioners meet each week on a certain day like Christians?

A. We have many opportunities for practice. Our main events are Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, which is pretty similar to a typical protestant church. But we also have other evenings and most weekday mornings have some time for meditation and services as well. Those are much more sparsely attended, but there are some in the community who take advantage of it. Those of us who live here participate in all of it. That is, the ordained participate in all of it, while the lay residents do what they can, depending on their own work schedules.

Q. Has there been anything about the practice that you are a little leery about? Are there things that bother you about your living situation?

A. At this point, I would have to say no. I think I had some fears about going into postulancy, especially, making myself that vulnerable, and also about living in community, after having lived alone for three years. But all of my fears have proved groundless. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that my fears were really fears of myself, whether I would be good enough or something like that. The people here have exhibited extraordinary kindness and patience, consistently over time. That has allowed me to see that my fears have really been of myself. It's been interesting.

I have to stop now, because we're going to do a 3-hour festival starting in about 20 minutes, and I have a role. I'll come back and work on the answers to the rest of these at some point -- it's a busy day, but there will be breaks now and then. And starting tomorrow afternoon I will be on day off.

-----

Contining later that evening ...

Q. Could you describe the phyical surroundings of where you live? How many people do you live with? Is it an urban environment?

A. The easiest way to do this would be to go to our website
http://www.dharma-rain.org/?p=contact
There's a brief description of the three buildings we own and work and live in. I live in what we call the Sangha House on Taylor Street, but really I just sleep there and keep my stuff there. I spend most of my time in the Dharma House, where we have offices, a small zendo, and do our meals and some classes and workshops. Then there's the Zendo, the main temple building, where ceremonies, services, meditation, classes, and such like happen. We rent out that space quite a bit, to another Zen group most regularly, and then also for special events like Dances of Universal Peace, which is happening this evening.

I would say the two houses are both the nicest houses I've ever lived in. The Dharma House is 100 years old, with wonderful craftsman touches, and quite nice. There are also gardens around it that are lovely.

There are five of us who live in the Sangha House, and seven in the Dharma House. Plus some people come to stay overnight periodically and then maybe spend a day or two here. We have about three people who regularly come once a week like that, an overnight and then a day doing various volunteer work.

We are in inner Southeast Portland, so yes, an urban environment.

Q. How often do you meditate? How often do you get to play?

A. The meditation schedule varies. I find that I have to do at least an hour every morning, whether it's on the schedule or not, and usually do 1-1/2 hours by choice. There are some evening sits as well, and occasional other events like today's festival. There are Zazenkai events that happen every couple of months where we do 8 hours of meditation in a 12-hour day. Then there are retreats which typically include 8 hours of meditation a day for 6-7 days. We have four of these a year.

We have regular days off once a week, and I have a lot of freedom in how I spend those. Sunday noon through Tuesday noon, at least theoretically. There are some things that encroach on that time, but I have choices about that, and often find that I prefer to do some work or take care of some things when there is less pressure. What I usually do is go to the library and get some books, do my laundry, some sewing, etc. I know, a regular party animal. It suits me. There are monks who regularly go to the beach or the mountains or at least out on bike rides, etc. I just generally like to stay home and rest.

Q. Is your group involved in the community with good works?

A. We have an active prison program, which I participate in. We also do a Dharma School, which isn't precisely "in the community," but which serves a lot of kids whose parents aren't members here. That's about all we can keep up with at this point. Of course, we run regular meditation workshops and classes which are free to the public, and are heavily attended by people we often don’t see again.

Q. Do you still have your possessions from your life before you went to study?

A. I have all I need, actually too much stuff. I had to get rid of a lot of stuff just because it wouldn't all fit into the space I'm alloted (very generous, I have to say, a room plus storage space in the attic). I rented a storage space for three years and then got tired of paying for it. I whittled my possessions down a bit during that time, and some more this summer, and finally moved everything here. We are not required to get rid of everything or give all of our money, for example, to the community. In fact, it is recognized that we don't get much out of this service monetarily, and it is all to the good to be somewhat financially independent. So far I'm doing okay. I have small retirement funds that will keep me going until Social Security kicks in in a few years.

What the center provides to the ordained is room, board, and health insurance. That's almost enough, but there are always other small expenses. I find I spend about $100 a month or so on incidentals (fabric, underwear, razor blades, bus passes, transportation if I rent a car, any extra treats like my special honey or nuts, etc.). That's what I have to have a little other money for. Some places give their monks a small stipend every month, but we don't do that here -- can't really afford it. Fortunately, as I mentioned, I do have some funds. I sold my car last summer and am still living on that money. And I've been doing some paid sewing projects for people.

Q. How does your group support itself?

A. Almost entirely member donations and pledges. We have tried to write grants, and I'm still pursuing that, but haven't yet had success with it. We are beginning to do an annual silent auction to raise funds, especially for capital costs associated with things like the new roof and solar panels.

Q. Do you leave the community after a certain time?

A. I could. When we ordain we vow to serve for 5 years of training and to follow our teacher's directions during that time. After that I am free to go where I will. Assuming I get transmitted at some point, then I could actually start my own center and become a teacher in my own right in a new place. One of the monks is going that route, working at starting a little center out on the west side. At the moment, that prospect doesn't look all that appealing to me. I'm happy here, and would be contented to be here the rest of my life. But of course no one knows what the future will hold, and we'll just have to see.

Q. Why did you change your name and who decided what it should be?

A. When we do lay disciple ordination we get a Dharma name. My teacher decided on Genko. What the teachers do here is give people three choices, which you then get to give input on. In this case, my teacher was clear about his first choice, with a couple of other distant second choices. When I saw that this name meant "mystery light," I immediately said "yes." So we agreed with no negotiating about it.

Typically lay disciples are referred to in our newsletter with their regular first name, then their Dharma name, and then their last name (hence, Sylvan Genko Rainwater). We usually use our Dharma names here in the Center. Since I ordained, I pretty much have dropped the "Sylvan" except with my family and a few other people who have known me a long time. I almost wish I did what my "little sister" did, which was to make her Dharma name her first name, and the other name the middle name. But I'm not going to change it legally again -- I've done that four times or something in my life. Enough, already!

Hope this answers these questions. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask, as I say, I love answering questions that I actually know the answers to.

New Year's Poem -- On Turning Two

2008-12-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

On Turning Two (2nd anniversary of ordination January 7, 2009)

I Want
I Want NOW
I want it ALL
Right Now
I want to be wise
compassionate
confident

I want to Know
I want to know HOW
I want to know
how to do it ALL
Right Now
I want to understand
Dogen, Avatamsaka
Astasahashrika
Lankavatara
To be able to talk about it all
wise, confident

I want to do everything
Right
jisha, daimasho, doshi, ino, doan, chiden
all the ceremonies
all the positions
I want to move
with grace and assurance

I can't do it all
Right
I fail
stumble, bumble
oblivious to cues
forget this, do that wrong
Get angry at myself
frustrated at failure
Plunge into despair
I'll never get it right
I don’t deserve to live

The heat of wanting
The cold of failure
Where is the place
where there is no hot or cold?

The teachers watch
with kindness
smile at my deadly serious efforts
encourage me to get back up
and try again
Kanzeon looks through their eyes

Beware, get ready
for the tantrums
of the
Terrible Twos

Some reflections on Rohatsu

2008-12-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, but I wanted to record a little from Rohatsu (Dec 7-14).

As jisha (the one who carries the incense in ceremonies, and oversees sanzen [formal interview with teachers]), I had many opportunities to make mistakes, and of course I took full advantage of them. I did pull off the two special ceremonies at the end of the week without huge mistakes. Whenever teacher Gyokuko caught me (as I was catching myself, looking maybe sheepish and apologetic) in a mistake, she gave me a brilliant smile.

In the Shuso Hossen ceremony, the chief junior of the past year was examined by teachers and the rest of us to test her understanding of a verse she chose. My question to her was "what is mastery?" Her answer was bang-on, "falling down and getting back up again." I don't think she knew this is basically what my teacher wrote on the back of my rakusu when he ordained me, though she may know that this is an ongoing issue for me.

There is that in me that hates to make mistakes, to get it wrong, and that part of me is having a hard time as I see more and more clearly how I do get things wrong. I see that I don't get hard words for it or any threat of harm or punishment (except from myself, and I see what an obstacle that is), and it's almost more difficult that way. So I sit meditation, hunched over, barely able to breathe, a lump of misery, of failure, wondering if I will ever get it right, knowing I have to try anyway and get it wrong, trying not to disappear, to hide, to judge myself too harshly, trying to wait in patience and compassion for change to emerge from this misery. And often I just want to sleep. I've been sleeping more than usual this week.

The other thing I identified at Rohatsu was a developmental stage. I seem to be going through early childhood stages roughly corresponding to my ordination age. First I saw myself as a baby, babbling, unable to do much but cry. Then as a wobbler, taking first tentative steps, but pretty wobbly, falling down about as much as walking.

Now I'm coming up on 2 years old, and I remember these little kids in our family literacy program. How much they wanted to stand in front of the class and teach, grabbing pencils so they could write, reading books (holding them upside down), trying to ride trikes like the big kids. It looks like playing to adults, but for them it's serious. Part of the "terrible twos" is frustration, a huge wanting to do everything, often failing because they simply don't have the motor skills, the conceptual frameworks, etc., to accomplish it.

So here I am, more or less doomed to fail for a while and trying (sometimes desperately) to be okay with that. Sometimes I fail at failing. Sigh.

It's been a stressful week. At least two car accidents weather-related, a couple of other mishaps and near-misses of various sorts, getting a newsletter mailing out in spite of obstacles, lots of people in the Center. I hasten to add that I'm fine, and none of the accidents involved me (other than as a sympathetic and worried friend). Last night Getsushin and Kisei decided not to go to the prison, because the weather was just too dicey -- we knew we could get there, but weren't sure we could get back. Today it's snowing, a slow steady snow that looks like it will settle in for a while, probably 2 inches so far. I'm grateful to be in easy walking distance of everything I need, including work. I've been taking it somewhat easy, going to bed a bit early, etc.

I'm also playing catch-up, trying to get all of our stuff back from the retreat at the monastery and get some things we inadvertently brought back that are theirs back to them. With the weather as it has been, this is not as easy as usual. They are, after all, an hour-and-a-half drive in good weather, and sometimes it's not advisable to travel at all. Thursday the teachers came down, but in a car, not a van, because they couldn't get the van out of the parking lot. That meant that some of our bulkier items are still out there. Oh, well. We'll get it sorted out eventually.

Sounds of a Silent Sesshin - Rohatsu 2008

2008-12-20T09:33:00.000-08:00

wake-up bell, hahn, densho
sanzen bells
coughing, sneezing, clearing throats
my teacher and I in stereo across the zendo
kinhin
60 pairs of feet on the heated bamboo floor
first slow, then fast
toilets flushing
inkin
bodies bowing
60 pairs of knees hitting the floor
teacups clattering overturned
chant leader
mokugyo, gongs
sonorous chanting from 60 throats
swish of robes, flip-flop of footwear, processing in the hallway
meal gong
drum, clappers
meal chant
muffled clatter of oryoki bowls, chopsticks, spoons
being unwrapped and placed
the unmistakable sound of a chopstick hitting the floor
food bowls and condiments being passed
(food plentiful and delicious)
work practice
work assignments (cutting blackberries with Holly)
kitchen chopping
sewing machine
fluorescent lights hum
heating hiss
teachers in daily teisho
teachers in sanzen

comforting sounds
sounds of caring, sounds of home
weaving between, among, through, around

oceans and oceans vast and deep
of silence

November 3, 2008

2008-11-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my father’s death. Last week at Segaki for the first time I felt some sorrow that we never really got to know each other, and I began to wish him a better rebirth. It was a much nicer feeling than the anger, rage, and pain that have dominated my feelings toward him during this last year.

I’ve been reading The Wild White Goose, Roshi Kennett’s autobiography. In her description of transmission, and especially when she had that transmission verified, she used the word “love” a fair bit. For her the training and practice had something to do with the love she and her teacher shared, and by extension to every other person and thing on the planet, and beyond, I suppose.

When I asked Gyokuko about the sewing master as a teaching function, she talked about the kitchen, and how it has to do with caring deeply for every thing we work with, awareness of its texture, our body sensation -- mindfulness and love. As she used the word “love” she got this big smile on her face. I realized later that she was recognizing this as a subject I have expressed a lot of interest in. [Hmmm… maybe I could do a student talk about this at some point …]

In fact, I’m seeing it. Last year when Hogen suggested that I put the pain in my heart into the context of a lot of space, he wasn’t saying that it doesn’t matter, which is what I was hearing. To the contrary, you do that because it does matter, profoundly.

Further, I recognize that my stuck places, my very obstacles, come from love, and the feeling that I have somehow failed in caring for the people around me. And so I keep trying to take care of everything around me as I did for my younger siblings growing up. And getting kind of bossy about it (as of course I felt I had to do with them). Taking over. Not trusting others or allowing them to fail.

Everything I do comes from love. It’s all love.

Now I need to learn how to express it skillfully, to communicate it in a way that is NOT controlling, that creates space for others to grow in their own ways. As my teachers have done for me. As they continue to do.

I’ve been thinking of saying something about soji [temple cleanup, 30 minutes] (which we do four mornings a week, and which I assign). Something like this: Soji is an opportunity to express our gratitude for a space that supports our training practice. It is an opportunity to extend that gratitude into generosity to others in supporting their training practice. It is an opportunity to practice mindfulness in paying attention to the things, surfaces, textures and tools we work with, and to our own bodies as we move through these activities. Creating a clean, welcoming environment expresses our love to all who enter here and allows us all to share our practice together. May we be mindful of ourselves, our sensations, our own practice, and also mindful of others who will use these things / food / spaces, so that we and they will obtain the truth.

November 2, 2008

2008-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

I've been buried with work, but am really happy, feeling like I'm doing well, and enjoying what I do. I keep hoping to slow down long enough to write an update, but haven't been doing that lately, and my blog is way out of date. Maybe tomorrow? No prison group tomorrow night, so I may have some space to breathe. Mondays (day off) are traditionally laundry in the morning, brunch with the community here, and then library sometime during the afternoon. I have one book due tomorrow and if I take it back, the chances are pretty good that I will look around and find some more to check out, either there in the kinda small branch library I go to or in their system-wide catalog. Then guess what I spend the rest of the day and evening doing?

This morning I got up early to participate in our annual Founders Vigil. Our teachers' teacher and her teacher both died in early November, and so we do an all-night vigil each year to honor them. There are some people who sit in the evening and into the night, but I've found that it works well for me to get some sleep first and then get up early to sit 3-6am. I did that this morning, and it was lovely. There were three of us when I first sat down, and five by the time I got up. I think MrK did the entire vigil -- he usually tries to do that, and he's someone who doesn't seem to need a lot of sleep. I simply can't do that, so I don't try to. If my teacher asks me to do that some time, I will do it, and know that I will be basically non-functional for two days afterward. But I wouldn't voluntarily do it, and I doubt seriously that he will ask me to.

Of course, my "little sister" just ordained thinks I'm crazy for getting up early on my days off to go sit at 6am when I don't have to. What she doesn't understand is that I really do "have to," in that it seems to be a requirement for me these days to sit at that time every day in order to keep making progress in my training and stay on an even keel. I'm getting a sense of what it means to sit still in the midst of all sorts of storms (internal and external), and the value of that. I find it incredibly precious. I thought I might take a nap this afternoon, but I didn't. And I just got back from a meeting with ZCO, and am not planning to sit with them this evening -- time to head up the street and settle in with the book that's due tomorrow (I'm half way through it) and go to bed.

I note that my father died one year ago today. I remembered him last week at our Segaki Festival, and his name was read on the list of those who have died in the last year. I find my feelings about him softening a bit on this first anniversary of his death, and that is good.

October 23, 2008

2008-11-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Good grief! Time just keeps marching on. The newsletter is done, but there's a whole lot of other things happening, and I'm still just putting one foot in front of the other.

This weekend is our annual Segaki retreat, where we feed the Hungry Ghosts and invite old unresolved karma to come and get whatever it can for the day before we send it away again for another year. We also read the names of everyone who has died in the last year, and George's name is on the list.

I'm going to be assistant tenzo for this retreat, and I think it will be relatively easy. The numbers look like we will be feeding from 21-24 people at each meal, not too bad. At Rohatsu (which will be in December, and cause me to miss the Bower reunion then), there are typically something like 60 people. One year we had 88 total over the course of the week! I will undoubtedly be in the kitchen there this year, but not in charge.

As assistant tenzo, I've been finding out what needs to be used up here, gathering the numbers of how many will eat each meal and what allergies there are, and then I will meet with the tenzo this afternoon to go over menus and what I need to shop for tomorrow. I will also set up all the place settings tomorrow. For this retreat, we use plate, bowl, fork, knife, spoon, cup, and napkin. Each person gets a setup which they use for the entire weekend, washing up their own dishes after each meal. We eat formally in the zendo after serving ourselves buffet style downstairs.

Jyoshin was indeed ordained on Saturday, so I now officially have a "little sister." I took her to the store yesterday to buy a razor, and she, MrK and I all shaved each other this morning. I remember that time of getting used to lots of fabric in new robes, bowing mat, etc., and shaving, and moving into a new room (which she's also doing). When I was a postulant, the ordained (plus me) shaved each other once a week, but once I was ordained, the dynamics shifted and I was the only one shaving, so I've gotten used to doing myself. It's kind of nice that there are again three of us to do each other. It's a nice time of sharing something as ordained once a week, caring for each other in that way.

We have three new residents moving in during the next week or so, all 20-somethings, one woman and two men. It will be interesting.

My volunteer ID badge finally came through in the prisons, so I can pick it up tomorrow evening when we go in. That will simplify paperwork considerably. I feel that I'm getting gradually more involved in the prison program, and there may be some changes in who's doing what over the next couple of years. Not that I will take over (heaven forfend!), and my involvement is limited somewhat by necessity because of what I am needed for here, but I may go to more places, etc.

October 17, 2008

2008-11-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

Wow, time has been flying by. I intended to do a whole update about my trip to San Francisco, but instead I came back and was immediately buried in our newsletter. It's mostly done now, and I feel like I can almost breathe. Of course a few days ago I got a cold, which has slowed me down slightly in the last couple of days, but I'm feeling a bit better today.

Tomorrow my "little sister" postulant Jyoshin is getting ordained. I'm jikko in the ceremony, and my part will be primarily to hand her things and then to actually put her robes on her during that part of the ceremony. She and I have always gotten along really well, and it's nice that she's joining the "family" of the ordained here.

She's in her 30s, which puts her pretty close to MrK in age. Domyo is slightly older, but not much. So there's the three 30-somethings, and then there are the two abbots who are 60 and I'm 59. That's relative ages. And yet, both Domyo and MrK are my seniors in terms of ordination date, and of course the abbots are completely my teachers.

Anyway, Jyoshin and I practiced today with putting robes on her, and she practiced bowing with all that extra fabric -- it takes a while to get used to. [As it happened, we practiced with her standing, but during the ceremony, Kyogen told her to kneel. Since we hadn't practiced that, I found myself stepping on her feet, and it was a bit more awkward than I anticipated. Still, we got it done.] She's been asking for advice and instruction, and getting quite a bit. One big difference between her and me is that she isn't shy about asking for help and advice.

We have another retreat coming up soon -- Segaki. It's a weekend retreat here in town (next weekend), so in many ways not too bad. Once again I will be in the kitchen as an assistant tenzo, and I've drafted someone else to lead sewing work practice. I suspect I will be in the kitchen on retreats for a while to come. Anyway, there will be lots of opportunity for sitting meditation, and I'm looking forward to that.

We've been back on our regular term schedule since returning from SF the beginning of October, and we're all adjusting to that again. I'm busier just with that. We have two classes a week now and two (sometimes three) additional evenings of meditation, along with our regular morning meditation and services.

Oh, and the other big news is that I finally started my own prison meditation group in Coffee Creek's Minimum facility. Seven women came to that, and it was a nice group. I'll be doing that every other Monday evening from now on. And in addition, I'm still accompanying people to Medium on some Friday nights -- tonight, for example, I'll be heading back down there with the two women who lead that group. My ID badge should be ready soon.

SZBA Conference October 1-4

2008-11-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

More than a month later, I’m finally sitting down to write about this packed six days.

There were two conferences happening simultaneously October 1-4. The regular biennial SZBA conference, for full members: recognized transmitted priests/teachers in the Soto Zen school, was held at San Francisco Zen Center (locally known as City Center). The associates conference was a first-time event, for ordained novice priests who have not been transmitted, and that was held at Green Gulch Farm, which is across the bay near the coast. This is a Zen Center and working organic farm that supplies produce to City Center and I believe also to Tassajara. The food, as you might imagine, was wonderful -- lots of fresh organic produce at the center of everything.

The time outside of the actual conference was just as full as the time of the conference itself.

Jikan, Jogen, and I drove down to San Francisco in the Great Vow Zen Monastery van. Domyo, the other associate member from DRZC, was part of organizing the associates conference, and travelled separately by air. The teachers from DRZC and GVZM all flew. The three of us going by van had made arrangements to stay overnight at Shasta Abbey, about half way to SF. My thought was to make a fairly leisurely drive there on Tuesday, stay overnight, do their morning program and have breakfast with them, and then drive to Green Gulch to be there in plenty of time for the conference which started Wednesday evening. I like to have spaces around my traveling, especially driving.

However, I was traveling with others, and they had other ideas. It seems that Jogen had never been to San Francisco, and was keen to do some sightseeing. He and Jikan said they would rather leave Shasta early on Wednesday morning and be able to spend a few hours in the city before going to Green Gulch. Okay, let’s be flexible here.

We got to Shasta a bit later than I had anticipated, having stopped in Ashland for a wonderful dinner and a little window shopping. We had been watching Mt Shasta as we drove south on I-5, but by the time we actually reached the Abbey (which is right next to the freeway, pretty much on the mountain), it was dark.

Nevertheless, we were greeted graciously by the guestmaster, and then were given a grand tour of the place, which even in the dark is impressive. Reverend Master Eko and a couple of his assistants took us around. We did bows and made incense offerings at various altars, and for me it was especially moving to be able to do this at Roshi Kennett’s stupa, a large granite monument in the center of the circle formed by the Abbey’s buildings. She is, after all, my dharma grandmother, having been my teacher’s teacher.

They have built covered walkways to connect the many buildings, since they have a lot of snow in the winter, as you might imagine. The weather when we were there (the end of September), however, was pleasant and balmy. We each got a guest room to stay overnight in, and settled in.

The Abbey’s schedule was a bit relaxed that Wednesday, as it happened, and the wake-up bell wasn’t until 6am. We made arrangements to leave at 6:15, and they had someone to see us off. We told them that we probably wouldn’t stop there on our way back as we (I) had originally planned. They assured us that we could do so if we wished. They kept wanting to give us breakfast, but we told them we were fine, and would get breakfast on the road. Unfortunately, it was still dark as we left, so we didn’t ever quite get the full visual effect of the mountain on the Abbey. We stopped at Redding to eat breakfast, and then continued to San Francisco.

Once in San Francisco, we weren’t exactly sure how to get where we were going, even though Jikan and I had been there the previous year. We wanted to go to this shopping mall in Japantown where we had enjoyed going before. Jikan I think had something in mind that she wanted to get there. We had a vague idea of where it was, and kept trying to find things that looked familiar, but we didn’t have an actual map of the city, and finally asked people for directions (more than once, because things weren’t all that clear). We found the place, gave ourselves a couple of hours there, and had also determined we wented to go to the Asian Art Museum. Jikan and Jogen both spent a fair amount of money in a shop that had a lot of very nice incense. I bought a few cards in a stationery store, but otherwise just looked around a lot.

We had asked about directions to the Asian Art Museum, but people in the shops weren’t exactly sure where it was, or whether there might be more than one? We had heard that it was near the library, but again there are several. So we headed for downtown and looked. At some point Jikan, who was driving, pointed to her left and said she had a feeling it was kind of over there. I spotted an underground parking garage and told her to turn left toward it, and as I looked up, there was this large granite building with the inscription “Asian Art Museum.” We high-fived, parked, and spent another enjoyable hour and half or so in the museum.

I spent my entire time on the top floor, where there were a lot of ancient statues, many of which were Buddhist (and many other statues as well, of course). The person when we went in said it was fine to take photos, as long as we didn’t use flash. One photo I took ended up on the front cover of our newsletter this time, and you can see it at our web site (www.dharma-rain.org). In the process, though, my camera’s battery ran out, and I hadn’t thought to bring the charger for that (I did bring the one for the cell phone, which I never used), so those were my only photos of the trip.

After this, we headed to Green Gulch, getting there in plenty of time to get our packets of information and directions for where we were going to be. Jikan had arranged to stay in a guest room, but Jogen and I opted for the Zendo, which was free. It turns out that most associates had chosen to stay in guest rooms, for which they had to pay extra, and there were only five or so of us in the Zendo.

I had brought my sleeping bag and therm-a-rest pad, and once I put those on top of the zabuton (futon) pads they supplied us with, I was quite comfortable. They have a system where you roll up your futon in the morning and store all the rest of your bedding in a large plastic bin. These fit neatly under the tan, a raised platform around the edge of the zendo where people sit meditation. We had a room downstairs from the zendo where we could hang our robes and store some things and change clothes as we needed. Although there were both men and women, we didn’t find this to be a problem. Monks learn to make do (putting on and taking off clothing under a kimono is not all that difficult). They did say that men should sleep on one side of the zendo and women on the other, which I suppose made a bit of sense, and of course we did so.

We got a great dinner in the cafeteria, and then all met together in the yurt they provided for us for meeting space. There were 30 of us, a surprisingly large number to the organizers (I believe there were something like 60-70 full members meeting at the downtown conference). A lot of the value of our meeting had to do simply with getting to know each other and gaining a sense of where each of us was from, what kinds of temples or centers or groups we were working with, etc. We did introductions and some orientation, and went to bed.

The wakeup bell on Thursday morning was at 4:35am, and we were sitting zazen by 5am. Morning service was 6:30, and then Soji [temple cleanup] was at 7am. The director of Green Gulch was having fun figuring out tasks for all of these priests to do, and I ended up doing some sweeping in the walkway in front of the cafeteria. We did breakfast, KP, and then attended their work circle to hear announcements.

Domyo and Sanshin (the other organizer, whom I knew from the training ango in Jikoji last year) had divided our time into four discussion sessions, morning and afternoon of Thursday and Friday. We talked about the American Lay-priest Hybrid on Thursday morning, addressing the reality that what a priest looks like in America is pretty variable. Many are married, some with families. Many are working full- or part-time at outside jobs. Some are running a center or group with very little support, and others are part of a large organization. There were several people my age relatively recently ordained. Certainly for women, there opens up some space in our 50s to pursue something we’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because of various family responsibilities.

Thursday afternoon we discussed monastic practice. Ironically, the two people who are training in an actual monastery, Jogen and Jikan, were at City Center helping their teachers put on a Jizo ceremony, and so weren’t able to participate in this discussion. Still, we talked about whether there is value in doing monastic practice, what that might be, how it might fit into the lay-priest hybrid we talked about, etc. Pretty interesting.

That evening we did a Ryaku Fusatsu ceremony, which was similar to one I participated in last year at Jikoji at the SZBA training ango.

Friday morning was a day off for Green Gulch, so no formal wakeup bell or zazen. I did zazen anyway, which I always do, simply sitting at my place where I had slept on the tan. Breakfast was informal, and we pretty much got it for ourselves. Friday’s discussions were What is a Teacher? and Establishing Dharma Centers. The Teacher discussion was my favorite of the four. We talked about the various ways that we do and don’t teach, and how we get or don’t get authorization for that. What requires transmission to do (giving the Precepts, doing sanzen/dokusan, ordaining priests) and what doesn’t. Ways that leadership happens in temples, centers, and sitting groups. Formal authority vs informal authority. Much sharing of how things work in our various places.

The discussion about establishing centers quickly turned into how centers grow and develop, how once they are started they go through a lot of changes and managing that and following that skillfully takes some doing. Again, much sharing of how various centers have developed, sometimes in strikingly different ways.

On Saturday, we were scheduled to join the full members at City Center. Again, my travelling companions decided to leave before breakfast in order to get there a bit early. So I did one period of zazen, while they did two and left the hall before service. I changed clothes and sat zazen for a bit in the room waiting for Jogen to come down. Then we hauled our stuff to the van and headed back across the bay to City Center.

Somehow we lucked out and got a perfect parking place directly across the street, went in and had breakfast with the big kids. We found places to sit in the cafeteria where they were meeting, and listened to discussions about the development of an Ethics Statement. Then they moved to talking about priest training, which of course was of great interest to all of us novice priests. The five of us there who had attended the training ango the year before all got up to do brief reports about it, and then there was a lot of discussion about whether to do it again (especially since the one planned for this last summer was cancelled for lack of signups and because two of the four teachers had to withdraw for health reasons) and if so how, for how long, what time of year, etc. Also heard something about a priest training program being done in connection with Tassajara on a different model, more like the distance learning program I did for my masters degree. The ango model is more like monastic training, and ideally should be at least three months (though the one-month session we did last year was valuable). This is tough for most novices to arrange for, and also pretty tough on the temples who have to do without them for that time. And yet, there is a lot of value in it. Formed a committee to work on it, with both full members and associates, to do needs assessment and plan for something more. I managed to keep my hand down and not volunteer to be on the committee.

In the afternoon they had a business meeting and then a Dharma Heritage ceremony for 12 Dharma Heirs. The associates all sat around the edge of the Buddha Hall on chairs for that ceremony, basically watching as the big kids processed, bowed, etc., but of course joining in for the chanting. I was right next to the chant leader, who was ringing a huge gong, and it was cool to watch how he was working the bells, chants, etc.

In the evening, we went to the banquet, which was held at a restaurant in Chinatown. We drove the van and followed Myosho, another associate, who had arranged for us to go to a jazz club after the banquet. When I first heard about going out to a jazz club, I was skeptical. I mean, our plan (again changed from how I had originally envisioned it) was to get up early on Sunday morning and drive straight through to Portland. Going out to a jazz club, no matter how cool, seemed like not such a great idea to me. But I finally shrugged, hey, I’m in San Francisco, take advantage of it. Anyway, technically I’m junior to both Jogen and Jikan (Jogen was ordained 3 weeks before I was, so he’s senior to me, even though he’s young enough to be my son), and it’s their van.

In the mean time, the banquet was interesting. We walked into this Chinese restaurant, and they were doing line dancing to Chinese music. We ended up being upstairs on a mezzanine of sorts, able to look down on the dance floor. They did a tango and a cha-cha, all to Chinese music. The dancers had obviously taken lessons in ballroom dancing, and were really pretty good, but it just seemed kind of surreal. At some point the dancing ended and karaoke started, all of it in Chinese, of course, so I didn’t know any of the music. I take that back, there were a few snippets in English, but it almost still sounded like Chinese. Then later they went back to dance music.

The food was good, but some of it was not vegetarian, which evidently upset some of the people in attendance. I’m not a purist, so I ate some shrimp and some chicken. Not all that much, as I don’t really care that much for shrimp, and I tend to eat very small amounts of these things when I encounter them. Most people at our table did the same. I heard later that a few others were upset. There was also alcohol available for purchase, and several people took advantage of that. At one point, a few senior priests got up and were dancing to the music. Just generally having a great time. Along about 8:30pm, our little group headed out to go to Oakland to the jazz club.

The club in question was Yoshi’s, which I had never heard of, but which is well-known in the city. There are actually two of them, one not far from City Center, and the other in Oakland. Yoshi is the wife of Bishop Akiba, a Zen teacher. They are both Japanese, and have been in the US for many years, I believe. Myosho is Bishop Akiba’s student, and in addition her son works at the Oakland jazz club, so she totally has an in there. She said we could go to this club for free (we later found out that tickets for the first show went for $75, and the second for $50). We got separated from Myosho in the parking garage, so went on to the club. We walked in and the host asked us what we were wishing, to see a show or go to the restaurant (there’s a very good sushi restaurant attached to the club). We said we were with Myosho, at which he looked blank, and we all frantically tried to remember her other name, but none of us knew it. So he went to ask Yoshi herself, and she knew we were coming. He came back and said that she had said to put us upstairs in what he called the “VIP box.” We nodded and followed him.

He went into the kitchen, and opened this very small door, about the size of a broom closet, and indicated we were to go in there. It was dark, and I looked a question at him, but he was still pointing to the closet. I looked in and there was a ladder leaning steeply against the wall. He asked whether I could fit in there, and I stepped in and said yes, going up the ladder. At the top of the ladder, still in the dark, I reached out with my foot and found floor to stand on, and found myself in a kind of balcony overlooking the club. There were some chairs, and a kind of ledge forming a small table at the edge of the box. I sat down as the others came up, and there we were in the dark, listening to Wayne Shorter’s band.

Oh, yes, Jogen had earlier discovered that Wayne Shorter was playing, and was incredibly excited -- a jazz legend, he called him. I had never heard of Wayne Shorter, but of course I don’t particularly follow jazz. We got to hear the end of the first show, and it was pretty good, but I think we were all still kind of adjusting to the unexpected circumstances when the show ended.

People left the floor, and we went back downstairs. We ended up in the middle of the club talking with Yoshi herself, and the host, who turns out to be a monk practicing at City Center. There were many people cleaning up all around us to prepare for the second show. The conversation was interesting -- she seems like a fascinating person, obviously with a lot of energy, and maybe a little surprised at how she seems to be running two very successful jazz clubs. “I’ve created two monsters,” is how she started the conversation. She is obviously dedicated to supporting artists, and interested in fusion, combining different art forms from different cultural traditions, etc.

She asked if we wanted to stay for the second show. It was getting late, but we all felt that we would like to hear more. So she gave instructions that we were to be given the best table in the house, right in the center of the club. The host mentioned that they had 60 or 70 paid tickets already and people lined up out the sidewalk. Yoshi just shrugged and said, “they were here first,” and so we sat down as people were coming in.

Myosho treated us to dessert and a small plate of sushi -- we weren’t particularly hungry, of course, having just had a banquet, but we did want to sample the food a little bit at least. I enjoyed the second show much more than the first, probably because I finally was able to settle down and listen to the music. Jogen was captivated by the drummer, who was quite a maniac -- evidently Jogen used to play drums. I found myself finally keying in (so to speak) to the piano player, who was incredible. I told Jogen that I grew up playing piano, and so I suppose it is logical. A very good string bass player joined Wayne Shorter himself on saxophone to round out the band. Each of the musicians was exceptional, and I began to be able to appreciate the ways that their individual sounds wove together to create various shapes, many quite intricate.

At one point Jogen looked at us and said it was past 11pm, and did we want to go. I said, I can’t leave in the middle of this song, I love this song. He just smiled. We did leave once that piece ended, resolutely not listening to the enticing strains of a new piece starting.

We got directions for how to get back on the freeway to go back across the bridge to City Center, but because there were two on ramps right together, got on to the wrong one and went the wrong way. We got off that freeway (I still couldn’t tell you where we were) and how to get back on that one going back the other way was not clear. We finally again asked directions, circled around in a way we never would have figured out except for those directions, and managed to get going the right way back to the city.

We got to City Center around midnight, and of course could find no place to park. We drove around for a half hour before finally finding something about 4-5 blocks away. Not all that bad, really, but it took a long time to find. I had asked about how we would get into the center that late, and was told that all we had to do was ring the bell and someone would let us in. So we got there about 12:30, and rang the bell. Nothing happened. We rang again. Nothing. Looked in the window to the hall way. Nothing. Rang again three times. Nothing. It was a full ten minutes and many ringings of the bell before a sleepy-looking woman (who I assume was a monk) finally answered the door and let us in. Evidently they assign someone to sleep in the Buddha hall, which is near the front door, to take care of night arrivals. And she was just sound asleep and didn’t hear the bell for quite a while.

We headed down to the zendo to catch a few hours sleep before getting up in the morning. Our plan as I understood it was to get up at 5am, leaving by 6am. We had arranged to find breakfast (bagels and cheese and tomatoes) to take with us. I had again brought my sleeping bag and therm-a-rest pad in with me, and was able to make quite a comfortable bed on the tan in the zendo, simply by stacking up zabutons. My two fellow travelers weren’t as fortunate, not having brought in any bedding, evidently. They had been told that there were blankets, but hadn’t found out where, and of course we didn’t have the heart to ask any questions of the monk who let us in. I gave Jogen my alpaca shawl, which he graciously accepted, but I later learned that Jikan slept very little, and wandered around trying to find some spaces that were warmer.

I had set my alarm for 5am, and it went off. Jogen went to wake Jikan, who was at this point on the other side of the zendo, and came back telling me that it was only 5am, and they had decided to sleep until 6am. Well, I was awake, so I got up and went to the bathroom, finally brushing my teeth and washing up and getting ready for the day. Packed everything up to get ready to go, and went upstairs to breakfast. Although there was no formal breakfast, things were set out, as several people were up getting ready to catch planes, etc., including my teachers. We got bagels, cheese, tomatoes, bananas, and headed out the door with all our stuff, finally leaving the city at about 7am.

We really did drive straight through. Stopped at a grocery store to get food to munch on in the car (deli salads, donuts, etc.), no more restaurants. Stopped maybe twice at rest stops along the way. Jikan started out driving, but at some point Jogen took over and I found it prudent to stop looking at the speedometer (though I glanced over once in a while, quickly glancing away again). He drove the rest of the way, even though I offered to take a stint. We drove up to the Zen Center in Portland at 5pm.

This has ended up being very long. I’ve probably left things out even so, but I wanted to record what I could at least.

Update September 21, 2008

2008-09-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Let's see, chronological order.

The talent/no talent show (Saturday, Sept. 13) was fun, and none of us made complete fools of ourselves. Not bad on the talent end of things, in spite of it being done by amateurs. The Lonesome Dove play went better than some previous ones have (though last year's Wild Kingdom featuring Zen Buddhists in the Wild was hilarious). I think part of why I enjoyed it so much was that I wasn't in it. The two younger ordained people were both in it, wearing wigs (one was a hooker with long red hair and the other was an Indian with long black hair). And then Kyogen and I were singing. Prompting the MC to say that if you were monastics here you had to either wear a wig or sing a song in the talent show. Hmmm... come to think of it, though, Gyokuko got out of it altogether other than as an audience person.

All of our songs went pretty well, all things considered. The sound system worked well, though we did have to borrow mike stands. Still, when a local professional rock singer brought her high-end bass guitar amp on stage (though she did use our mike for her vocals), you could tell the difference between amateur and professional. Man, she was hot! They saved her to last, which I think was a good choice. The next day (Sunday) featured two meetings, and then I quickly packed to get out of town for my vacation. This is the first time I've used a Zipcar to do this, and I found out a few things. First, there's a 4-day limit on renting these cars, which I didn't know about before. I pleaded with someone in customer service to get a few extra hours to bring it back so I could stop in Corvallis and see the grandchildren after they got out of school. They graciously extended my reservation a few hours (which of course I paid for at an hourly rate), and that worked out beautifully.

I started out camping for two days in my traditional Beverly Beach campground near Newport. It was cold and foggy (very hot inland usually translates to cool and foggy at the coast), and it took me a little while to realize that I needed to be wearing wool socks, not going barefoot! I spent some time reading in my car overlooking the ocean rather than actually being out on the beach. Still, I did get a chance to gather wood, build a fire, cook my own dinner and breakfast, and generally "do camping" even for a couple of days, and I'm content with that for another year.

Then I went to visit sister Marilyn and her family (daughter Carrie and husband Don) in Cottage Grove. Had some nice conversation with them and some nice hang-out time before going to pick up Mother and heading to Phyllis's house in Eugene. Got to have dinner with Marilyn and Carrie, Josie and Nathaniel, Elizabeth and David, Phyllis and John, and of course, Mother. Stayed over with Aunt Phyllis, and got to visit with her the next morning for a while before she went off to her next project. Then I headed to Corvallis.

Got to visit with Nico and baby Brendan first because Alice was out picking up Matthew from school. Oh, my, that baby is cute -- smiley and happy all the time. He's about 10 months old at this point, and friendly as can be. When Alice and Matthew came in, I was surprised to see how tall he's become (is that a grandma comment or what!) -- he's easily going to be the tallest in the family, and a bit of a string bean, which is also not typical for that family. Then Alice went out again to pick up Christopher. Christopher was his usual sunny self as well, and the boys really enjoy their back yard. They also seem to enjoy being big brothers, both enjoying the baby and playing gently with him. I had a good visit, got my "baby fix," and headed back home.

And things have been busy here, of course, as we gear up for term starting next week. On Friday the abbots took a vacation day, and the phones kept ringing. They came back to several appointments for Saturday, and both of them spent hours yesterday talking with various students. One of the students was me -- I talked with Gyokuko to clarify where I am in terms of assistant tenzo. One thing I've determined is that I need to be signing up to assist at meal preps regularly, and put it on my calendar. If I leave it to when I feel like it, it doesn't happen. So I'm starting to do that.

Today I had a meeting after services about the budget (don't ask me how I got hooked into talking with people about the budget -- long story). It was interesting, and then I got talking with one of the board members, and finally we both decided we needed to go our respective ways. So I fixed myself some lunch and spent my traditional Sunday afternoon hour with the newspaper. It's raining here, and feels like fall for sure. I have more energy than I typically have on a Sunday afternoon, and I suspect it's because I've only put in a couple of work days this week. I really relaxed on my vacation, and that was good.

September 12 -- My head is spinning ...

2008-09-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

... and term hasn't even started yet, officially at least. Since my last update (about the farm retreat), I've done several things that have been interesting, but haven't had a lot of time to report on them. Let's see if I can remember what they are.

Last weekend I was jisha (teacher's assistant, who carries the incense in ceremonies) for my first weekend retreat -- which involved my first time as jisha for full morning service and also for sanzen (formal interview with a teacher). The sanzen was challenging, especially since many of the people at the retreat were relatively new members who hadn't ever done it before. So lots of kind of pointing directions, making sure people got where they needed to go, etc. I would occasionally sit down, but usually had to get back up. I would stand, and then after a while when nothing happened, would sit back down, and of course then something would happen and I had to get up. I've heard jishas complain about sanzen during retreats for years, and now I have an idea of what they mean. But it was also kind of fun.

There were three of us in training positions during this retreat, and we had a nice chat afterwards celebrating all of our many mistakes. I have to say I'm getting better at making mistakes, easier about it. Just noticing that I did that wrong, and do it right next time, or ask questions if I'm not sure how it was supposed to go.

Today I met with my teacher and one of the things we talked about was the newsletter. The editor is stepping down, and I'm being named "managing editor" (my teacher is the "publisher" or "executive editor" or something like that). I've been doing a lot of work on the newsletter for quite some time (including putting it up on the website after it's complete), but have been holding back in favor of encouraging others to get involved. Last month I just kind of took over some things to get them done (since the previous editor was doing very little at that point), and it was a lot easier. It's almost time to gear up for the next newsletter, after I get back from vacation, and I'm not all that sure what we have, but hopefully things will begin to be clearer.

Oh, and this coming Saturday [tomorrow!!] is our talent/no talent show, and I'm going to be in it, in spite of my best efforts to stay quiet and not be noticed. My teacher asked me and another fella to help him sing some of the old chestnuts from an act he has done with various people over the years called "Karmic Relief." In fact, I think that may have been one of the first events I came to DRZC for way back when, a concert, before I became a member. It's kind of fun, but involves my playing guitar and singing, which is a little stressful, since my guitar playing isn't exactly what I'd call proficient. Fortunately, the other fella is good on the guitar, so I am pretty much backup. Still, one of the songs has a fairly challenging chord structure, so we'll see.

My teacher informs me that it's now Friday (yikes! somehow I was thinking it was still Thursday) and we're supposed to rehearse in a half-hour, and I was going to set up the sound system. So I'd better go do that. If anyone in the Portland area wants to come by tomorrow night about 7pm at SE 25th and Madison, admission is by donation, and it should be a hoot. We have a group putting on a play based on "Lonesome Dove" (I think they may be calling it something like "Solitary Pigeon"). And other stuff. Maybe I'll get a chance to let you all know how it goes.

Farm Retreat -- Written August 29, 2008

2008-09-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's officially called the Mountains & Waters Zendo-Raising Retreat, but Farm Retreat is easier to say. We actually came back a day early, i.e., yesterday rather than today. That was because we were all so efficient with our carpooling that the couple of people who needed to come back yesterday meant that half of the retreat participants were leaving. We decided that the other three of us from Portland would also leave, hence we are back early.

It was a really wonderful retreat. My first as Tenzo (chief cook). It was a ridiculously easy tenzo experience in many ways (which didn't necessarily make it easy for me, as I find the whole thing difficult). First, Seido, who was hostess, shuso (the one who actually runs the retreat and makes sure everything happens as it's supposed to), and head of construction for the Zendo-raising, also did all the menu planning and shopping. She has an outdoor kitchen she sets up for retreats out there in the Empty Field Hermitage. We tented out near there as well. The kitchen had propane stoves, tubs for wash water, a faucet, a cooler, dry storage bin, and pots, pans, serving bowls, plates and utensils. For some things I did have to go to the house and/or the packout cooler, which was a little bit of a walk through the fields. I realized last night, though, walking to the Sangha House from the Dharma House, that the distance was fairly equivalent to that walk I make here at least twice a day, and often more.

I had a clipboard, and an expanded menu with lots of room for me to make lists on. "Shopping" lists of things to get either from the house or from the packout cooler -- this is a working organic farm, and they work Tuesday Market, Thursday Market, and Saturday Market. This is a busy time of year, of course, harvesting things, getting them ready for sale in the packout area, washing and labeling them, etc. Seido met with me every morning, and we checked in usually a couple of times during the day to make sure I had what I needed to prepare the next meal or two.

Breakfasts were simplified by not cooking oatmeal, but having granola instead. Fruit was mostly strawberries (picked daily by my faithful assistant Adam) and sometimes blackberries. And then tea, which it took a couple of mornings to get down exactly right. I usually missed part of morning zazen to get breakfast together, which we then ate together in silence in the zendo, oryoki style. Lunches were usually sandwich-y (tofu pate, egg salad, one day grilled tempeh to make "BLTs") with often a salad. These we ate informally in chairs around the kitchen. Dinners were also somewhat informal, but at that point we entered into silence which lasted through evening zazen, morning zazen, and through next morning's breakfast. Dinners usually involved some real cooking, grilling or some sort of melange of flavors in sauce to put over pasta, rice, or quinoa.

All of it came out really well, and I even did pretty well at estimating quantities -- I guess I have been absorbing something during the kitchen work I've been forcing myself to do so far. It also helped that we had 2 three-hour work periods every day. This is not typical of retreats, let me tell you, and it helped me immensely to have that much time, especially early in the week when I was still pretty intimidated by the whole thing and trying to figure out where to start, what needed to be done next, where to find whatever it was I needed, etc. I eventually discovered that I needed to take my breaks during work periods, since break times for the rest of the crew were often when I needed to be intensively involved in the kitchen fixing dinner.

Also, of course, I was working with incredibly good food -- all this beautiful fresh produce, much of it picked that very day. We had sweet corn twice, once grilled and the second time steamed. Tomatoes -- many of the tomatoes that weren't considered perfect enough to go to market, made it into our consumption. I discovered the first day or so that I was grabbing cherry tomatoes and carrots for snacks out of the colander handy on the counter, and decided to put those on the snack/beverage table for the work crew. They began disappearing at a good clip. The carrots were, you know, crooked and otherwise "imperfect," but were incredibly delicious. We had sliced tomatoes with almost every lunch. And herbs -- oh, my, what a luxury to go outside and pick thyme, marjoram, oregano, basil, mint ... I made marinades for tofu and tempeh, threw herbs into pasta primavera and curry sauce -- well, who can go wrong with all of this to work with?

The work crew actually got the engawa pretty much done. This is like a deck all around the outside of the building, which will eventually be used to do kinhin (walking meditation), which I gather is traditional in Japanese temples. There is still finish work to do on it, but they got it substantially in place. After lunch yesterday we did a little ceremony where we circumambulated the building three times chanting in order to dedicate or bless it. That was pretty cool. It felt good, solid. A job well done.

I did take a bunch of pictures, and will try to get them up here if possible.

Great Earth Retreat, and Softball

2008-08-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Good grief, July is already gone, and I'm officially 59 years old. My birthday was last Sunday, and I spent much of it out at the monastery at the end of a week-long silent retreat. This week since then has been really busy, and I'm coming up for air a little today.

The retreat was glorious. The theme was "Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth," and we spent probably 50% of our meditation time outdoors (the weather cooperated beautifully). Some of that was lying down directly on the earth (in the case of those of us wearing robes, we had a tarp and sheet to protect our clothing) on the generous grounds surrounding the monastery. A lot of that was in the various grassy meadows. In my case, I took a hat to protect my head and wore socks to keep the bugs away from my feet and ankles (they love me). All of that worked. I did fall asleep early on during one period, but woke up before the bell, feeling refreshed, and after that found that it was easy to keep the mind of meditation throughout.

The other thing we did as the week progressed was to sit in the woods (we were encouraged to pick out a tree to sit beneath) on cushions on tarps, and the last three evenings we did that in the dark after 10pm. I say "we" loosely here, since Thursday night I took off and came back to Portland for a meeting here and then went back late that night, so didn't get a chance to do outdoor night sitting that night. Friday I did, though, and it was delightful. I kept waiting for it to get dark, and figured it was really taking a long time (no watch, no flashlight), and finally decided that this was as dark as it was going to get (I had heard others talking about it being pitch dark, and was waiting for that). Even though the moon hadn't yet risen, there was still a faint luminosity to the sky so I could see branches against it. That meant I wouldn't get disoriented no matter what.

We were told that sometimes it's scary to be in the woods in the dark, and I suspected this would not be true for me. I was right. In fact, I enjoyed the experience profoundly. I also found it true in the zendo (meditation hall) itself that when they turned the lights off I could relax in a way I found difficult when the lights were on. There's something comforting to me about darkness. That was interesting. So anyway, I just enjoyed myself out there in the woods until I started to think about going to sleep right there in the woods. But ... the tarp I was sitting on was maybe a tidge too small (I wasn't in robes by this time, had changed to samue [work clothes]), and the cape I was wearing wasn't going to be quite adequate as a blanket all night. Otherwise, I would totally have done it. Finally, I got up and went in, and it was plenty dark in terms of seeing the trail or obstacles in the path, and I did have to feel my way a bit until I could see the lights of the monastery. When I got in, I found that it was almost midnight and everyone else was in bed.

We were getting up at 4:20 every morning once we started night sitting (before that it had been 3:50), and Thursday night I didn't get back to the monastery until 12:30am, so you can see that I had two nights of not very much sleep (though there were a couple of opportunities for naps during the day). By Saturday night, the last night, I just decided that I needed to go to bed rather than go back out into the woods. I did so, and woke just ahead of the wake-up bell the next morning feeling that this had been a good choice.

What I learned in this retreat -- well, I found the earth as an ally. Lying on the earth, being in direct contact with it, I found a presence I could ask questions of, a presence that is very accepting and wise, a place to take refuge. That was nice. And it was nice to realize what I did about my feelings about the darkness as comforting and familiar. I'm going to pay attention to that.

The rest of this week has been pretty busy -- another newsletter issue to get ready. On Thursday morning, several of us went and spent a couple of hours practicing for a softball game coming up in a couple of weeks. Friday and yesterday, I felt the results of that -- oh, my, muscles I haven't used in a very long time. What I discovered is that I can still catch (except when the ball disappears into the sun), and I can still hit the ball. Running is okay, though my wind (lung power) is really toast, worse than I ever remember it being. Need to do some cardio work. And I still can't throw (never have been able to with any power or accuracy). My best throwing is underarm, so that's what I did. That kind of semi-crouch stance where you're getting ready to catch the ball or run for the base? I found that it uses very specific muscles that I don't usually use, and so does underarm throwing. Did you know that slicing bread and underarm throwing use a lot of the same muscles (only of course throwing stresses those muscles much more)? Who knew?

This coming week looks pretty busy as well. Tomorrow evening I'm going to the hospital to visit a friend who is getting surgery for a tumor on her kidney, and probably I will check in with her on Tuesday as well. Thursday morning we have an excursion planned to go to MtHood to pick blueberries, and that evening is our annual outing at Oak Amusement Park (the same one where I broke my wrist roller skating last year), and yes, I'm planning to go roller skating again. And there are meetings, and lots of things to do, take care of, etc.

Overall, I'm doing very well. Summer is supposed to be a lighter schedule for us, and so it is, but I'm supplementing the Dharma Rain schedule with the Zen Community of Oregon schedule, and am pretty involved with both groups. Between the two groups and my own continuing sitting meditation practice every morning at 6am, I'm staying plenty busy.

I'm planning on taking a vacation break September 14-18, going to the coast to camp for a couple of days and then going to Cottage Grove and Eugene for a couple of days to see family, hopefully visiting with grandkids in Corvallis on the way back up to Portland. I'll rent a ZipCar, which of course will cost me some money, but should be worth it for those days. Now that I've sold my car, I do have some limited funds to tide me over until I can access one of my retirement funds next January. Money is tight, but fortunately, my needs are few.

The beginning of October several of us will go to San Francisco to attend the Soto Zen Buddhist Association annual conference for 4 days -- this year they have one for teachers and for the first time one for "associates" (junior priests or novice monks, depending on what different places call us) like me. Looks like I can drive down with one of the teachers (My teacher Kyogen has to go early with special responsibilities, and I think junior priest Domyo does as well as one of the conference organizers), and the temple will pay my registration. I'm looking forward to seeing the two San Francisco Zen Center places, as this is a huge center of Zen in America, and may in fact be a place where I will go to do a training period at some point in the future.

The other place associated with SFZC is Tassajara, which survived a massive fire this summer. We won't be going there, but I see on their website that they are planning to re-open today. Pretty gutsy, since the fire basically burned out the entire valley, and they lost two outbuildings. Five people, including the abbot, stayed behind against the firefighters' advice, and fought the fire to save the most of the buildings themselves. They managed to do it, and survive, which is amazing. An incredible story, really inspiring. If I go for training at some point in the future, Tassajara is the most likely place I will go, though Green Gulch (where we will be staying this October) is another possibility, I gather.

Wow, this has gotten pretty long, so I'll quit for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

An Unexpected Adventure - July 18, 2008

2008-07-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

I was all set to go to the prison program tonight (Friday the 18th), or at least I thought I was. Getsushin came to pick me up at 5:30, and I got into her car. She was talking about how she didn't have to go pick up Kisei tonight, as Kisei would go separately, which makes it a lot easier for us, so we had plenty of time. I noticed that Getsushin's bag was at my feet, as usual, and suddenly realized I didn't have my rakusu. We were barely started, so we circled around the block and I got my rakusu.

Drove to Wilsonville, got to the prison parking lot, and as we were getting out of the car and I was preparing to go in, suddenly realized I didn't have my driver's license. I don't have a separate ID badge yet, so need the driver's license, which they hold while they give me a visitor's badge when I go in. But without the driver's license, I can't go in at all.

I had heard of this happening with others, and there is nothing to do but to wait outside (or find another way to go home). It was at least a beautiful evening, so I decided to take a walk and see how I could occupy myself for 3 hours while I waited for them.

So walk I did. I've been a little confused about the streets from the freeway to the prison, so figured walking them would get that more clear to me. I walked almost all the way to the freeway, just looking at the sights, hearing the birds, enjoying the sunshine. It was slightly warm for walking, but not bad at all. It was a little strange to be walking along the sidewalk in an area I don't know all that well, with no identification, no money, only glasses and keys on me. I make it a practice not to take much when I go to the prison, because you can't take much in (the keys go into a locker with the others -- no keys in prison), and it just seems easier not to have all that stuff to keep track of. So there I was, feeling a little like a wandering monk (though I didn't have a begging bowl either -- fortunately I wasn't hungry!).

When I got almost to the freeway, I found a kind of industrial park area that I turned in to. Since it was Friday evening, there was no one around, and it was all nicely landscaped and such, so I found a place to sit for a while in the shade. After a while got up and walked further around the area, and found another place to sit, pretty much at the side of the freeway. Sat there for another half hour.

Got up and walked a little more and saw a large rhododendron bush that had been in bloom not all that long ago -- the blossoms were faded but you could still see they were a deep red color. So I started deadheading. Spent at least a half hour on that, and didn't get the bush done -- it may have been more than one bush, but if so it was all the same kind and color of blossom. It was right by the exit, but separated from the freeway of course by a fence. I watched the time to make sure I would get back in time, and finally decided I'd better get back, because I wasn't sure how long it would take me.

As it happened, I got back to the parking lot pretty early. So I sat at the top of this grassy hill for a little while until the sun went down. Now the breeze was feeling chilly. So I got back up and decided to walk around the parking lot, which I did. Eventually walked along a sidewalk over to see the Minimum side (we visit in Medium, but I will go over to Minimum probably in the fall to start a new group).

As I walked, I saw that there was a Corrections Officer ahead of me having a smoke. I walked up to her, and she asked if she could help me. I explained my situation and that it was warmer to walk than to sit still. She told me that technically without ID, I shouldn't really be on the premises at all, and some would ask me to leave. I shrugged and said if need be, I could wait by the front gate, but that my friends should be coming out soon. We commiserated a little about how easy it is to leave one's ID where it doesn't belong. At least I picked a nice night for this one. She seemed fairly easygoing, and allowed me to walk back to the parking lot.

I went back to Getsushin's car and waited there for the last 15 minutes before she and Kisei finally came out. Kisei gave me a hug and noticed my ears were cold. I got back into Getsushin's car, and did my best to make sure I got everything out when I got back home. Not the way I expected to spend this evening at all. Still, had enjoyable aspects to it.

---

Also, just so you know, I will be on retreat this coming week (starting today - Monday, July 21) out at the monastery and therefore unavailable for a while.

What is rest?

2008-06-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about what it means to let the mind rest, which is what we do in zazen (sitting meditation). This comes with the realization that I don't really know how to do this (even after 9 years of practicing). I realize that I tend to dream a lot (as many of us do), replaying snippets from the past, speculating on the future, planning, making lists, etc. When I try to let all of that go, I tend to get sleepy. One thing that this tells me is that I'm escaping in two primary ways: working on something, or sleeping.

I'm not being all that judgmental here, though it sounds like it. I think many people are in this situation without really seeing that. I'm trying to see what's really going on here. My lifetime M.O. has been to distract myself from difficult emotions or situations either by working or by sleeping (or otherwise shutting down, if actual sleeping is not possible). Work can be defined pretty broadly, including that planning, strategizing, speculating, etc., that I can do endlessly on the cushion if I don't stop myself.

The problem is that when I do manage to stop myself, I get sleepy. And what I realize about that is that this is another attempt to escape the present.

So, what does it mean to let the mind rest? Just to sit still? To notice what is happening around me, to appreciate the morning, the sounds of birds, the light on the carpet in front of me, the comfort (or lack of it) of my body sitting. I've been trying to bring this mind of zazen gently to noticing how much I try to work, sleep, or otherwise escape, while I'm on the cushion. Just to notice, not to judge.

This is still not easy for me. I will keep working on it, though. Once in a while I find myself in equanimity, just resting, just sitting still. It's a nice place to be.

Long update

2008-06-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

I decided to share a long journal entry with you all today. The context is that my teacher has finally recommended that I consider counseling outside the Center, and I have an appointment tomorrow (Wednesday). I've never done any extended counseling before, though there was a short bout of couples counseling with one of my earlier relationships, and one or two sessions with various people over the years. I have a better sense of what I need to work on now, though, as a result of the work I've been doing the last 2-1/2 years.

Yesterday I decided I wanted just to write a bunch, without trying to keep it to one page, and I then put that together with what I had written the day before. Here's the result.

--- 5/31/08. Anxiety about this counseling thing. I just identified some of it -- expectations. The whole goal-oriented, quantified outcomes thing totally smacks of expectations and judgement, both of which I've been working hard to let go of. I have an hour and half every day (of zazen, sitting meditation) when I can sit and do nothing, when I can drop all of that. It's a treasure, and I'll be taking advantage of that for a while yet, even in the summer when it's not on the schedule.

I was thinking of "M." She was a student who we labeled "difficult" in some ways. Her resistance came out in interesting ways, criticism, sometimes going to anger, general complaining and bitching. She didn't cooperate in some ways, but she kept coming to class in the face of formidable obstacles -- most notably the fact that she lived a 35-minute drive away, outside of our bus range, and so she had to get herself and her children to our program on her own. She had a 5th grade education in her home country, and was barely literate. She had left two older children behind with her mother in order to pursue survival in the United States.

She kept working on it all. She gradually learned enough English to function. She got a work permit and got a job. She negotiated getting her car fixed, in English.

One of the things she "refused" to do was to write in her dialog journal. We figured it was because she didn't want to write about anything personal, that she wanted to stay private. After a couple of years she began to turn in journals with some English phrases that I recognized as being from an ESL text (by this time she was taking community college classes in English). I responded by trying to turn it into her own experience, to make it more meaningful. For example, she would write about going to the bank, and I would ask where she went to a bank, which bank, did she drive to the bank, etc. She didn't respond at first, just wrote more phrases from the book.

Finally, a few tentative sentences. I spoke to her one day and said I appreciated how she was beginning to write in her journal. Her response was, "this is very hard for me." I suddenly realized that I had been making a lot of judgements and labeling as resistance a matter of a task that was quite simply overwhelming to her, beyond her capabilities.

This is how I feel about emotional work. Tracing down anger is this dance that is very difficult, and sometimes quite simply beyond me. I'm beginning to learn, but I've been a helpless infant in this area. I'm beginning to try to crawl and maybe even to walk, but I'm still awfully wobbly. This is very hard for me.

My students used to express gratitude for my patience. I don't know where I learned patience and calm -- I have felt little enough of both toward myself during this emotional work. However, I do see it in my own teachers. They have been putting up with me as we all did with M. -- trusting that she would somehow find her way through. And she did.

I've had a fear of my teachers tiring of me, my own getting tired of it, of wanting things to clarify, to change in some way. This then taps into old habit energy patterns that say I'm not worth all of this attention and care and patience, that I don't deserve to live. And there goes that spiral downward.

I saw it happen last week, that tipping over from acceptance into despair. I couldn't seem to stop it. I just finally had to ride it all the way down. I do think these episodes are becoming a little shorter.

Sunday, June 1, 2008, 7:30pm
I waited in the sitting room of the Dharma House for Sanzen with Kyogen this morning. There was a green fleece blanket in the wicker wastebasket next to the fireplace in front of me. I recognized it, and wondered what it was doing there. It doesn't belong there, I thought, wanting to rescue it, put it somewhere else, find a way to let everyone know this isn't acceptable. But I was sitting zazen, and there were others in the room also waiting for Sanzen sitting zazen, and I couldn't jump and disturb them, nor was it the right time to do anything about this.

My mind was jumping all over the place. Sunday morning, cleaning up after Kakumyo, jumping into robes at the last minute, deciding on Sanzen at the last minute, mind whirling. I could feel fatigue alternating with all these thoughts of managing this, that, the other thing.

Calm down, I think. Settle. Zazen, sanzen, I don't even know what to talk about today. My student M.? Okay, maybe. My ineptitude at emotional stuff? What's real right now? What's alive right now? I tried to bring the mind of zazen to watch my emotions. They swirled around, slammed against a wall. I feel like a rat in a maze, backed into a corner. Want to hunker down, get small, disappear.

Okay. I know that reaction -- try to escape, be invisible. The only emotion I really know is fear, and my reactions careen off this wall and then the other as I ride the elevator sideways, out of control.

Okay, that's getting closer to what's really going on.

The person sitting next to me goes in for sanzen, and I look at my watch, almost 9am, close enough for the kesa verse. I take out my kesa and put it on my head, saying the verse silently. I put on the kesa, still chanting silently, ending in gassho.

Pretty soon the bell rings and I go in. I tell the story of M. I tell Kyogen that's how I feel about emotional stuff -- it's very hard for me (at this point I begin to cry, nothing unusual there). I tell him I have a lot of respect for M., though, because she kept at it.

It occurs to me now that she was only able to tell us hard it was when she was beginning to crack the code, beginning to see how it worked. She finally began to see writing as something she hadn't known how to do, something that was hard for her. It was an important turning point for her. It clarified something for her, something she needed to work on, something she could begin to see she could work on, not just some huge overwhelming blob that couldn't ever be penetrated.

My students have taught me so much.

Kyogen listened to me and nodded understandingly. We talked a little about difficult students we have known and how really we all know that we will keep working, keep trying to find a way to help each other get down the road. I confessed anxiety about this counseling thing. He reassured me that counselors were kind, not out to get me or show how inadequate I may be. Finally, he said he would be interested if I wanted to share something of my process with him. It might be better to keep it somewhat separate, but it would be up to me.

We looked at each other then. I saw his kindness. I saw his trust of me, and my own trust of him. "Thank you" was in my mind, and maybe in my eyes, but it didn't come out of my mouth. He smiled and rang the bell.

Still Busy -- May 23

2008-06-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I did manage to get back from retreat last Sunday, and it's just been another busy week. The retreat was good. The anxiety I felt over working in the kitchen kicked up the first afternoon, and I almost panicked, just barely keeping it together. MrK, the tenzo, kindly put me to cleaning up things and dealt with the problem on his own. I felt awful, and cried through one afternoon.

But after that, I was able to calm down and things went better. In fact, he found things for me to do that I felt confident about -- pie crust, bread, biscuits, dishwashing, cookies, and a few other things. And it all worked out well.

It felt strange to be on retreat and not only not be leading chants, but in fact not even being in the zendo during two of the four services of the day because I was in the kitchen instead. A very different experience. Every retreat has been a different experience for me. I'm learning just to expect that this will be the case.

Since I've been back there has been a lot going on, both externally and internally. I got a letter from the Department of Corrections scheduling me for a volunteer training. Along with that, I had to do self-study with a booklet that is online, print out the last 15 pages of self-test and fill those out, and sent those in yesterday. The training will be June 5 in Salem. After that, at some point I will do a tour of the facility I am volunteering at (Coffee Creek Correctional Facility -- CCCF), and somewhere in there get my own ID badge. This should allow me to go to the prison by myself as needed.

I was planning to go this evening, but the person who was scheduled to do it has come down sick, and so we're cancelling the group. Once I get my card, I could jump in for others who have things come up like that.

I saw an e-mail about a chaplancy study program being offered through Upaya Zen Center (where I went in 2003 for a weekend). It looks wonderful, and I think I could probably fold it in to my training here. But it costs $5400, and they don't offer scholarships. With no income, and my money running out, this is simply not an option. Sigh. Oh, well.

I've pretty much given up on going to China next year with our group as well. So, yes, my money is almost gone. I need to sell my car quickly, and hope I'll get enough money to pay for some of what I've put out to maintain it this last few years. I need to quit paying insurance, gas, etc. I use it very little. But selling it is work in itself, and not work I'm that interested in.

Some of the work this week has been a result of the retreat -- laundering linens and washing bowls and utensils from oryoki sets, not to mention my own laundry and bowls. I like to put our sets away clean and ready to go for the next time we need them rather than trying to assemble them right beforehand when time is tight and there are a million things to do at the last minute.

I've been doing more and more as jisha, sometimes kind of impromptu. Jisha is a word meaning something like the one who carries incense, and that is the hallmark of what a jisha does during a ceremony. But it also extends to meaning a teacher's assistant. Our teachers are a bit different from most Zen teachers in that they don't like the idea of personal assistants, and rarely tolerate much in the way of personal attending (i.e., we don't tend to bring them tea on a set schedule, etc.). I'm getting more comfortable with the choreography of how a jisha moves during a ceremony, and how to hold incense. Still forgetting at least one thing every time, and sometimes making what I consider spectacular mistakes (which most other people who are not jishas don't notice).

This week I suddenly had to oversee sanzen (teacher interview), which I had not been trained on. My teacher knew this, and didn't expect me to do the extra setup and bows required. That afternoon, I had Jyoshin teach me how to deal with sanzen, and hopefully now I will be able to do this. I've had to do at least one Saturday morning, and will also do tomorrow morning because the jisha scheduled for that has a conflict and asked whether I would do it. The drawback of being someone who lives here is that I'm always available and easy to tap. The advantage to that is that I get more practice than many others.

Since I've been back this week I've had very little time to spend in the kitchen here. I want to do more of that, but really am just trying to catch up on everything. We're back into newsletter production, and I've had a fair amount of that to do. Had a meeting yesterday that I had to type up minutes from. Put together a flyer for an August event today. Next will have to get it onto the web. Etc.

Heading Out Again -- written May 11

2008-06-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Well, things have been very busy the last month, and tomorrow we leave for the monastery for a week-long retreat. There will be periods of busy-ness there, as well, because I'm assistant tenzo again, so all my work periods will be in the kitchen. But the rest of the time will be primarily silence, lots of sitting meditation in silence, with some interviews with teachers, some dharma talks, and some chanting services. I may have to miss most of the chanting services in favor of the kitchen, not sure yet. I find myself looking forward to the quiet, and the fact that there will be no more actual decisions to make, no more conversations (other than with the teacher), a time to focus inward, a structure that will keep me contained.

I did two talks in the last month, at Term Student retreats (everyone who participated in the retreats was required to give a 10-minute talk). Here's how I ended the one yesterday. It outlines the beginning of my days. The talk was about love, and the point I was making was that everything I do here is about love.

The alarm goes off at 5:10. Some days I'm already awake, and other days I struggle to come out of slumber. I get out of bed around 5:20 or so, make the bed as I get out of it. I wash and dress and head out the door, turning off the porch light and locking the door carefully behind me.

I walk the three blocks to the Dharma house, looking at the sky, listening to the birds, smelling the air, appreciating the fact that I can walk in this wonderful world.

At the Dharma House I take off my shoes as I enter the side door so I can walk quietly upstairs toward the front door inside. Hang up my jacket and put my shoes where I can easily find them in a few minutes. I go upstairs, put my purse away, get out of some of the clothes I just put on in exchange for a sitting robe. Get my shawl to stay warm. Back downstairs, where I may or may not get a drink of water, and then put my shoes and shawl on and go out the front door, across the street to the Zendo.

I go in the basement door, put my shoes and socks and keys away, get my kesa case, get a drink of water (if I didn't do that at the Dharma House), and go upstairs the zendo.

I check to make sure the zendo is set up all right, look to see whether there are things I need to do, and either take care of them or assure myself that someone else has it covered. I take care of what is mine to take care of, and then take my seat by 6am.

I do this every day except Sunday, when the schedule is different, and my service to the community takes a different, perhaps more public form.

April is busy -- written April 27

2008-06-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, take 10 minutes to do a quick update. Lotsa stuff happening, right after another after another. Friday I went and picked up new shelves for the newly-remodeled laundry room. MrK put them together, and I painted the shelves, since the sun was out. 9 shelves altogether (this is Rapid Rack shelving -- with metal frames and adjustable shelves, and particleboard shelves). Put a coat of primer all over, and a coat of gloss enamel on one side of each. In between did some office work, updating the website, etc.

Friday evening I finally went to Coffee Creek (women's prison near Wilsonville) for my first visit. I went with Getsushin, who is the director of the prison program here. She's in her 70s, a retired UofO professor, an interesting woman originally from Norway, and with a pretty strong accent still. She has spent time in Africa, France, and various other countries. She has been ordained here for several years, and is also transmitted and can give the Precepts. She has been working in the prisons for several years now.

Anyway, we went to the Medium building, and I sat in on the weekly group there. They do check-in first, then 20 minutes of sitting meditation, and then study a text. Getsushin uses the text as an anchor for discussion, which is the way I like to do these kinds of groups as well. How does the dharma apply to our daily lives and the issues we're working with. In prison, people are having to deal with making sense of their lives and trying to find ways to change how they've always done things. The prison environment both helps and hinders that process. Our work there is to help people find a way to work with the environment, to take advantage of the opportunity provided by having your life completely disrupted and stopped in some ways, to take a close look at what's going on and find a way to live more authentically, more wholesomely. Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion a lot, and the women seemed to enjoy it as well. They all thanked me for coming and asked me to come back. We told them that the eventual plan is for me to work in Minimum on Saturdays, and a couple of them are scheduled to move to Minimum soon, I gather.

I got back home a little after 10 (because Getsushin and I talked a bit as she dropped me off, of course), and then got up at 4:15am yesterday so I could do the Zazenkai all day yesterday. That is, we were in silence from 5am to 5pm, with formal oryoki meals (like we do on a silent retreat), chanting services, and lots of sitting meditation, about 8 hours of that during the 12-hour time period. It was hard at the time in a lot of ways, and yet I find that today I can feel the benefits of having done it. And now, in a moment, it will be time for breakfast, and that will begin Sunday morning programs, which are always fun and tiring.

Scary Talk

2008-04-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 5

It's been a fairly slow week here, but I've been going through a lot of emotional stuff. So in a way it's been good that there haven't been a lot of deadlines hanging over my head.

The one deadline that's been getting to me was that I'm giving a little piece of tomorrow's dharma talk. This was Kyogen's idea (he's my teacher). He usually does the talks, but he's been trying to nudge others to give talks as well. Domyo has given a few, and the next monk up in seniority is MrK, who isn't all that interested in giving talks. We had a discussion about this at lunch on Tuesday, and the upshot was that Kyogen will give a brief introduction, and then each of us (being Domyo, MrK, me, and Jyoshin the current postulant) will give a 5-minute talk about where we are in relationship to zazen (sitting meditation) and enlightenment. Cool, I thought.

I mean, giving talks is not frightening to me at all. And 5 minutes? Piece of cake.

However, as I began to think more about it, I began to get really terrified about it. Zazen? How can I talk about zazen? I certainly do zazen -- every single day I'm in the zendo in robes sitting meditation -- 6am except on Sunday, when I wait for our regular program at 8:30 to be in the zendo in robes. It's become a vital part of my day. And I don't exactly understand why, but it's clear that it is.

The last few weeks I've begun to think about it as a refuge. What's the nature of this refuge? Well, when I sit zazen, nothing is required of me but to sit still, something I actually know how to do fairly well for a fairly long period of time. I don't have to know anything, do anything, say anything, meet anyone's expectations. In fact, it's a perfect place to practice with don't-know mind, a place that sometimes terrifies me, but which I'm beginning to be able to do in zazen, when it's just me watching, no one else.

Now I have to share that with maybe 40-50 people? Aaaargghhhh .... I'm barely beginning to find a way to take the mind of meditation now and again to other places in my life. I mean, once in a long while, for a few seconds maybe. I really don't know what I'm doing, and I'm not sure what I have to say to anyone else about this. And part of the problem is that usually when I give a talk I put forth a persona who knows something and is eager to share with others, who pays attention to what others may be interested in hearing, meets expectations (both mine and those of others).

But talking about zazen? No, there I have to be completely real, and willing to show my own not-knowing. And I realize I hardly know how to do that in front of others.

Kyogen says that my experience may be valuable for others who think they don't have a clue either. In any case, sharing our experiences with each other is often useful. You never know what kind of help you can provide to others. In any case, I now have a sense of what I'm going to say (some of the above, with a few more things). So that's a relief.

This afternoon I did a major cleaning of a section of kitchen that seems to have been invaded by ants. Pulled out the refrigerator (that was a little scary -- do you know what's under your refrigerator???!), cleaned all surfaces top to bottom, cleaned the outside of all the cabinets and sections of floor, the microwave (another scary place -- goop and sludge), and then wiped them all down with vinegar water. We'll see if it helps. In any case, I spent a couple of hours at it, and that's always satisfying.

Tonight is our monthly Disciple potluck, which is always enjoyable. I've got wood gathered in case people want a fire (they often seem to, and it's rainy outside, not all that cold, but kind of damp and raw). I helped put away groceries and did a little cleanup for dinner prep, and now have a few minutes to do this before dinner.

Sunday, April 6, 2:30pm

Whew! It's done. What a relief. I felt okay about the talk yesterday afternoon, but woke up in the middle of last night terrified again, and this morning just basically controlled my terror as best I could until I finally got up on stage. It went well. I was as wobbly as I knew I would be, and as I knew I had to be, and authentic, though I didn't break down in tears at least. People came up to me afterwards thanking me. It was also really good to hear everyone else. I could relate to something in everyone's talk. In any case, it's a big relief to have that one done.

Now there's another talk I'm preparing for next Saturday. This one is a maybe 10-minute talk as part of the Term Student program, and a much smaller group of people, all of whom are also giving talks. I'm hoping eventually to work this talk up for an actual dharma talk (our version of a sermon). I was thinking of it as very different, more kind of expository, less raw and intense. However, this morning in sanzen (interview) with Kyogen, he pointed out that the topic is actually connected with this other thing I've been working with, and by golly he's right.

Still, it will be a more prepared talk, with quotes from books and everything, not quite so much spilling my guts out there in front of everyone (though I suspect there may be a moment or two of that as well).

And one more talk is in the back of my mind, not to be given until June for a Unitarian Universalist church about Buddhism and Peace. I have ideas for that, but haven't written up anything yet. I don't anticipate that that one will be difficult at all, though you never know.

Prison update (did I put this out before? I don't think so): I talked with the woman in charge of the prison program, and she says we're waiting on authorization from someone in the prisons. They have to have permission even for me to visit. And until they get that, we're just waiting. Which means that my Saturdays (and Friday evenings) are still free (except for events around here) for a while longer. I'll keep everyone posted.

Shantideva Class 3

2008-04-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

On vows

The Four Bodhisattva Vows (the translation we use)

Beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

I woke up this morning and put my hands in gassho (palm to palm), saying “yes” to my life once more. I thought about the idea we discussed in class of giving up on a vow as producing very bad karma.

Have I ever given up on this vow? There has certainly been despair at times in this last couple of years. It feels sometimes like giving up. And yet, even in the midst of that despair, I find something in me trying to learn from the despair. What can this despair teach me about surrender, about letting go of an obstacle?

That tells me that I’m not really giving up. That I’m not going back on my vow. That I’m still trying to find my way to fulfilling this impossible vow. It draws me on, and I think that’s what bodhicitta is, what I call courage, that whatever-it-is that keeps me going, keeps getting me out of bed every morning even when I don’t know what I’m doing, don’t understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. Something in me knows.

I find myself calling on everything I know, every being I know or can imagine, everything within me, to keep going, to keep working on fulfilling this vow, keep finding my way to move forward, even when I don’t know where I’m going, how to go on, how to get through the latest manifestation of the obstacle(s) (is it one or is it many? I don’t even know that.).

Shantideva's version of the Bodhisattva Vows (3:18-22) goes like this:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,
A guide for those who journey on the road.
For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
And a lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all who need a servant, may I be their slave.

May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
A word of power and the supreme healing;
May I be the tree of miracles,
And for every being the abundant cow.

Like the earth and the pervading elements,
Enduring as the sky itself endures,
For boundless multitudes of living beings,
May I be their grounds and sustenance.

Thus for every thing that lives,
As far as are the limits of the sky,
May I provide their livelihood and nourishment
Until they pass beyond the bonds of suffering.
----------

It can sound grandiose, like a big ego trip. And yet what I see is humility, the willingness to give up his own version or opinion of who he is and who he should be to serve what meets him. That is what I aspire to, to get my own self out of the way enough to be of real service.

A couple of new things

2008-03-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

I think I already mentioned that I'm now considered a tenzo-in-training (Tenzo is the word we use for the head cook). I think it will take some years before I'm confident in that role, but for the time being a practical result is that I'm spending more time in the kitchen on the cooking end, not just on the cleaning end. I'm assisting with dinner at least a couple of times a week. Often it just means chopping these vegetables or making that salad or stirring that sauce, but that's okay with me. I'm paying attention to my own reactions to things, what I like and what I don't like, and going ahead and doing what I'm told anyway. It's interesting.

The other thing has just come out of the blue. Kyogen (my teacher) called me into his office to talk for a few minutes. This doesn't happen often, but I wasn't worried about it. What he told me was that the people who are working in the prisons are looking for another woman and they had asked whether I could be considered to do that work with them. He had thought about it a lot, because he feels that the monks already have a lot on our plates and are being asked to do a lot. But he decided to ask whether I was interested in the work. I said, of course I am. He said he thought it could be good -- it will give me a chance to get some pastoral experience, some experience in counseling and teaching.

So I haven't yet started, but here's what I know so far. They want me for Coffee Creek (a women's prison near Wilsonville) minimum security on Saturday mornings. I have four more seminary classes on Saturday mornings left, but I am not worried about them. It means that I have to make sure I do the reading ahead and then listen to the recordings of the class afterwards, but it's quite possible to do the class without attending these last four sessions. And I'm not sure that the prison thing will be every Saturday morning anyway. I will go three times as a guest before I get my security clearance, and then I will get a badge and be able to go as a (what is the official title, I wonder???), anyway, someone who regularly works with inmates.

I'm kind of jazzed by this. For several reasons. I've had an interest in prison work (of course, I have an interest in all sorts of work, so that's not unusual) for quite some time. I know the need is huge. It will give me a place to do some actual teaching, which I can't really do here at the moment given my status as a novice monk. It tells me that my teacher thinks I may be ready for something like this. It also means I will be working closely with the folks who are already working in the prison from Dharma Rain, and I like and respect all of those folks a lot. And, of course, it means that I may be able to be part of making a positive difference in someone's life, as well as my own. I'm always up for that.

It's been a busy week here at Dharma Rain Zen Center, my home temple (not quite Garrison Keillor, but oh well). There have been at least a couple of days where I came in thinking I was going to do this or that on my list, and didn't even get to the list until 4pm. It took a couple of days to get to helping my younger sister postulant get measured for her koromo. She's sewing, which will take her some months yet before she can ordain. So Friday morning we finally got to spend time looking over our inadequate instructions and diagrams, and Kyogen was kind enough to bring his and Gyokuko's koromos in for comparison. They both have koromos that were made in Japan, and are quite nice. It was helpful to have a real live example to compare these diagrams to, in several cases.

In the process, I discovered several places in Kyogen's koromo that were coming apart, so I spent a few hours repairing it for him. That was satisfying, and also then gave me the impetus to do the same to my own kimono the next day. I keep thinking I will get to the sewing room to get these things done, but decided just to take the kimono to seminary class yesterday morning with needle and thread, and got it all mended nicely in order to wear today.

In any case, I finally did get to almost everything on my list, and several other things besides, of course. Quite satisfying. I'm tired, as always on a Sunday afternoon, and ready for a little break. My house-mates are all gone at the moment, and I'm taking care of the resident cat. So far, that's only consisted of giving him a scoop of food twice a day -- I haven't seen him around at all, though the food disappeared overnight. He has a cat door, and is probably more outdoors than inside since his people are both gone. All of them are at different places. The one next door to me is in Hawaii for 10 days. MrK is out at the monastery on an 8-day retreat. And his wife took the opportunity to go visit her mom. So I can maybe get a jump start on my laundry, unimpeded by anyone else. And maybe a trip to the library ... possibilities are endless.

End of Retreat (written March 16)

2008-03-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think I'm finally free to go up to my place and crash. I had a busy week (okay, lots of sitting around too, but ...). For this retreat my job was assistant tenzo. The Tenzo is the head cook, and an important position in Zen Buddhism, and of course on any retreat. What it meant being the assistant was that every work period (2 each day) was in the kitchen, and some other times as well. So, I put together the water and oats for breakfast the night before and when we came in to sit in the morning (5:30-ish am), I turned on the burners on the water on low so they would be ready when it was time to cook. I cooked oats and tea for breakfast. I feel confident about my ability there, and I did just fine. However, that was the limit of my confidence and competence.

One thing I learned this week is that I really don't know how to cook. At least, I don't know how to cook the way they cook here, and for the quantities of people we often serve. I don't really know how to do menus and plan ahead and make sure there's plenty of variety, and enough protein, and accommodate everyone's allergies and food sensitivities, not to mention tastes. So I spent a couple of days with a lot of anxiety, bringing up all my old fears of not being good enough, until I finally just accepted that I don't know how to do this, and then I could relax and start asking a lot of clarifying questions and just make it clear that I don't know how to do this stuff. I think the Tenzo figured out after a while that she had to make things simple for me. I'm moving into a Tenzo-in-training role, and I can tell it's going to take a while.

And I was right about the effect of low-flow water and not very hot water on the ability to cook for a lot of people for a retreat. We were quite literally heating water on the stove, and in fact hauling boiling water from across the street in order to have 2 sets of three tubs for people to wash their dishes. Maybe I should explain that. For our in-town retreats, we do setups for everyone to have a plate, bowl, knife, fork, soup spoon, mug, and cloth napkin. Each person serves themselves on a tray which we then take upstairs to the zendo (meditation hall). We chant and eat in silence there. When we're done with the meal, everyone comes back downstairs, cleans off their tray and wipes it down, and stands in line to wash their dishes in hot soapy water, hot rinse water, and cool bleach water (the approved 3-sink system generally used). Then they dry it, stack everything back together and put it back into its place on the table until the next meal. (Most of the time I just used a bowl and spoon, maybe a mug for water, and my napkin.)

Breakfast was oats, fruit, and tea, every morning (I cooked oats and tea, and Tenzo and other temporarily assigned people dealt with fruit and setting up the table). The noon meal was the big meal, and usually required all the dishes (plate, bowl, and cutlery). Supper was usually some variation on soup and bread. The fewest people we served was 15, and the most was 32. We actually did run out of food for one meal -- the one with mashed potatoes a tofu loaf and green beans (good down-home cooking, right? Very popular.). Tenzo and I made do with leftover pasta and vegies for that meal. And this morning I skimped the oats a tad, and Tenzo made do with banana bread (which she pronounced right tasty). Tenzo and assistant go last in the line, so if there are shortages we get to know that, and take the consequences. We also had a lot of leftover curry rice one day, because I made about twice as much as I needed to. Seems I really didn't understand the measurements of rice cookers. Now I know that one better. It was all fine -- the Sunday noon meal is traditionally mostly leftovers from the week, so we had a good place to start. Still, this tenzo is very good at estimating quantities, and there weren't all that many leftovers. So she made a big batch of fried rice, and pulled out the rest of the leftovers, and made garlic bread, put out the rest of the banana bread, and we had a feast.

The other thing on my mind this last week was getting the grant in. We're applying for a grant to do repairs on our main building, now that we have a new roof and water has stopped leaking in. We decided to do the grant 3 weeks ago, so we had to pull it together very quickly. I was hoping to have it done before the retreat, but that didn't happen. I got extensive revisions in on Monday. This meant that instead of resting or studying after dinner each night, I was here in front of the computer pulling everything together. The deadline was yesterday, and I made it in just under the wire. Last night in meditation I had noodles and numbers dancing in my head!

Today, after everyone else left, after doing cleanup, I did the post-cleanup cleanup. I went into the kitchen, and found a lot of things out of place, a lot of things that needed to be brought back across the street to the Dharma House, and a mountain of dishes that still needed to be run through the dishwasher. So I just started in on those, and gradually got things put away, finally mopping the kitchen floor, which never was able to get done during the week as people were always in there when there were people available to do the mopping. That felt good.

I took a break, finally, and then went back across the street for a meeting with ZCO Sangha Council. We decided to go down to a nearby Thai restaurant for the meeting, and had a good dinner and a good time, and even got some business done.

Well, anyway, I wanted to write up a little of this before heading home for bed. I suspect that I will crash very soon. Maybe a hot bath ...

Written March 5, 2008

2008-03-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

I will be in retreat next week (March 10-16) -- we're doing Daijukai this year (you can read more about it at http://www.dharma-rain.org/?p=events_jukai. It starts Monday evening, and goes through Sunday afternoon. During that time I should be able to check e-mail every so often, but will basically be too busy to do much. My job for this retreat is assistant tenzo (the tenzo is the head cook), so I will spend a lot of my time in the kitchen next week (and a lot of time on the cushion sitting meditation, of course). Bukkai is tenzo, and I look forward to working with her. I expect I will learn some things.

This week I'm working on writing a grant to Meyer Memorial Trust. I've assisted in these things before (several years ago) at Head Start, and kind of wondered why Linda D was spending so much time worrying about it. Now I know. I find myself considering and reconsidering how to approach what is after all not all that much writing (with strict word count limits that make it actually more difficult). I'm asking input and advice from lots of people around here, sending lots of e-mails, and such. It's an interesting process. The deadline is officially March 15, but since that is almost to the end of Daijukai, my own deadline for myself is Friday the 7th. Now I see that I'm not going to have everything together by then, but should have most of it done, maybe just some review and tweaking from others during the weekend. At the latest, I should be able to post it on the web (which is the only way to apply) by Sunday.

As for what I'm working on in a training sort of way, maybe I can say a little about that, finally. One thing I'm seeing is that I tend to approach things in an all-or-nothing fashion. That is, I need to be in control, in charge, know as much as possible about things, follow the plans, make sure everything is covered, do everything right, don't make mistakes. When things go badly, I tend to give up, fall into despair, feel inadequate, decide not even to try, not to speak up because nothing I say is worth anything, and in extremis, feel that I deserve to die, maybe even have thoughts of killing myself. I've never gotten past *thoughts*, and there's at least an equally strong sense that I will never and can never actually kill myself. When I reach that point, I realize that I'm in trouble and need to figure out some other way through. I tend to shut down, go to sleep, get sick, or whatever. Eventually those feelings pass, and I go on.

Now this mode of operating has served me fairly well for decades. I've been pretty functional, and have managed to do a lot of good things. Even when I've become aware occasionally that there's this difficult emotional stuff coming up, I try to find some way to deal with it and mostly can't figure out anything, so just shrug and go on with my life. I suspect this is the case for a lot of people -- that "quiet sense of desperation" that some writer (I can't remember who at the moment) said most people live with. There is a form of courage in that just continuing to go on, and I honor that, both in myself and others.

When I started into this practice, though, I became more aware of what was really going on -- something that I basically denied all my life because I prefer to be happy and productive, and would rather not admit to the destructive emotions of despair and anger. And furthermore I began to realize that Buddhism not only addresses just exactly this, but also has tools for slowly (at least in my case, I can't speak for others) unravelling the knots that have kept me bound up to this desperation. I'm becoming aware that these are things in my own mind, that they have a cause and an effect (generally referred to as karma), and that eventually I can find more beneficial ways of living with my own karma, my own conditioning, my own situation and place in the world. My goal and intention here is to be more authentic, more whole, more effective as a force for good in the world.

How I'm doing this is slowly, with lots of mistakes and lots of times when I'm pretty clueless. Lots of patience. Lots of sitting still. Talking with my teachers. Watching what happens when I try this, when I try that. Currently I'm trying to dial back habit energy in three areas: activity, speech, and food. I realize that all three of those areas really exemplify the all-or-nothing pattern of my life to some extent. What happens when I don't just automatically jump in and clean something because I see it's dirty? Or otherwise fix something? What happens if I don't put my own opinion forward in a general conversation? What happens if I don't eat that extra cookie? How does it make me feel? Sometimes any of these can send me into that downward spiral of despair and feeling worthless.

So these days, I'm sitting with all of that and trying to dial back in all three areas in very tiny ways and watching. If I can just sit still and watch, without getting into a whole big emotional deal with it, that's a huge step forward. So that's what I'm trying to do.

Well, this got longer than I intended, not an unusual occurrence. Hope it is of interest to some, at least.

A small piece of training

2008-02-19T18:25:00.000-08:00

I felt like I finally understood one thing on Saturday morning. It may be a comprehensible example of what I’m learning (or maybe not, but it’s worth a shot).

We’ve been working on making our buildings more energy-efficient. As part of this, we had an on-demand water heater put in to the kitchen at the Zendo building (the main temple building). I didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get hot water, nor how much the water pressure would be decreased in the process. I went to mop the kitchen floor during temple cleanup time before Saturday breakfast, and found that it took quite a while to get water for the mop bucket, and it never did get hot, nor did I have time to fill the bucket. I mopped the floor with cold water, and less of that than I would have wanted ideally. It worked all right, I suppose, but wasn’t what I would consider optimal.

We’re going to have a week-long retreat in March, and I have been told that I will be assistant cook for that retreat. I began to think of filling tubs for dishwashing at every meal, general cleanup, filling kettles for cooking, and thought I’d better say something.

So I brought it up at breakfast, expecting a response like, yes we’re working on that, or I didn’t realize, let’s try to fix that. Instead the response I got was that this is all part of increasing water use efficiency, and is evidently an intended outcome. I was aghast. I found myself feeling pretty frustrated, and heard myself say with some agitation, “we’re going to be heating water on the stove!”

As I said it, I could hear the anger in my voice, and could tell that I was getting carried away. “Too much,” I thought, and started to try to end the conversation. At that moment, Gyokuko (co-abbot and one of the teachers) said, “That’s enough. That’s a little over the top,” which verified what I had just realized. I was able to say “sorry,” and drop it right there.

A trivial matter, maybe, and a lot of people wouldn’t see that I had done anything so terrible, nor my apology as anything so wonderful. A few may think I should have stuck to my guns. In any case, there are some significant things about this incident.

One is that last year such an exchange would have been devastating to me – in fact, a few similar exchanges did devastate me – sent me into a tailspin of depression that lasted a few days or more. This one occupied my mind for a day or so, and many feelings came up, but none of them overwhelmed me. I was able to stay with the incident in a way that was actually useful – paying attention to what happened, the source of my anger, honoring my emotions without being ruled by them.

Second, I was gratified that my perception was congruent with that of the teachers. Gyokuko confirmed my reading of the situation rather than pointing out something I hadn’t seen yet. That tells me that I’m beginning to get a glimpse of what we’re doing here.

Third, we’re taught to bow in these situations. That embodies contrition. This time, it involved saying “sorry” and letting go of my own position. What I’ve done in the past was either to defend myself by going on the offensive (which I had started to do here), or flip over into self-blame, feeling humiliated, not only that I made a mistake, but that someone saw me make a mistake and furthermore commented on it in a public way (our breakfast table generally has anywhere from 6-14 people, mostly residents but also other members of the lay community who join us). This used to send me into a downward spiral that made me feel bad and ultimately made it impossible to do anything with it, leaving me defeated and unable to take any kind of responsibility for it at all (feeling like it’s all hopeless).

I was able to realize that what happened there was that I had an expectation that didn’t get met, and then I took a position and was trying to defend it. That put me into a rigid space and didn’t allow me to move with changing conditions. We say about anger that it involves contriving reality for the self. What I was able to do over the next day was to see that this is what I was doing, and that I need to be able to work things as they really are. It took a while, and with practice, maybe I’ll get quicker at it. The response I was able to come up with is the culmination of a lot of work over the last two years. I may fall into this same trap again, though Kyogen (my teacher) assures me that once you’ve found this kind of space, experienced this kind of freedom, it’s easier to return to it.

The work continues, of course. And there are certainly plenty of other lessons to learn. One of the joys of this training is that it’s never really finished. Training involves several aspects. Explicit teaching – dharma talks, reading of sutras and commentaries, face-to-face meetings with the teachers. Daily life exchanges like the one I’ve just described. Long conversations with fellow practitioners exploring the roots of these kinds of responses to situations that come up. Plus hours of sitting meditation.

Roller Skating, Gay Tea presentation, and more

2008-02-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I intended to write an update last Monday, but was just wiped out. I'm marginally better today than I was last week, so we'll see what comes out.

Two weeks ago (January 21) I went roller skating at Oaks Park, where you may remember I broke my wrist last August. I was going to go with a friend, but she got sick and so I went by myself. It was fine. In some ways it's easier by myself, because I could just focus on making sure I was doing this skating thing, not on what anyone else might see. There were a lot of people there, mostly adult. It was part of a monthly Gay Skate, where people bring a can of food for a local food bank and get a slight discount. I did see a couple of friends from our Gay Tea group, and we got to talk about the presentation we were then planning for Equality Day, January 27. I finally got tired and went home after about 1-1/2 hours of skating. I will go back some time, probably not this evening.

Sunday, January 27, was Equality Day (the sponsoring organization, the Community of Welcoming Congregations, called it Equality Sabbath, which didn't quite work for us, so I changed it). 60 congregations around Oregon and southwest Washington participated in some way. When I first heard about it last summer, I thought it might be an excellent excuse for our Gay Tea group to do the panel presentation we'd been talking and thinking about for several months.

It came off very well. The trick was to make sure we had some dharma teaching in there, not just to have it be all about gay people, but to have it be applicable to anyone. And in fact, we've been working in the group to have our discussions relevant to dharma teaching as well as relevant to our lives as gay folks. We had a pretty good mix of people speaking, both in terms of who we are and what we talked about, and also in terms of how we presented things. One of the things we talked about was the coming out process, which is includes elements of transformation and the deconstruction of the self, a way of re-envisioning our lives so we can live more authentically in the world. This is something we talk about in Buddhism. There was a nice balance between personal sharing and sharing of information (history, psychology, etc.). There is much more that could be addressed, of course, but we made a good start, and were well received. Our abbot would like us to pull our notes together for an article in the newsletter, which I'm working on.

That Sunday was very busy, so not everyone could get to the presentation. There was Dharma School, so we had a fair number of our staff working with the kids. Many of the parents were downstairs at a Parent Group (which also went well, I understand). The presentation was recorded, and if you want to hear it, let me know and I can send you the link to download the MP3.

This last week has been busy as well. I've been a little depressed (getting tired of winter, I expect), but still keep moving forward, and it's all fine. I do know how to sit with things. We had the first Dharma Council meeting, which is a new entity in our revised organizational plan, and that went well (I'm on that one). I do think the new Mandala organizational structure is beginning to work, though it still has various bugs in it that need to be worked out. It's interesting to watch, in any case.

Yesterday was the end of our fall term, with a special ceremony. Next week we more or less begin spring term, so there's not really a break there. We stay on our regular schedule (except for a month when we ramp it up slightly starting April 12) from now until mid-May, after Denkoe retreat. Then we begin to gear down until we go on summer break in June.

I'm still sitting meditation at 6am every day, even on my day off, and I enjoy that (most of the time -- once in a while I wonder why on earth I'm doing this, but usually I realize that it does make a difference to how my day goes). This morning I took a longish walk to go buy a ticket to a concert this Saturday evening, and then went to the library. After brunch, I went across the street to do some sewing, and have a bunch of hand sewing that I will take up the street to my room. This evening I will probably alternate between sewing and reading, or possibly focus on one or the other. The choices!

A year later

2008-01-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

One thing to note is that the anniversary of my ordination was January 7, so I've survived my first year of training. In fact, I have thrived. I'm loving what I'm doing.

The holidays have seen a fair amount of socializing with old friends (one I hadn't seen in well over a decade -- how does this happen?). Haven't done a lot of socializing in the last couple of years, and in any case have never been a party person, but it's nice to touch base with people I've known for a long time.

January has been, as I predicted, full of meetings with everyone gearing back up. I find I'm much happier now that we are back with a full schedule. I seem to prefer activity to inactivity. Sitting meditation is another matter -- that sort of stillness is almost always welcome. And I suppose my mind is often still active, even though it's not technically supposed to be. Still, there's an intention, a focus to meditation that isn't there with just veging out. My tolerance for the latter is limited, while I enjoy the former quite a bit, at least most of the time.

One thing I was hoping to do when I started keeping a record of what I'm doing was to document my training process. I feel like I have failed in that, though I've certainly tried. People still ask me what kind of training I'm doing, and I still find it difficult to answer exactly. However, I haven't talked about New Year's Eve, and maybe that will illustrate at least one aspect of it.

I love how we do New Year's Eve here. We do a vegetarian potluck, sacred dancing (which I haven't been able to join much in the last few years because I'm involved in dinner cleanup during that time), then a repentance and renewal of vows ceremony, then meditation, and finally right around midnight the priests serve sparkling cider in a formal tea ceremony style.

This year, 3 of the 4 teachers (abbots) who ordinarily do the serving were pretty sick. Our abbots, Kyogen and Gyokuko, took turns attending various parts of the evening so they could rest. I got called on to "direct traffic" during the Fusatsu ceremony, where we each burn slips of paper with things we've written that we are ready to let go of for the new year. That was fine. Right at the beginning of that ceremony, I got tapped on the shoulder and went downstairs to lead the processional in, striking the inkin at regular intervals. Fortunately, I do know how to do this (having done it before), so that was fine too.

Finally, I was one of the 4 novice priests who stepped up to serve sparking cider in lieu of the teachers. I was honored to be able to do this, as I've always found this the sweetest part of the evening. The first year I attended this event, back in 1999, I was really struck by how wonderful it was to have this silent, formal ceremony going on while there was all the noise outside. The way it works is that a priest goes to each person in turn, bows, kneels in front of them, and there is a series of bows, pouring tea, handing the cup, bowing, taking it back, standing up, bowing again, and moving to the next person. There's something really wonderful about the monks serving the community in this way. After everyone else was served, we 4 novices (two from Dharma Rain and two from Great Vow Zen Monastery) served the 4 teachers sitting up front, and then they served us.

Even though I've never filled this particular role before, I found it fine to do it, and enjoyed it (only slightly nervous that I would mess it up). And I guess that's what I'm getting at -- there are increasingly times when I'm participating in services and am not terrified that I'll mess up. More times when I do know what to do, and can just go forward and fill whatever role I'm called on for, even at the last minute with no warning. And so, one aspect of this training is what is often called "priestcraft," which to me has to do with filling ceremonial functions of various sorts. I haven't been trained in all of it yet, but gradually over the next four years, I will probably learn most of it. And part of it is also that willingness simply to fill whatever role is assigned and move gracefully in and out of them. I do that more or less well these days, and it is getting a little easier all the time.

There is a document that may be adopted this week by the Soto Zen Buddhist Association at their board meeting that attempts to set forth what priest training should include. We had a copy of it to look over at Jikoji on the training Ango I went on in October. It was interesting. I found myself going down the checklist and thinking, okay, got that one down. Ooh, that one needs work. So in that sense, it is a way to show at least some of what the training is about. Of course, it won't be adopted as a blueprint by all the Soto Zen centers in the US, and each individual teacher will still have their own ways of teaching. But it gives at least an idea of the kinds of things that need to be covered.

Some of them are pretty straightforward, like the priestcraft stuff I've been talking about. Then there's some knowledge of Buddhist history and literature. There's Sangha relationships, how well you get along with others in the community. And there's self-knowledge, an interesting one that has to do with working through some of your own karma so you don't keep dumping it all over others. Well, this is my best recollection, and probably is leaving out major components (likely the ones I still have to work on). At some point, this should be available on a website somewhere. When I find the link, I'll post it here.

Musings as the year nears its end -- December 25, 2007

2008-01-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

Journal entry this morning, 5am

I am on a particular journey. There is a kind of work I can do during a sesshin (silent retreat -- in this case, I'm thinking of Rohatsu sesshin that happened earlier this month) that is difficult to do under other circumstances. Each sesshin is different, but I'm beginning to see a little of what kind of work I can do there.

There is vast empty space that sustains the journey, underpins it. I don't seem to rest there much. Maybe the work I'm doing doesn't afford time to do that. Maybe I'm just not the resting sort. Yet. My zazen (sitting meditation) is still mentally active -- the mind doesn't know, most of the time, how to rest.

And yet, I trust the journey. At least I'm beginning to trust it. Something or someone guides me.

Someone is emerging from all of this. Who am I becoming?

Someone with a heart more tender and raw. Someone less inclined to control everything around me. Someone with compassion and appreciation for all those damaged component parts, and maybe someone who can put those pieces together. Someone new who is part of the old wreck, along with the beautiful terrible wreck that we call the rest of the world.

I'm beginning to open my eyes and look around. Beginning to think it may be possible to live, really live, after all. Not just to survive, not just to cope, but to live fully, to find that taproot of life that makes it possible to accept everything. It can't be grabbed hold of and manipulated. It can be found, though, and followed. I need to sit quietly, and let it come to me.

And so I sit. Every day. Even today, when I had thought maybe to give myself a break. No. I am awake. I will sit.

Annual Letter -- written December 21, 2007

2008-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Things are very quiet here with the teachers gone, and a couple of the monks gone as well. Next week we're actually closed, and I'm planning to do a bunch of sewing, work on my car if the weather breaks at all, study for my seminary class, and a couple of little projects around here. Basically, though, take it easy. I know I need to enjoy it while I can, because January starts up with a lot of things happening. So I'm resting up.

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Many of you have been getting my e-mail updates, so I don't need to say too much about this year. And yet, I find some value in reflecting and summing up some things at this time of year. In any case, my e-mail updates have been less regular than they used to be, and I don't always manage to get even those on my blog.

This has been a good year for me overall. It began with my ordination as a Soto Zen novice priest January 7. I've spent much of the year learning a little of what that means. In Zen, we learn by practicing rather than by someone telling us, so it's difficult to articulate what it is I've been learning. But I'll give it a try.
Some of it became clearer when I went to the Soto Zen Buddhist Association training Ango for the month of October in the Bay Area. For one thing, I got to see different teachers and meet other novice priests from around the United States. I often didn't know what to do or what would happen next. I found myself getting more comfortable with change and not knowing, so that when I returned home and found some things had changed in my absence I was able to take that in stride. My responsibilities are changing, and at this point in my practice, I see that it's more important for me to do new things and learn to flow with them than it is to figure out what I'm good at and stick with that. Making mistakes is something I'm still not altogether comfortable with, but I'm getting better at it.

My biological family has had an eventful year. My mother seems to be more settled and stable than she has been for a while, now that she is in a foster care home in Springfield. My sisters Josie and Marilyn live near her and keep in close touch. Also living in the area are cousins and Aunt Phyllis (my mom's sister). I get down there once in a while to see them all.

Son Nico, with his wife Alice and their sons Christopher, Matthew and baby Brendan (born November 25), moved to a bigger, better place to live where they have a yard for the boys to play in and laundry on-site.

It's been a while since I heard from my other son Alex, but the last correspondence I had with him indicated that he was doing well.

Just after I returned home from the Ango, my father died (November 2). He had been battling cancer for several years, and finally there was nothing more that could be done. Many of us went to Seattle for his memorial service November 11. It was nice to see everyone, including my brother Dave and his family, including his son Josh who flew back from the east coast.

A few other things I could comment on. I'm hoping to join the community here in a trip to China in Spring 2009. So I've started taking some lessons in Mandarin. As part of that study, I bought myself an iPod, because there's a well-done web site where you can subscribe to download podcasts of lessons. We will soon be putting most of our dharma talks and classes online as podcasts as well, so it seems like a good tool. Of course, it's also nice to have my music so accessible — I've been able to listen to things I haven't heard in quite a while.

The other thing I'm planning to do soon is to sell my car. The trip to China will cost a fair amount of money, and my available funds are diminishing faster than I had hoped they would. With no income, that's worrisome. I don't really need to own a car. I have a Flexcar account, bus tickets, a bicycle and a pair of good legs — many transportation resources. I replaced the clutch in my car this summer, and can't really afford to continue maintaining it and paying insurance. Unfortunately, just making the decision to sell it is not getting it sold – there are specific things I have to do (clean it inside and out, take photographs, post it on craigslist, etc.) to make it happen. Haven't yet done all that, but soon …

Report on Rohatsu Sesshin -- written December 12, 2007

2008-01-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

On December 2 we went out to the Zen monastery near Clatskanie for Rohatsu sesshin, which is an annual silent retreat held around the world to celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment, traditionally set for December 8. Those in the Pacific northwest know what's coming -- on Monday, the first full day of sesshin, we had flooding. What I didn't know was that they had already had a flood in another part of the monastery that I didn't go into early in the morning. But as we were gathering for work circle in the cafeteria we began to see water coming in on the floor. We went ahead and did our work chant and work assignments, and then just began to push water out the door. A bucket brigade worked over near the other part, but at some point I got enlisted to help dig a drainage ditch to divert the water from coming into the building where we were.

The area we had to dig the ditch already had rock in it, so digging was not easy. There were probably 10-15 of us, though, and someone finally figured out that picks would work better than shovels, and so we used both and finally got the ditch dug and the water diverted, and it could stop going into the building. Water was literally pouring out of the ground, like welling up from gopher holes or who knows what, coming down the hill toward the building. I came in from that task completely drenched, hung up my sodden jacket, changed many of my clothes, because they were pretty wet as well in spite of gore-tex (when rain comes down inside your jacket and your waterproof boots it doesn't matter how waterproof they are), and hoped that I wouldn't have to go back out into the rain, because of course I was limited in what I had in the way of clothing.

We did have a couple of brief power outages. The one that was kind of comical was during lunch. Okay, we're eating, it's daylight, and we barely miss a beat. No one said anything, or even stopped eating. (I'm serious when I say it was a silent retreat.) We just kept on going. That is our practice after all, meet what is in front of us and deal with the reality of the situation. In many ways, it was fortunate that the flood happened during this sesshin, because the monastery then had about 40 people to help deal with the situation rather than only the 8-10 people who live there.

I found the whole week valuable. I'm learning, I think, how to get what I need from this practice, and I had some significant breakthroughs and shifts in my way of looking at my life. Of course, I had to cry for two days to get there, but I've learned how to do that silently and still follow all the forms -- stand up and bow when the bell rings, put on robes, take off robes and put on work clothes, go to bed, get up, eat formally, process with the others, etc. It all feels familiar and it all supports my practice. The crying was actually liberating in this case, and when it gradually receded, I found that I knew more than I had known before. I'm finding the practice incredibly valuable, and am settling into this monk role, which includes staying very open and flexible. Still don't do everything perfectly, but that's part of it too -- learning how to make mistakes and be okay with all of that.

Now I'm back trying to catch up with all the work. It was nice to go and it's nice to be home. And I'm finding increasingly that "home" is everywhere.

My father's death, written November 15, 2007

2008-01-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

My father died last week, November 2, 2007, to be exact. (Full legal name Robert Joseph Stearns, but he was known as "Rocky" to almost everyone most of his life.) I went up to Seattle this last Sunday (November 11) for his memorial service. Most of my family on that side came, including an aunt and cousin I hadn't seen in over a decade.

My feelings are decidedly mixed. I wasn't close to my father for a variety of reasons, and I have a lot of conflicted feelings. There was some affection, and recognition that we are alike in many ways. There's also anger, and grief that we weren't able to connect ultimately. And conversely relief that it is no longer possible. I'm just working through things as they come up as best I can.

In the mean time, of course things are busy here, and there's plenty to keep me occupied. We're in the midst of a reorganization in the temple, and some of my jobs are being shuffled around. So new-ish things to learn about, and old-ish things to let go of. On days when I am not, shall we say, at my best, the community here is always understanding and supportive without interfering with the process. On days like today when things are feeling pretty good, then everything just goes humming along, and I can be understanding and supportive of others if they are having down days.

Training Ango for Novice Priests -- written November 9, 2007

2008-01-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Soto Zen Buddhist Association (SZBA) put on a month-long training in monastic forms and practice specifically directed toward novice priests October 1 through 31, 2007. The schedule was light compared with a typical sesshin (silent retreat) but it was also relentless, and included teachings as well as ceremonies and zazen.

The teachings covered both training around the forms we were using and the Dogen fascicle Gakudo Yojinshu. We ate almost all of our meals oryoki-style, and spent our time alternating between wearing formal robes (koromo and kimono) and work clothes (samue), and between okesa and rakusu, depending on the activity and teacher’s preference. 4-and-9 days (that is, the 4th, 9th, 14th, etc.) were used for head shaving, laundry, some personal time, and art work (as well as zazen and a morning service).

There was enough personal time to take advantage of Jikoji’s extensive hiking trails, and the weather was good enough most of the time to make this pleasant. The space at Jikoji (buildings and grounds in a forested open space preserve) was lovely, though the dirt paths between buildings played hob with my long white kimono, especially when it rained. The community in residence there sometimes joined us, and on Sundays Jikoji’s regular sangha joined us for zazen, dharma talk, and lunch.

The theme question for the month was “What is Soto Zen?” We considered that question from different perspectives, and never definitively answered it, of course. One question related to it was the future of Soto Zen in America, which is of interest to all of us. We can speculate, and did so freely, looking at how things are, but it’s clear that there are many possibilities for how things will develop.Students came from a variety of centers all over the United States, and part of the purpose was to help us get to know each other as well as getting a taste of different (and similar) ways to practice from four primary teachers who came in for a week each. Three other teachers (Mike, abbot of Jikoji; Kyoki, who coordinated everything and acted as tenzo the last two weeks; and Taitaku, who was tenzo for the first two weeks) also contributed to the mix. Having all these different teachers was wonderful, and provided us with a rich variety of approaches and perspectives.

The first week was stressful, as those in charge worked to set things up (the physical space, the schedule, forms and ceremonies, and assignment of jobs), and the rest of us, coming as we did from different backgrounds, often didn’t know what to expect next. and couldn’t help each other very much. This provided me, at least, with lots of opportunities to examine my own desire to be in control and to know what is going to happen next. After the first week, though, we were able to settle in to a more predictable routine and help each other out, even though some things kept changing.

I really enjoyed studying Dogen’s Gakudo Yojinshu. The title is translated in several different ways: Kaz Tanahashi calls it “Guidelines for Studying the Way,” while Jiyu Kennett has it as “Important Aspects of Zazen.” I found much in this fascicle that spoke to me where I am right now, and felt it was exactly right for this Ango.

As a new monk, I came into this Ango with the intention of being open in as many ways as I could be to the training. I was still surprised, and found some resistant places as I did my best simply to accommodate to what was happening, to flow with it. In this respect, the Ango was a success for me, allowing me to make discoveries about myself.I’m still discovering what it is to be a priest, what is this thing called training, etc. In 2005 I completed a masters program in Adult Education, and found that, though there are educational theorists who can describe what we’re doing in Buddhism (transformational theory), I still have a lot to learn about how it works. I spent a lot of my educational years, once I realized I wanted to teach, watching teachers and how they work (along with being a student and learning the coursework), and that’s pretty much where I am now in terms of Zen training. I’m watching myself learn and watching teachers teach, and watching the process in general. I’m still taking in, taking in, and feel a little like that baby bird with its beak wide open, all beak, demanding FEED ME! I found that hunger for the Dharma in myself, wide open, during this Ango.

All in all, I congratulate Kyoki Roberts of SZBA in particular for putting on a highly successful Ango. I’m grateful to the temple and my teachers for making it possible for me to participate.

cast and car, part 2, written Aug14

2007-08-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

I was getting pretty good at typing again until yesterday. It gradually became possible for me to type two-handed. But yesterday I went in to have the cast checked. They took it off and took new x-rays. They decided that indeed it is a compression fracture of the radius. When the cast came off, we could see evidence of a fair amount of bruising (a lovely shade of chartreuse), which the doctor explained was the broken bone bleeding into the surrounding tissue. There was also still some swelling. So now they've put on a long-arm cast, 5-6 inches above my elbow. I can't hold a phone to my ear, and I can no longer type two-handed. Bummer. That said, though, it does feel like the right thing to do. The cast feels good, relatively, and I'm no longer tempted to overuse the wrist. This one will stay on for at least two weeks, when I will go in again to have it checked. I have no idea what will happen then. The doctor did say that it takes 6 weeks for broken bones to heal in adults. One week down. It will come off a little before I head to California for a month.

My car is running very well these days, and I'm beginning to think of selling it eventually, maybe around the first of the year. Aside from not being able to afford all the next big repairs that will come down the pike, the temple is changing how it uses vehicles. They are selling all of them (there have been 3, two of them vans) and going to Flexcar. I'm signed up, though I don't yet have the paperwork or the magic card that will allow me to get into a Flexcar. There are several parked around here in this neighborhood, and I think it will be a very good way to go. The abbots have purchased a hybrid SUV for their own use, and it will also be available for temple use to some extent.

At the moment I can't use my bike, and it has a flat tire anyway. A friend who is a bike mechanic volunteered to go up and fix my flat for me, which would be awfully nice of him. It might be a challenge for me even to get back into the garage, which is where it needs to go next. Well see.

I was thinking of going camping for my vacation, but right now I'm not sure I could set up a tent. So now I'm thinking of making reservations at a b&b at the coast or something for a couple of nights. It will be mid-week, so maybe that will be possible.

cast and car, written Aug 6

2007-08-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this one-handed because I have a cast on my left wrist almost to the elbow. The annual lay disciples' excursion to Oaks Park was a resounding success, in spite of the absence of one of the chief instigators (she *said* she was sick). After a great potluck dinner and schmoozing, we went on various rides (I managed to get two other people to ride the screamin' eagle with me) and generally had a good time. A few people left as it got later.

6 of us went into the skating rink. Three of us put on skates while the others watched. You guessed it -- I went down and landed on my wrist (then my butt, of course). Knocked the air out of me, and the wrist hurt a lot. There was a good first-aid lady there who put ice on it and eventually splinted it before we went home.

Today I drove my car (one-handed, like I'm doing everything these days) to get routine maintenance. It turns out to need a new clutch (111000 miles, I suppose it's entitled). Took public transit home, stopped at the library to return books and get more, had lunch with the family here, and then went to Kaiser. They X-rayed the wrist and weren't sure whether it was sprain or whether that might be a hairline crack in the wrist bone. I heard it both ways. Anyway, they put a cast on it, which actually feels better to me than the improvised splint and forst-aid sling I've been getting by on.

Haven't done my laundry yet, and am just in general doing everything more slowly than usual. But doing okay.

Enough, already.

Tea and China

2007-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday (July 26), Kyogen, Gyokuko, and I met with Andy Ferguson. Andy is a person who leads Buddhists on tours to China. ZCO was trying to get DRZC folks to join them for a tour they have planned next year, but Kyogen was kind of backpedaling because he wants to see what he wants to see, not just do whatever ZCO is doing. He looked at their itinerary, and part of the point of meeting with Andy was to see whether we could join ZCO for part of it and then do a leg on our own, or whether we should just plan our own trip, and what that would look like.

I hadn't realized that they wanted to include me in the meeting until it was actually happening. I was happy to sit in, and pretty much just listened. It took a while. Andy described some of the typical tours he does (I think Kyogen had already told him some of what we're interested in) and how they might work for what we are looking for. We talked a lot, and there was at least one lengthy philosophical digression where Andy and Kyogen were talking about emptiness (still in the context of China, how Zen is re-emerging in China and how they understand many Zen terms more deeply than westerners do, etc.) and such other interesting things. I was fascinated by all of it, but Gyokuko brought the discussion back to trip planning, and then Andy stopped a moment and said, you know, because logistics are easier in China than they used to be, maybe we could do this -- and he put together a new itinerary that he's never done before, based on the fact that domestic (that is, within-China) flights are available that weren't available even a few years ago. That one hit the mark, including pretty much everything we are interested in and leaving out things we aren't interested in.

I've always been more interested in China than Japan. When I think of the roots of Zen, I think more about China than Japan, even though our lineage came through Japan, and includes 800 years of Japanese cultural influence. Buddhism, of course, started in India with Shakyamuni Buddha, but was taken from China to Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia. In China, there were several schools of Buddhism, but what survived was Zen (Cha'n in Chinese, transliterated to Zen in Japanese, and now the term widely used worldwide).

Kyogen pointed out that his teacher, Jiyu Kennett Roshi, studied in Malaysia (and was even ordained there, I think) before going to Japan, and so also transmitted a fair amount of Chinese influence along with the Japanese.

I really want to do this trip. It won't be until spring of 2009, and if I don't still have enough money left, I'll have to work to put together the approximately $3000 it will cost. Andy is passionate about China, speaks fluent Chinese and also studies classical texts, lectures in China and the US, has written books about China and Buddhism (we studied one this last year in seminary called Zen's Chinese Heritage), and was really delightful to listen to.

One of the things he's interested in and lectures on is tea. Tea has become a large part of Zen culture, in Japan as in the US. But it came from China originally. One of the two areas we are looking at is where it became a prominent part of practice. Now, I don't drink tea. Occasionally I'll have a mild herbal tea (peppermint, chamomile, barley), but generally I drink water. When Andy started to talk about tea, I thought maybe I'd better start drinking tea. I've never found a compelling reason to drink coffee, but this might be the time to begin exploring tea. Slowly, in small amounts, of course.

So, on Saturday, when I went to the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Zen Center of Portland, and someone offered me some green tea, I at first said no thank you, but she came up after a bit and poured me a cup. I had been having this conversation with another woman about the fact that we both turned down the tea, and I recalled to her the discussion about tea in connection with a China trip and how I had been thinking I should start drinking tea. Then this woman who had offered me tea came back and poured me a cup, and I was pretty surprised. I did tell her that I generally don't drink tea, and would prefer a smaller amount. So she went back and brought me back a mug about 1/3 full of green tea.

I drank it, and it was very nice -- a delicate flavor, as I prefer. I said this to the woman I had been talking with, and pretty soon she got her own cup. So maybe I'll start with mild green tea and work up to other types.

Written July 28, 2007

2007-07-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

I didn't do anything all that special for my birthday, and yet I did a lot yesterday (Saturday, July 27), and it was pretty cool.

I started the day preparing for and then participating in a ceremony for Dharma School alums, who had a daylong retreat and then an overnight last night (many still sleeping this morning [it's now 10:45am] probably for a little while longer yet). I was chant leader for the ceremony and Domyo was the celebrant. It went off pretty well. We shortened the sitting meditation periods slightly, and many of them had never done the walking meditation before, so Domyo had to instruct them. The ceremony she chose was all in Sino-Japanese. It's a fairly new ceremony for us, and I haven't done it all that much, and it was the first time I did both drum and chanting at the same time on that one. So it was a little challenging for me in some ways. We carried it off fairly well, in spite of dropping a beat somewhere along the 3rd (fastest) time through the Victor's Dharani.

Came home, checked e-mail, and then Gyokuko asked whether I'd like to accompany her and Kyogen to the gym. They have a membership that allows them to bring a guest, and I've gone along several times with them when I can. I sometimes bicycle and then go swim in the pool, sauna, etc. This time I managed to forget my gym shoes so didn't do the bike. Instead just swam for a while, sauna for a while, shower, and then, as prearranged, went off by myself on public transportation (the 24-Hr Fitness place is right next to the Hollywood Transit Center).

I stopped at Lloyd Center and ate a somewhat leisurely sit-down lunch at a restaurant, a rare treat that I seldom indulge. Then on to my eye appointment at Kaiser. The last several years I've been going to a place on Broadway near where I used to live, where I really liked the optometrist, and spent somewhat extravagantly on glasses. Now that I have no income but do have vision coverage, I decided it was time to go back to Kaiser and just do it that way. I really liked the doctor I saw yesterday. She was friendly, capable, quick (but didn't feel rushed), and it was all fine. She found that my eyes are a little different. They look fine, she said, but she wants to check with the doctor I've been seeing for several years to make sure that the asymmetry is stable, and not a new development, which could indicate some risk of eye disease. I'm pretty sure that is the case, but the previous doctor didn't mention asymmetry to me, so I don't know for sure. I'm glad she's being careful. I ordered new glasses, mostly because I didn't want to be without these for two weeks. They will still cost me a lot of money, but maybe a couple hundred dollars cheaper overall than what I would have paid going back to Broadway. So I guess it's worth it. We'll see how I like the glasses.

Went back home on the lightrail and bus with eyes dilated, and was pretty tired when I got home. A brief rest, then made dinner for myself and my friend Jyoshin, who then went out with me.

We went to OMSI to see Bodyworlds3. This is an exhibit of plastinated dead bodies, and it's pretty fascinating. It makes the results of dissection accessible to the masses. It's very popular. Tickets aren't all that cheap, and you have to sign up for a specific time to go in so it doesn't get overwhelmed. Jyoshin and I went through on our own, each at our own pace. I found myself particularly interested in internal organs, though there was a lot more emphasis given to muscles and bones. They really did cover all the body systems, though. The arteries were died a very bright red, and some of the exhibits were strikingly beautiful and artistic. I still found some confusion with organs, where they all are and how they are situated relative to each other. It's hard to see that clearly, because they are all kind of packed in there and not always clearly labeled. So I went back and looked again and found an exhibit that I had overlooked, with the stomach, small intestine (9 meters of them! all laid out in a way that you could see how much there is) and colon. I can't remember at this moment what all else was included in that, liver I think.

I have at least a better idea of all those organs and their relative size. Some hazy idea of how they all fit in there, though not entirely clear or solid. Pancreas, spleen, gall bladder, and kidneys -- other than the kidneys, of which there are two, those are the ones I get a little bit mixed up with. They are similar in size, and all seem to have something to do with digestion (pancreas also with the blood -- it sounded like even though you could argue that it's all about digestion, there were two separate functions, one directly on food going through the digestive tract and the other with the blood itself). The size of the liver surprised me -- it's big! It looks very different from those others. And the diaphragm and lungs are higher than I usually think of them. You could really see how the diaphragm divides the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity. The diaphragm is also maybe bigger and thicker and tougher than I usually picture it.

We walked home, as getting a bus to there was easy, but getting back was more difficult. By the time you walked to a bus stop coming back (it goes over a different bridge, on a different route going back) you might as well walk home. So we did. Stopped on the way at Burgerville and got a small chocolate shake -- that was my birthday dessert, I suppose. It was a lovely evening for walking, so even though I was tired of being on my feet, it was okay. We talked about our reactions to the exhibit. She had more trouble with the fact that they were actual dead bodies than I did. She felt like they were missing something. Of course, they were dead. And just the physical aspect was all that was being explored. She felt that not everyone looking at them was exhibiting proper respect. She could see, though, how I found it fascinating, because of my interest in systems and how they work. I've always looked at bodies, even my own, that way. What an interesting thing, how does it work, how is it changing with the years, what does it mean that at some point it will cease to function and I will no longer have use of it? Anyway, talk like that.

This morning was another treat, unexpected. After I got home last night, Kyogen and Gyokuko noted that they would be going to a 10th anniversary celebration of another local Zen Center, and would I like to come along. So this morning, we went. The ceremony started at 8am. It's a Center that follows Charlotte Joko Beck, and generally doesn't do much in the way of ceremonies or robes, so we went in samue rather than robes. And then the teacher there was all dressed up to the nines in koromo, kesa, even tabe (the white ceremonial socks that are sometimes worn the zendo on high occasions).

Kyogen and Gyokuko were given seats of honor, and I was seated next to them. I found the ceremony surprisingly moving. At the end of the ceremony everyone was invited to offer incense. I was beckoned to follow Kyogen and Gyokuko, some of the first. I was being honored as a priest, and did my best to act as one. It was almost overwhelming to me. Here I was being honored when I had done nothing for this sangha, even though most of them don't know me. It became clear that it's not about me, not even about the work I do, but simply a role that I'm filling, something I'm embodying. Well, those aren't good words for it, but I'm still sorting it out, I suppose.

Then the teacher spoke, and then others in the sangha spoke, and I found myself responding to their words and to the spirit of love and appreciation in the room. Yes, I understand that. I could feel how we are all connected.

July 5, 2007 -- about July 4

2007-07-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

I got back from Clatskanie yesterday evening, and it was still pretty warm. I had gone out a day early (that is, Tuesday early morning) to the monastery to try to join their marimba float, and got instruction and picked it up fast enough to do so! If that wasn't going to work, I would have joined the scratch band float (a first attempt this year) doing various sorts of percussion.

So yesterday I got instruction in the morning, and basically joined the monastic day, two work periods, meals, zazen in the evening, etc. I set up my tent out there for overnight, and then this morning had fun getting ready to go on the float. Played marimba like crazy in the parade, did a lot of walking trying to find everyone, got to see a lot of the entries in the parade -- it's a huge parade, who'd a thunk it, but evidently people come from all over to do this. Behind us were some ATVs, very loud, but they were courteous and backed off a bit to give us some space. And behind them was a log truck that occasionally blew its air horn, but usually between our numbers. It was lovely.

[This is a picture of the scratch band float.]

It was HOT. I had my SPF shirt on, and someone loaned me an SPF hat, which helped. I can't really do sunscreen because it messes with my eyes, even if I don't put it on my face. So I try to stay out of the sun and if I have to be out for a while like today, I cover up. Only problem is that it is just that much hotter. And doing music always makes me warmer anyway. By the time the parade ended and we got to the park, I was just really feeling overheated. So I went and got a bottle of ice water and found a nice quiet place by the river under the trees and lay down for a bit. It was nice.

Went back to the monastery for the annual pan-Buddhist picnic in the afternoon, and had a potluck dinner that couldn't be beat -- I wasn't be hungry again until tnis morning. They grilled tofu dogs and burgers, buns, had all the traditional potato, pasta, three-bean, tabouli salads, yummy desserts (I sampled four of them). When I was quite full, I simply lay down on a couch in the midst of everything and took a nap. Come to think of it, that's where I napped Tuesday afternoon too (my tent wasn't up yet).

After I woke up I found myself unenthusiastic about joining in any further outdoor games or frivolity, so hung out for a little while indoors, and finally took my leave. Came home, walked down to the Dharma House where it's cooler to check e-mail and such, and finally went home to bed, with fans, wet washcloth, all my coping mechanisms, and it all worked fine. Got a good night's sleep. Yes, the fireworks were loud, but they really didn't bother me. I could definitely tell the difference between those bought locally and set off in the neighborhood and the "real" ones down at the waterfront. I could almost imagine that I heard some from Sellwood to the south and maybe Vancouver to the north. There is definitely a deeper tone to those. Anyway, just drifted off to sleep with no worries.

I have the house to myself again. MrK and his wife Yoan who live in the basement have gone out to stay at the monastery for the month of July. Their animals have been farmed out to various people (Yoan asked whether I'd like to watch their cat here, but I decided I wasn't sure enough of whether I might take off during this month and wanted to keep that option open). It's a big house for one person, but there are some nice things about being the only one living there. I began reclaiming the kitchen this morning, doing a fair bit of cleaning. It's not all done, and I'll do more tomorrow morning when it's cool. But it all helps.

June 28, 2007 -- California visit

2007-07-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

Wanted to write a little bit about my visit with Amber and Shawn and kiddos (5, 2, and 6 months) in California (Amber is Pam's daughter [known as Plow to dharma folks]). It was a delightful time. All of them are so welcoming, I felt at home almost immediately. Of course, the kids had a little trouble adjusting to me the first night, but by the next day we were all pals, and by the time I left, they were completely comfortable with me.

There were aspects of it that reminded me a lot of practice and what I'm learning. For example, the baby, Piper, 6 months old. She isn't quite sitting up yet, not crawling, not even (quite) turning over. She's a bit chunky, and having trouble figuring out how to move this body of hers. She kicks and kicks and struggles and tries, rolling from side to side, and sometimes scooching along on her back a little bit. Can't quite get the hang of it. When she's on her tummy, she struggles to hold her head up and tries to move everything she can. But it's not comfortable for her, so after a while she fusses and we relent and pick her up or move her to a different position. She's getting lots of floor time and eventually she will figure it all out.

What applies for me is that this is something (a) she doesn't quite know how to do and (b) her body isn't quite ready for. The effort she is expending is important in terms of continuing to strengthen her muscles and help her body get ready for all of this. Also as a way of expressing her intention to move that body. But it doesn't, in itself, get her anywhere. Her body needs to grow a bit more, and she needs to figure out what works and what doesn't. All of this takes time and patience, not generally qualities ascribed to 6-month-old babies. But think about it. Babies have to have incredible patience and determination to overcome these difficulties, to learn to walk, to learn language, all the things they have to learn. It's quite amazing when you think about it.

And so, my teacher tells me to keep working, to be patient. He agrees that I don't know how to do what I'm trying to do. He agrees that the effort I'm making is not in itself going to get me what I want. And yet it is important. Everything is perfect just as it is, and yet there is something that needs to be done. Sometimes I get tired of hearing that. But when I see this baby working so hard to figure out how to move her body, I see the truth of it.

The same thing is true for the other children at their own stages of development. There are things they are trying to do, wanting to do, not knowing how to do, and they get frustrated. The best thing to do for them is to keep encouraging them, supporting them in the efforts they are making, give them whatever tips one can, and love, love, love them. What I have been learning about my own struggle, which sometimes frustrates me a lot, is that I need to be patient, need to give myself lots of compassion, and ask for and accept help and encouragement from others.

The other thing I noticed about being in California with Amber and the children was how mothering can be relaxing. Yes, it's a lot of work, and yes, it's often frustrating. But there is a simplicity to it that can be sweet. Mind you, I did this for three days, which is relatively easy, and I was not in charge, leaving the hard stuff to Amber (overnight feedings of the baby, decision-making, driving kids here and there, shopping, cooking -- you know, minor stuff like that [grin]). Shawn was gone on a business trip (he's a pilot with Southwest Airlines, and flew to Alaska) for much of the time I was there, so I pitched in and became a second parent for a while. The tasks were pretty basic -- see to it that the children got food, clothing, cleaned up, sleep, social time, physical exercise, mental and emotional stimulation, and such. With three of them, there was almost always something more or less pressing to do, and what needed to be done was pretty obvious. Not all the needs got met all the time, as you might imagine with three children and only two adults. But most of them got met, and mostly it was very clear what needed to be done.

Sometimes in Zen we deliberately put ourselves into situations where we have no choices about what to do -- on silent retreats everything is scheduled pretty tightly, and what you do next and how you do it is scripted. There's a freedom and simplicity to that, and sometimes it's quite relaxing and refreshing. I found on the last retreat I did that it allowed me to go deeply into my own karmic issues because I didn't have to think, didn't have to talk or interact with anyone, just follow the forms, which are now pretty easy for me. I found this few days of parenting to be somewhat similar. Once you get the basic tasks figured out, you just do those, and it's easy.

Picture of me at Portland Buddhist Festival

2007-06-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Three separate people took pictures of me with the umbrella (thoughtfully brought to me by Erin) at the festival in the park last Saturday. You can see it at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/janvanraay/527089167/
There are also other pix from the festival at that site.

Summer schedule, and food

2007-06-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

We're officially on summer schedule now, as of Sunday afternoon. For me, it's not all that helpful yet, because the abbots went out of town and I have cat duty. That means I still have to get up early to go down the street to feed the cat. Not a huge hardship, because I usually wake up about 4:30 anyway this time of year. But next week I'll be able to stay in bed and read or get up and putter in my own room or whatever rather than to get up and get dressed and go out right away.

Summer schedule means that the only regular events on the calendar are Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. In addition, we do formal breakfast on Sunday morning (and these days I'm the breakfast cook, so that impacts me a little bit). Other than that, it's just work more or less 9 to 5, and oh, yes, dinners in the evening. I mostly don't cook for those.

I've had a request to write about what food we have here. Other than breakfast (oats, tea, and fruit), I'm not usually involved in the cooking much. I know that at some point I will have to do so, because part of the training is to take on tasks we're not all that comfortable with. I mean, it's not like I can't cook, but cooking for a lot of people with the kind of variety required here is a big challenge. I've always been pretty unconcerned about food, and content to eat much of the same things over and over. But that's not what happens here (other than breakfast, as I mentioned, so I'm very comfortable with that).

Usually there's one person who is designated Tenzo (which means head cook in Japanese). It's an important job, one of the traditional officers of the temple. There's even a fascicle written by the eminent Japanese philosopher Eihei Dogen (considered the founder of Japanese Soto Zen) called "Instructions to the Head Cook" (Tenzokyokun in Japanese) in his collection of writings called the Shobogenzo. At this point, one of the abbots, Gyokuko, is Tenzo. She delegates quite a bit, but oversees everything.

Lunch is usually some combination of soup, salad, bread and/or leftovers. Pretty simple for the few of us around here (many of the lay residents are out at jobs). Often Gyokuko puts that together, but if she's out for some reason in the morning (at the gym or shopping), then one of the other of us does something. I've done that. My standby is ramen soup, which everyone but Domyo likes pretty well. We add tofu and vegies to it to make it really a substantial meal. But I've also managed other things for lunch. There are anywhere from 3-6 of us at lunch most days.

Dinner is another matter. The usual number ranges from 5-10, but sometimes we can have up to about 14. Someone signs up to cook. Sometimes that's Gyokuko, at least 2-3 times a week. Domyo usually manages one a week. We've had a part-time resident, a lay person, doing meals 2 times a week most of this spring. They all cook a bit differently. Domyo likes cooking Mexican, Indian, or Japanese food. Gyokuko cooks Italian, Swedish, American, and eclectic food. The requirements are that it have a starch (potatoes, rice, noodles, pasta, tortillas, bread, etc.), a protein (tofu, beans, cheese [but some alternative for the abbot who can't do dairy], or eggs), and a vegetable (preferably something fresh rather than canned or frozen).

We try to vary all of those so we don't have the same thing two nights in a row. We try to take into account everyone's dietary needs and to some extent preferences. They have been very accommodating of the fact that I really don't like highly spicy foods. So once in a while they make a separate thing for me and Gyokuko (since there are several spices she can't have), but usually they just put extra spice on the side so people can add it. So a very spicy mole sauce or highly charged chili sauce goes in its own bowl to be passed after the entree. And there's always hot chilli sauce as a condiment on the table.

This week is an exception. Because the abbots are out of town and Domyo is busy with family and wedding plans, the rest of us are more or less on our own. Though Domyo did organize a signup system so we would have cooks for dinner every night. Last night we had Indian food, that is, adaptations on traditional Indian dishes. It was delicious. Tonight I think one of the residents is going to spring for pizza, which will be a change, but kind of fun. Tomorrow night I've signed up to cook, and will do one of my standby meals of rice and beans and a veggie stir-fry.

I have a friend once who asked me where I'd like to go eat, and my reply was that the best food in town I know of is right here. Gyokuko could have been a chef, and at some point I think she wanted to do that. She told me, though, that her parents insisted that she go to college, so she did, and then dropped out before graduating. I don't know her whole story. But as a cook, she's first-rate.

What I've been doing this week in terms of work is assisting with the newsletter and trying to get some of my personal stuff more organized. I bought a new cheap Palm (pda) that I'm working on getting set up properly. The old one wasn't working right, and that's been true for a while, so there's some updating and such that I have to do. In addition, Palm has "improved" some of their systems, so I have to learn that as well. Sigh. And there's always other stuff to catch up with and follow up on. Website maintenance is never-ending. Always something new to learn and update. We're gearing up for camp registration for the August Dharma Camp for kids.

One thing I can mention is that it looks like the month of October I will be going to California for a special Ango Training period. They will have four teachers, presumably one a week, focusing on different aspects of priest training. This is through the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, which is really working on getting more systematic training set up for priests. It will be nice to meet some of my fellow novices there.

I got to have lunch on Monday with some former co-workers with Head Start. They now have offices at the Marylhurst University campus, and we went to a nearby Thai restaurant. It was neat to see so many people there (we ended up with 8 of us), and they enjoyed getting together as well.

Back from Retreat - written May 20, 2007

2007-06-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a weeklong retreat out at the monastery. It was wonderful in many ways, but I was definitely glad to have it be over. The last night my left knee and ankle started hurting a lot, and I went to bed with them throbbing. This morning I sat on a bench rather than a cushion, and it helped some. Knees seem better now.

One somewhat trivial thing I could complain about (and have, to several people) is that they have a lovely new bamboo floor, heated. It's beautiful. But when you try to spread a bowing mat on it and bow on the floor, with long sleeves of a koromo, the mat either flies everywhere (can you say flying carpet!?) and/or bunches up as you come back up. Usually we spread the mat on carpet, and out there at the monastery their form is to spread the mats on zabutons anyway, so they have padding. With that kind of floor it certainly makes more sense. But, no, we had to stick with our own style and do nine bows on the hard slippery floor. I managed, and everyone else did too, but it was *not* easy. Maybe I should mention that "everyone else" means those with bowing mats (called zagus) -- all the ordained plus those who have been shuso (chief junior monk, a position that lasts for a year) plus lay teachers. My recollection is that there were seven of us out there, no, eight. We had three ordained attending and the monastery had two ordained, there were two lay teachers, and the current shuso. Most of the time there were about 25 people total, with some there the entire week, and some part-timers who obligingly spaced themselves over the week so that the total numbers at any time were pretty stable.

I loved the silence. I was definitely in a space where I needed to be quiet and stop *doing* so many things. I had almost no duties related to the retreat, so I was able just to sit and enjoy the silence and settle in deeply to it. That allowed me to observe and learn some more things about a recurring karmic pattern of mine, and I find that useful.

At this point, I'm ready for some time off, and in fact have already taken a nap and read a mystery novel this afternoon. I'm not entirely unpacked, but mostly, and have laundry ready to go for tomorrow. I woke up at 2am this morning, and wasn't really sleepy enough to go back to sleep until it was time to get up at 4:30. Oh, well. Tonight I can sleep, and tomorrow no alarm or wake-up bell. Maybe it doesn't need to be said that I'm not attending ZCO's program this evening -- I really want to give my knees a thorough rest before I get back down on a cushion. And anyway, I think going to bed early would be a good thing.

Uniforms

2007-03-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big fan of having to change clothes all the time. But it looks like I'll have to get used to it. There are just times when I have to get into or out of robes, and that's the life of a priest. [My teacher] Kyogen's perennial vow -- to get up every day and put on his robes and meet what's in front of him -- makes more sense to me now. There's a very practical aspect to that vow that I understand in a new way.

So, just for fun, I'm going to detail a day in the life of a junior monk on a silent retreat -- just in terms of clothing. I'll start by explaining the 3 outfits.

First there is what Kyogen calls sitting robes (I always called it a lay meditation robe, but I'm no longer a lay person, so calling it a sitting robe makes sense). This is a long black robe made from a medieval Japanese style, fairly simple, crossing in the front with ties at each hip and a sash or waist cord tying in the front. Under it, we wear a juban, which is a sort of white undershirt in the same style -- that is, crossing over in the front and tying at each side. It's supposed to show slightly at the neckline and sleeves. (I also wear an undershirt and white v-neck tee shirt under all of that for warmth most of the year.)

Second, there's the more ceremonial koromo, another long black robe but with very long sleeves (both in terms of how far down they hang and how long they are off the end of the arms), and those wonderful incredible pleats in the skirt that make it drape so nicely. Under the koromo is both a juban and a kimono, again both white (you can see me in the juban and kimono at the ordination ceremony -- see January 7 -- that ceremony starts with me in my "underwear" -- that is, kimono).

In both cases, sitting robe or koromo, when I am in the Zendo (whether sitting zazen or participating in ceremonies), I'm also wearing the kesa (which is a a large rectangle of black cloth that ties at the left shoulder) and dealing with a zagu (bowing mat). Most of the time the zagu is folded into a neat rectable sitting on the floor in front of me. When I'm standing or coming in or going out of the hall, it's draped over my arm (folded into the left sleeve of the koromo if I'm wearing that), and when I'm bowing, it's spread out on the floor in a particular zigzag pattern. We do 9 full bows at the beginning and end of service in the morning, and during the service we pick up the bowing mat, still folded in this zigzag pattern, and put it on our seat and sit on it that way.

So, for morning service I'm dealing with bowing mat, kesa (which I can't sit on, so I have to lift it over the top of the cushion or bench I'm sitting on), and koromo sleeves, on top of everything else I've become accustomed to dealing with -- chanting, sometimes chant leading or drumming. It's all practice, and just part of priest training.

The third outfit is called samue (SAM-oo-ay), which just means work clothes. This consists of pants and a field jacket over a juban. It's still a basic Japanese style, which crosses over in front and ties. I never wear the kesa with samue, but sometimes I wear the rakusu, which is a smaller, informal version of a kesa. Both signify that I have taken the precepts and am a Buddhist. I got the rakusu when I became a lay disciple, and all of our lay disciples make a rakusu for themselves.

Kesas come in different colors and forms. Mind is black and has seven stripes, and signifies that I am a priest in training. Other colors and numbers of stripes signify various other levels of transmission, I gather, but I don't know much about all of that.

Okay, with that very long introduction, I can go into a day in the life of a retreat. I begin the day at 5:10am, when I get up, wash, dress in samue, and make the bed. I ring the wake-up bell for others in the house at 5:25 (being the monk in residence). Officially wake-up is at 5:30, but this house is about a 5-minute walk from the Zendo, so I added 5 minutes.

I walk to the Dharma House, where I work and store my robes, and change into koromo. My kesa (along with zagu and rakusu) is in its case, and I carry it over to the Zendo to put at my sitting place.

A little before 5:50 the bell rings to signal the start of meditation, and we do 30 minutes of sitting. At 6:20 we say the kesa verse, and I put on my kesa at my seat, putting the zagu in front of me, folded up. After that we do ten minutes of walking meditation, and then sit for another 30 minutes before the chanting service. I pick up the zagu, spreading it out to bow on it, and then sit on it during chanting service. After service, we again bow, and then I pick up the zagu and fold it, tucking it into the sleeve of the koromo. After leaving the hall, I take off the kesa, folding it and the zagu carefully and putting them back into the case, getting out the rakusu and putting it on.

Now I'm in koromo and rakusu, and it's time to do some temple cleanup while the cooks work on breakfast. For the first part of the week, I was an assistant cook, and so I knew I would be working on cooking oats and tea. Special ties sewn inside the sleeves of the koromo allowed me to tie the sleeves up out of the way (well, mostly). By the end of the week, I figured out that this would have been a good time to change into sitting robes -- I finally noticed that all the other priests did -- but I didn't, just tied the sleeves up. Next retreat I'll know better.

We eat all meals formally in the Zendo, wearing robe and rakusu. After breakfast, I finally change into sitting robes, wearing it during the work period because I knew I would be in charge of sewing work practice and therefore indoors. If I had been working outdoors, I would have had to change to samue. I stayed in robes because after work practice there's another two 30-minute periods of meditation, and for that I take off the rakusu and put on the kesa. (I was timekeeper for this time slot all week, which just meant that I sat in the front and rang bells at the appointed times.) After this, I take off the kesa and put on the rakusu, and we prepare for lunch. Again, it's in the Zendo and formal, with chanting and silence.

After lunch is a rest period. I put away the rakusu and change to samue. If I'm smart, I take a nap. But some days I did a bit of work and/or checked e-mail. At various breaks during the day, I kept up with temple voicemail and e-mail, as well as my own. I also kept tabs on temple laundry -- doing almost a load a day of dish towels and hand towels.

After rest is exercise, and each day I chose stretching and floor exercise in the Zendo on my own. I could have brought my walking shoes and participated in a group walk outdoors -- the weather was incredible, warm and sunny. We opened all the windows in the Zendo each afternoon, so staying in to do stretching wasn't that terrible. We find that daily exercise is useful when you spend so much time sitting in meditation.

After exercise is meditation again -- change from samue to sitting robe and kesa. Take off kesa and put on rakusu for dinner. Another break (often folding laundry for me), and change to koromo and kesa for evening meditation, formal tea, and vespers.

Finally, at the end of the day, change out of all that, put on samue, and walk home, going to bed usually something past 10pm.

I suppose I'm going into all this because it's been a little surprising to me how much I have to pay attention to clothes. I mean, in some ways the clothing is simple (and I've made almost all of it myself), but there's a whole protocol of what one wears and when. It's not written out anywhere, but you have to watch and figure things out, and occasionally someone will give you tips, or you can ask. It's part of priest training, part of learning the form particular to our lineage, and part of mindfulness practice.

Today, a day off, I can wear anything I wish. Ironically, it has almost become another uniform -- pants, a tee shirt that is not v-neck or white (which I wear all the other six days of the week), often a turtleneck, and one of about 3 shirts over that, plus a fleece vest. I seem to do well with uniforms. I don't have to think too much about what to wear. At some point, I imagine, all these uniforms will become so familiar, I won't have to think so much about them either.

Day Off

2007-02-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

Oh, I've had such a nice day off. My friend Kevin is staying with us for a few days, at a room in the Sangha House. His partner is off on a business trip in Las Vegas, and so we get Kevin. Aside from being a fun person to be with, Kevin also spent several hours this afternoon on temple laundry (which I've been primarily responsible for, and it's a big relief to have someone else beginning to take it over), and he took me and another friend (the other person who lives at the Sangha House) out to dinner. We had Italian food -- pasta -- and this incredible chocolate cake dessert, split three ways, which was just about right. I mean, I could have eaten the whole thing myself, but I'm not sure that would have been a good idea.

So at this moment, my tummy feels very good. I'm working on my own laundry, which always feels good as well. And I took a nap this afternoon while Kevin was ironing away. I just crashed after brunch somehow, and sacked out on the couch in the sitting room. I guess I was pretty tired. I think I will still sleep well tonight, even with the nap, but that should take me into tomorrow in good shape with good energy.

This morning I drove Kevin out to Fabric Depot, one of my favorite places to spend some time. I helped him pick out fabric, and managed to get out of there spending less than $10 on two little pieces of fabric to make more bags with (which I haven't been doing, but I just couldn't resist these pieces). I have a large box full of fabric with several projects in mind, and have been spending very little time on them.

After brunch, I went to the airport to pick up the Domyo, the other monk, who was coming back from presenting a workshop at a conference in Chicago. She was supposed to come back yesterday, but her flight was cancelled because of that big storm in the midwest. But today she came back with no problems.

This weekend has seen a lot of comings and goings to/from the airport. Domyo left on Friday morning to go to Chicago (I drove her out there). Gyokuko came back from Nebraska on Friday evening. She had been there for a week to support the abbot who was very sick. She got to spend time with that small center and help the people there through this difficult time. She reported that the abbot was doing well -- she could see a lot of improvement in the week she was there.

Kyogen left early Sunday morning to go to California for an abbot installation and a Soto Zen Buddhist Association board meeting. He's due back tomorrow, I think.

Me, I've been staying here. I feel like I'm settling in to being an ordained monk, and things seem a little more sane again. I'm beginining to catch up with some things I've gotten behind on. Of course, we're now gearing up for Jukai sesshin, a silent retreat that will be held her in town March 12-18. I'm in charge of registrations again, and also need to make sure we have chant leading covered. Not sure what else they will put me in charge of for that. I've done the flyers for it, and put registration forms up on to our website, so it's not like I've not done anything at all so far.

There's always plenty of work to do here. I'm finding that I'm savoring my days off, especially the mornings spent at the Sangha House, often by myself. Tomorrow morning I won't be alone, because Kevin will be there. He's promised to cook pancakes for us for breakfast. Some time after that I will take a nice long soaking bath (we have a lovely clawfooted tub there) and shave my head. I do that twice a week now, and it seems to be working out okay.

So my laundry should be ready for the next step, which involves putting one more load into the dryer, and after that I think I will take myself off to bed.

Getting caught up...

2007-02-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

... with the blog, that is. I haven't managed a coherent update for a few weeks, I think. Since ordination, the pace of my life has stepped up significantly.

First I moved, and am now pretty much settled. Other than moving all my stuff, which took a while, the move has made little difference in my daily routine. I still spend almost all my time at the Dharma House, going to the Sangha House only to sleep, bathe and shave (which is what I do now instead of washing my hair), and sometimes puttering a little bit on my days off. I keep my robes here at the Dharma House, and what I need to get work done in the office and such, and generally don't need to spend time up there at the Sangha House much. I'm here more or less from 6am to 10pm most days other than Monday. Sunday evening I may or may not go "home" early, depending on whether I do ZCO's program or not (and I don't think I've done that for the last few weeks at all), and Monday and Tuesday mornings I don't have to be here early. All other mornings I'm making breakfast, and need to be here by 6:15am at the latest.

Even though it's my day off today, I'm here at the Dharma House. For one thing, we traditionally have brunch here on Mondays at noon, typically some sort of eggy dish (today it was omelets) and some sort of coffeecake, often a yeasted rolled thing with some sort of fruit. For the second thing, the laundry facilities here are better than they are up there, and I find that bringing my laundry down here makes sense to me -- I have a nice little shopping cart that I got in Boston that I used to use for laundry (and groceries too, of course), and that's what I use now for the laundry. Today there's a lot of extra temple laundry to do as well, but I'll get to that in the moment. Third, this is where the computers are. 'Nuff said.

This last weekend, Saturday to be exact, we had our biannual huge fundraising dinner called Kanzeon in the Kitchen (Kanzeon being the bodhisattva of compassion, the same as Kwan Yin in China). I helped out at it two years ago, running up and down stairs helping with serving, and ended up with really sore legs. This time the legs are fine -- I guess I run up and down stairs all the time now anyway, and am more or less immune to problems with that. The rest of me is still pretty tired. I did push myself as hard as I could, until I finally realized I had to stop carrying things and go home to bed. Yesterday was a recovery day, and I was feeling much better by last night. Today I'm kind of tired again, so I'm trying to take it easy.

However, as mentioned above, there is a ton of extra temple laundry -- all the linens on the tables plus the kitchen stuff -- aprons, towels, wiping cloths, and the like. The dishes weren't as much of an issue -- we actually were loaned dishes from a local caterer where a Sangha member works, and they charged only a handling fee to wash them. So we rinsed them off and loaded them back into crates and they got taken back yesterday. There were still cooking and serving dishes to wash, of course. And there are still some of those to be put away. But we got things cleaned up remarkably well.

This time I ended up being wait captain, that is, in charge of all the wait staff. Plus registration, making place cards, arranging for linens and tables to be set up, etc. What I know about working in a restaurant is minimal at best, but fortunately, I had lots of help materializing when I really needed it to. We had awesome food, and I stayed pretty much out of the kitchen, because I knew that someone needed to be focused on the front end of things, and that needed to be me. The dinner went off fine, though there were fewer people than two years ago. I don't know yet whether we made money or not, because I don't know how the expenses were. I'm reasonably sure we covered costs, but it was supposed to be a fundraiser and it remains to be seen how much we actually netted. It was fun for people -- everyone had fun, we had really great musical entertainment, and it was worth doing for that (did I mention that the food was outstanding?), but in terms of making money, it may not be worth it. And the cooks all were stressed, not having quite enough help, though they managed to get everything done.

And plenty of other stuff as well, but I'm going to let go of all that for today. One thing I managed to do last Monday was to write and finish my seminary paper for this past term, on the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Flower Ornament Scripture. This is a huge tome (something like 1300 pages), and we only did the last chapter (Ch39) called The Entry into the Realm of Reality. That is "only" 400 pages. It's very flowery language, written in India several centuries ago, and was interesting to get through. It treats a journey by Sudhana, who goes around from teacher to teacher trying to learn how to become an enlightening being, how to teach others, and in the process runs into a lot of people and also celestial beings who specialize in lots of different kinds of enlightening activities. So one possible assignment, which is the one I chose, was to write a section with ourselves as the one Sudhana is visiting, and tell him what we specialize in. I became the monk Genko who has attained the meditation of cleaning kitchens, striking gongs, and staying on schedule. It was fun to write, and ended up much funnier than I expected it to. Gyokuko, who taught the class, read the paper and laughed (I referred to her in the paper as a tenzo [chief cook] who habitually messes up the kitchen when cooking [which she does, and knows she does]), asked me a couple of questions, and told me I passed.

This is pretty significant, because I've been taking seminary classes for quite a while, and frequently don't manage to write papers for them. Last year I could barely put words on paper, and couldn't deal with the classes on the level of words at all. Obviously I'm in a different space this year. In general, I feel better. I went through a lot of emotional upheaval last year, dealing with old karma, and it was something I really needed to do. But it wasn't what I'd call fun. In a way, it kind of took me apart, deconstructed the self. Now I'm able to be in a better space, to let feelings rise and fall and not get so attached to them and not push them away either. I'm finding some sort of balance here.

The seminary program is designed to take three years, but it's obviously taking me longer than that, because I've been interrupted with it more than once. I've actually sat in on the History and Texts class twice and have yet to write a paper for it. So when it comes around again, I'll probably sit in on it again and this time will write a paper -- in fact, I already have an idea for part of one of the papers.

Well, I could blather on more, but suffice it to say that I'm busy and doing fine. Haven't yet caught any of the bad colds or other bugs I'm hearing about, and hope that I will escape most of that this year. Quite the contrast to last year, when I was sick a lot. Hope everyone else is having a healthy winter.

Written January 13, 2007

2007-02-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't know whether there's really time for this, but I figured I'd give it a try. It's been a very busy week.

I have several changes I'm dealing with, as you might imagine, since ordination. First, there's the matter of the robes. Fortunately, I'm able to deal with those a little at a time, due to various circumstances. This week, I've been learning how to put on, tie, and take off the kesa (this is the outer robe that is roughly square and ties over the left shoulder). I haven't had to do any bowing because as the chant leader, I'm ringing the bells signalling everyone else to bow, and I'm sitting down while I do that. I bow sitting down, but don't have to spread out my bowing mat and deal with lifting up the kesa, etc. I think tomorrow (Sunday), I will have to deal with the whole megillah -- big robes, kesa, bowing mat, the works. That will be fun (maybe). But it's all practice. If I mess up, people will all be kind, and eventually I will get it.

Second, there's shaving. Oh, boy, there's a whole thing about shaving, and when it's the head, well ... Here, everyone swears by double-edged razors as opposed to the disposable multi-blade jobbies out there. I've tried both this week, and the verdict is still out. I think my skill with the double-edged razor lacks something, so I will again continue to practice and persist. Then there's the business about what soap, shampoo, shaving cream, lotion afterwards, etc., to use. When I went to a cutlery store to buy the double-edged razor (I tried Freddy's first, what a laugh!), the guy said that head hair tends to be tougher than facial or leg hair. In my case, there's also more of it -- that is, my hair is pretty thick and fine, and it also grows fast. I get stubbly much faster than I would like to. Right now I'm thinking I'd like to shave every other day, but I may revise that as time goes on.

Third, I'm going to move next week. That is, I will move from the Dharma House, where I've been for a year and a half, to the Sangha House, 3 blocks away. I will have my own room there. It's somewhat small, but will be adequate. However, it has no heat -- I'll need to get a heater, maybe. I will continue to spend most of my time here at the Dharma House, as this is where work and meals and services and such happen, but my stuff and where I sleep will move. The house is beautiful, and at the moment there's only one person actually living there. There's a wonderful garden and yard and deck. The house gets regularly used every other week for Dharma School, and once a month for the high school overnights. Board meetings are there every other month, and women's group meetings are there once a month. But basically, it's a residence for those who have "graduated" from the Dharma House. We also have it as extra housing for visiting teachers or sangha members who stay temporarily. My address remains the same, as all mail comes here, and I still have a mailbox here.

Fourth, new duties. My teacher has asked me to take over checking the staff e-mail and to begin scheduling his appointments and generally assisting him in various administrative ways. I'm happy about that, really, as part of what I really want to do is to take some of the stuff that he's been doing adminsitratively off his shoulders so he can concentrate on teaching and fundraising and organizational development, which only he can really do. I've managed to take the website off of him, and for the most part, also the newsletter. I regard this new "position," such as it is, as an opportunity to serve in ways that I believe I can serve well, and so that's very satisfying.

Today started for me with getting up early to shave (my first attempt with the double-edged razor). Then I showered and dressed, and made breakfast for 10 people. Then we had our regular Saturday sitting and service, followed by monthly women's group meeting (there's a men's group meeting at the same time). Then lunch, during which time we heard that one of our sangha members had what appeared to be a stroke in Eugene (while giving a workshop at the Eugene Zendo). Fortunately, there were several health care practitioners there, and they got her to the hospital right away and then carried on with the workshop. We have had regular updates all afternoon, and she's still in the hospital, and they have moved her to ICU, though mostly because they are concerned about her high blood pressure. She's watching a football game.

After lunch, we started in on our new Sangha Project work practice time, when several people were here to help with a 2-hr work period on a couple of defined projects. The one I participated in was getting out ballots for the Board election. The other was cleaning out the garage. We had enough people that both projects were a huge success, and got a lot done in a relatively short period of time. This is a new idea for us, and the brainchild of Domyo, I gather. What we are doing is having two regularly-scheduled times each week (Thursday mornings and Saturday afternoons) for people to come and work on specific projects for a specified period of time. This is the first week we've tried it, and it was a great success. On Thursday morning, we had a crew over at the Sangha House (which will be my new home after next week) doing deep cleaning. One woman went to town on the living room and dining room, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, washing woodwork and windows, etc., and it looks great. A guy scrubbed out the shower, washed the shower curtain, and generally cleaned the main floor bathroom. He also knew how to turn on the self-cleaning oven for the stove (which needed cleaning badly). I focused on the kitchen, cleaning the other two ovens (toaster and microwave) and some of the woodwork, etc. Domyo spent the time working on taking stuff out of her room, which is the same one I will move into next week.

Anyway, that was Thursday. Today, after work practice time, I did some dishes and general cleanup in the kitchen, where Gyokuko was already working on dinner, and finally was able to come up here and check e-mail. There you have it -- my day and a smattering of my week. I'm still happy, still enjoying everything I'm doing.

Ordination, January 7, 2007

2007-02-12T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well, it's done. Wow, what an amazing day.

Much of this week has been pretty normal, with plenty of work to do. And today was no exception, until about 2pm or so. Then my teacher had me step into the bathroom to get shaved. We do it pretty informally here, as opposed to a much more formal activity at the monastery.

First, he used clippers to get as close as possible (leaving the little tuft of hair called the "shura" to be shaved during the actual ordination ceremony). Then he used a razor and shampoo to shave as much as possible. And finally he ran the razor lightly over the entire head against the grain. The result was a very close smooth shave, and a very bald head. After shaving, I took a shower, and then my teacher put his own blend of lotions on my head to make it smooth and also to soothe it a bit.

I love being bald. I love how it looks, and I'm getting used to how it feels. A friend took pictures, and I'll photoshop them tomorrow and try to post at least one on my blog.

After a while, I took my kimono and slip and obi across the street, and changed there. About 15 minutes before the ceremony I went upstairs to the hall and stood in my designated spot to wait. I saw several friends come in to watch, along with several people from the two sanghas (Dharma Rain and Zen Community of Oregon). No family, though.

The ceremony went off without any serious hitches. One minor glitch was that on one of the bows I did at the ordination altar (which is a low table that we all kneel at) I hit my head coming back up. "Ow," I whispered, but just kept going on to the next thing. After that I paid more attention to where that table was and made sure there was room when I came back up. And of course I'm totally not used to my new robes, and had to do a lot of bows in them, so struggled a bit with them. My kesa is too loose -- I need to re-do one of the patches and ties and move it over a couple of inches.

At this point, I still don't know how to put on my own kesa. In the ceremony the jisha puts the koromo and kesa on me. So I decided not to try to do the ZCO program this evening. I have to learn a few things before I can do all that.

In any case, I had no problems with all the bows, and was able to do the entire ceremony strongly. I'm very happy, and several people said I was glowing. The pictures show me looking confident and happy, which is an accurate picture of how I feel today. I got hugs from everyone afterwards, and there were wonderful cookies and fudge to eat after the ceremony for everyone.

I came back over here to eat dinner, which Gyokuko cooked up for something like 22 people -- residents here, monastery people who would need to have something to eat before doing their evening program, and a few other visiting teachers. One of the teachers told me to sit still and not help with cleanup. I went upstairs to the office to look at pictures. And then I went to my room to open presents and cards.

I'm overwhelmed by everyone's kindness. There were some amazing presents and lovely cards, and I find myself really touched. There's a beautiful mala from a new monk at the monastery. There are two books, one of poetry and another of photographs. There's a set of monk's bowls from the teachers at the monastery. And other things. Many wonderful cards and messages from people.

I've had many thoughts, especially this last week, about what it all means to me, but I don't think I can articulate it all very well. I had a dream/nightmare I think Thursday morning, and that was interesting. One thing I've found is that I'm not as overwhelmed by feelings and thoughts that come up. So there is still fear, but I don't have to avoid it and I don't have to be ruled by it. I can simply sit with it, and it eventually passes. I'm not as afraid of the fear any more. It's quite nice. I think the dream had some things to say to me, and I'm still processing them.

I started writing about all of this in some sort of attempt to explain or document my process. And I find that I can't really do that very well. Most of the important things that happen are impossible to articulate, because putting them into words just doesn't work. I mean, you can say things about them, but it's a little like speaking in code. You can only hint at it, and then not all that well. Unless someone already knows what you are talking about, it's impossible to explain adequately.

Nevertheless, I will no doubt continue to try to find ways to say something about what's going on with me. Today marks a significant transition. What it signifies is hard to say. But I feel it.

2006-12-31T10:09:00.000-08:00

Last day of 2006. In many ways it's just another day. I got up, took a walk, sat zazen and then did a bunch of bowing practice -- that's not typical. That is, the number of bows I did isn't typical. I sometimes do 18 bows by myself in the morning. Today I did double that -- 36. It being a day for many bows. There will be many more tonight, both at the Fusatsu ceremony, and afterwards to the Founders Shrine. My legs are slightly rubbery, which often means that they will be sore tomorrow.

It's cold and clear this morning, and dry -- no frost on my car this morning as there was yesterday. Temps are in the 20s. I noticed on my walk this morning that I wanted both gloves and hat, and almost got out the ear-warmer that I sometimes wear under the hat when it's really cold. I sat zazen in the big zendo, where the temperature is set to 58 degrees, and the heat came on while I sat. I wrapped a blanket around myself, even though I'm bundled up with sweater and wool samue jacket plus other cotton layers. Still, in the morning it's common for me to get cold.

Sitting meditation felt good today. I went into it a little unsettled. It seems that sitting still for 45 minutes or more, focusing on the present moment, on the breath, letting go of past and future, watching thoughts and feelings rise and fall, does allow the mind to calm down. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I see that it does. There's just a different quality that I can access now that I couldn't see before sitting.

Not sure what I'm going to do next. I've had breakfast, checked my e-mail, and now I suppose I need to check my list of things to do. There are several things on the list, and obviously I won't get to all of them. I like having choices, though. I don't know that anything is more pressing than other things.

It's been a nice week "off." The Center has been closed, so there have been no scheduled meditations or services, and most of the time we've had the phones turned off (though we've checked messages regularly). Still, there's always work to do, and we've kept the post office busy this week with various fundraising letters. We're getting a good response to our end-of-year fundraising letter, and are continuing forward with a major push, having hired a professional to help us move to the next level. We still have to eat, and so I've sometimes cooked, sometimes helped with cooking, and always helped with cleanup.

I've done some sewing, and the kesa is almost finished. I've deliberately left a little bit to do so that people can add stitches tonight. It's a long tradition to have sangha members add stitches to the monk's robe as a way of representing their participation in and support of an ordination. While I was at it, I also did a little mending of my lay meditation robe, because I will still wear it sometimes. There are many more sewing projects, and I could spend all day just working on them, if I could stand to do so.

But likely I will do some other things. There are flyers I want to finish and copy. Yesterday I copied and folded 120 programs for this evening's service. I did some housekeeping across the street where we will have upwards of that many people doing a potluck dinner and other things on into the evening. I want to set up some sort of system for cleanup that doesn't have me standing at the sink for 2 hours, as happened last year. There's always a level of chaos, but I think some advance planning can help things go more smoothly.

Tomorrow morning we will have a brunch for residents and a few other people, including those who come down from the monastery to participate in the service this evening. I think last year we had something like 12 people, and this year promises to be at least that many. In the afternoon, I'm going to Molalla to spend a little time with a friend I haven't seen in quite a while. On Tuesday, we start back up with the regular schedule.

Sometimes I want to share things that are happening, but am too busy. Then when I get time to write, like today, nothing much is going on. So you get a snippet of an ordinary day. I try to remember some of those things that came into my mind to share, but the mind gets regularly emptied, so whatever those things were no longer seem important. It's all transient, I suppose. What really matters is the quality of light on the tree outside, the feel of the keyboard on my fingers, thinking of family and friends, and anticipation of a special evening coming up. And underneath all of that, an abiding peace and faith. And, yes, joy and gratitude.

Dream 12/24/06

2006-12-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that two teachers (not sure which ones, but clearly teachers, priests) were in a bathroom, and so was I, allowed to assist. We were cleaning the toilet. When I woke up, I realized that's exactly what's happening, we're working to clean the toilet. Some of it is my own karma that needs to be cleaned up over and over again. And that's the work, just to clean and clean again, with all attention and a whole heart. Keep cleaning the kitchen, keep cleaning the bathrooms, keep sweeping the walkways, keep sitting and letting go of old habit patterns.

I found myself remembering my bowing practice of the night before, when I put on all my robes except the kesa, and did some bowing and some sitting, just to get used to the robes a little bit. I found myself this morning suddenly feeling like I am becoming a priest, that the robes somehow -- I can't explain it really, because it isn't quite that the robes make me a priest, but that they lead me into taking that role and I just go through it. Joan Halifax one time talked about the robes sitting, and eventually just sitting is sitting. And Chozen last year in response to a Shosan question about whether the robes were a strategy she had adopted to do her work in the world, said it wasn't quite like that, that maybe she was a strategy that the robes had adopted to do this work. I get that, somehow. There's a feeling that I am joining in to a particular company that is doing particular work, and the work somehow makes sense to me. And the robes make it real in some odd way that I can't really explain.

As I end my postulancy, I am more convinced than ever that this is my path, that I am in exactly the right place, that somehow this work is the work I took birth to do. At times it's difficult, but somehow when you are doing what you are meant to do it all works and doesn't seem too hard -- ultimately it energizes me rather than making me tired.

What's up today (e-mail to a friend written 12/22/06)

2006-12-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

I asked Gyokuko to help me this afternoon to measure where to put the patches on the kesa, and she got a big smile on her face. "Exciting," I think is the word she used. She expressed delight at having a "new baby."

I'm really glad that we're getting to a time where we can completely take it easy, now that the schedule is relaxed. I'm still feeling basically okay (maybe a little dizzy), but I'm not interested in going out to do anything very ambitious. I'll probably help Gyokuko with Christmas dinner tomorrow, no Sunday, assuming that I'm still not sick by then. And I'm finishing up a few things on the website. I'm beginning to work on flyers for Kanzeon Festival, Kanzeon in the Kitchen, and Jukai, but none of those is particularly pressing, so they come under the category of fun at this point.

And it's time to think about lunch. You know, yesterday I cooked lunch and dinner, and didn't stress too much about either of them. Part of the trick with lunch was that I started soon enough that I had plenty of time to think about what to do and when to do it. And dinner of course was Gyokuko's brainchild, but again we started early enough that we were able to be ready with no problem. Once I got clear on what to do and when, it was easy enough. Today I'm not sure what to do -- there's soup stock from last night (Gyokuko threw the ends of the celery and asparagus into a pot with some water and boiled them for a while), so soup would be the logical choice, probably just a basic tofu and vegetable soup. I can do that, but need to get on it. We used almost all of the bread yesterday, so maybe I'll just put out crackers. I don't think there's time to make apple muffins. Maybe tomorrow.

Back from Rohatsu, originally written 12/11/06

2006-12-23T10:44:00.001-08:00

I'm back from my week away at Rohatsu Sesshin, a 7-day silent retreat out at the monastery near Clatskanie, and am just now getting caught up with the e-mail from the week. I did three loads of laundry and have a pile of ironing to do, and several items (silk, cashmere, and wool) drying in various places in my room. Most of us are moving rather slowly today, and that certainly includes me.

I had a great sesshin. I was timekeeper, which meant that I had duties, quite a lot to do, with some of it being unfamiliar. Because it's a blended sesshin bringing together 3 different Zen groups, we blend forms. The parts that we do Dharma Rain style I am very familiar with, and can practically do in my sleep. The parts that are ZCO style that differ significantly from our forms I had more trouble with. Some of it was pretty easy, because I do participate in ZCO services here. But they do their dharma talks very differently from ours -- requiring different chants and instruments, and it was difficult for me to get the sequence and timing down. In addition, there were 4 different teachers giving talks on the various days, and each of them did things a bit differently. And on top of all that, I couldn't see the teachers (in the back of the zendo where they were sitting and giving talks) from my seat (in the front of the zendo) because there were people in between me and them. But I enlisted the Head of Zendo to give me cues when to start, and we got along okay.

My goal was to be pretty much unnoticed, so that the schedule would move forward unobtrusively and people could rest into it without having to worry about it. We have wake-up bells, and end-of-work-period bells, and a wooden hahn to strike ten minutes before service, as well as various bells inside the zendo to signal moving to the next thing. It all helps to minimize talking and verbal activity. We like people not to be paying attention to watches or clocks, but just to go with the schedule. For the most part, I succeeded in this -- several people actually did come up to me afterwards and said I made that part of it easy for them. Of course, I was acutely conscious of when I messed up slightly. But the mistakes were few and small, and didn't really hurt anything. And part of what I was practicing with was to let go of self-consciousness and worry about all of it while still maintaining mindful attention to the task. In the end, it felt like I did that pretty well.

The dharma talks and sanzen (formal interview with a teacher) sessions I had were all first-rate, and I got a lot out of them all. I went to sanzen with each of the teachers, and found a new one (from Eugene) who I had never been to before, who I really liked a lot. In past sesshins, I've found it important to focus on either only my own teacher or at least to see those who I've been working with most steadily. This time I was in a different space, and anyway my teacher was not doing sanzen (he didn't arrive until Friday evening). So I felt much freer to sample the various teachers, and felt enriched thereby.

The sesshin ended with an ordination for a new novice monk out there at the monastery on Sunday morning. Sometime during the morning Gyokuko came up and put her arm around me and said, "you're next." She got out her calendar and asked if I had any date conflicts coming up. They are finally getting ready to schedule my ordination date. She told me that Hogen (who is a ZCO teacher) had specifically asked that it be scheduled when he could come. I was touched by that. Yes, I've been doing sanzen with him during Sunday evening services, so we do have a relationship. Still, I found it sweet that he would make it a point to come to my ordination. I'm going to try to schedule informal sanzen with my teacher here tomorrow so I can hopefully get a date nailed down soon to let everyone know when it will be. We'll see how it goes.

Both teachers are finally back here, and for the first time in years they won't be going to California to visit with Kyogen's father, since he died almost a month ago now. Kyogen's attention to his father's situation is what's been holding up the setting of a date. Kyogen got back here the Thursday before Rohatsu, and he stayed here during much of it because there were so many things here to catch up on (like the end-of-year fundraising letter). But now I think I can schedule sanzen with him, and check in to see where we're at.

One of the great things about my experience at sesshin this time was that I wasn't sick! The last two week-long sesshins I've been to out there I've been sick, and that certainly increases the stress. In addition, my body seemed to do quite well in sitting on a cushion on the floor for 8 hours a day for 7 days. At some point I began to be aware of some sciatic-like twinges, and realized that I needed to do more walking and less sitting on a chair (sitting on the floor doesn't seem to cause any problems at all). There's not a lot of walking outside that one is tempted to do in December, but I made a couple of extra loops around the parking lot and around the monastery during breaks, and also made it a point to do things during work practice each day (sewing, and I was work leader for the three of us) that wouldn't require my sitting in a chair. Of course, when using a sewing machine one has to sit in a chair, but I was able to stand to cut out fabric and organize things, and at some point when I needed to sit down to pin things, I went into the nearby sitting area and sat on the carpet by the coffee table. Soon I was joined by two abbots -- the one from Eugene, and one from the monastery -- similarly sitting and doing sewing projects in silence. After I made these two changes (adding a little walking and reducing chair-sitting), and also did a bit more stretching, the sciatic stuff went away. I did notice that my knees were a little sore yesterday, but today they seem fine.

The first item of business tomorrow will be back to completing the newsletter to get it printed and mailed out and then updated on the web. It's the first we've done with the new software, and it was really nice to work with. I also need to get cracking on finishing my okesa, which is mostly done, but not quite. It's nice to be on a reduced schedule, after the intensely scheduled past week, and I'm happy to be on a bit of a break.

Ordination Date, originally written December 12

2006-12-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, we set the date and time. Sunday, January 7 at 4pm. That will allow both ZCO people and Dharma Rain people to come, and I'd love to see any of you come as well. The place is the Portland Dharma Center, 2517 SE Madison (for information and directions, go to www.dharma-rain.org/?p=contact ). One of my best friends here will be out of town, but you can't accommodate everyone. I think there will still be lots of people coming.

The ceremony usually takes about an hour, and involves lots of bowing on my part, taking the precepts, my teacher shaving off the last little bit of hair, someone putting new robes on me, they give me a bowl and a bowing mat, and various vows.

I hardly know what to think or how to feel. In some ways it's a big deal and in other ways it won't change all that much, other than I will have to wear my new fancy clothes in the zendo, and my head will be actually shaved for the next five years. I feel ready for this.

Nov 28 - 9 quarts and 5 pints

2006-12-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

That's how much applesauce I canned this morning. Even though it was technically still time off, I really wanted to get the rest of those apples taken care of. Last week I sorted through the several coolers and buckets of apples we still had from our apple-picking expedition (a month ago? something like that). Some were totally rotten, and those went into the compost bin. Some had bruises, soft spots, and rotten areas on them, and those went into a bucket (or two). Most looked like they were still just fine. Those went back into two coolers and a bucket. The ones with spots are the ones I worked with, because they really do need to be done by hand (as opposed to the nifty peeler/corer/slicer deal which will only work on intact apples). I got through all of those this morning.

Last Thursday I did the sorting and made a big batch of applesauce. I wasn't sure it was enough for a canning batch, though, so today I finished off the soft ones and did another batch of applesauce. The total turned out to be enough for 9 quarts and 5 pints, and all are cooling on the kitchen counter now. It looks so far like all of them sealed just fine, which would make me happy (though if one doesn't come through that way, we just have to eat it, and there are certainly worse things in life LOL). Gyokuko did up a batch a couple of weeks ago, some pints and some quarts, I can't remember, so we have a good stash of applesauce now. Doesn't mean we won't can some more -- we certainly have a lot of apples. There are also ziplock bags of apples chunked for pies in the freezer.

Yesterday I fixed brunch for the 4 of us who were around, and fried up potatoes with veggies and eggs, and served applesauce on the side. Both were yummy. Another thing I spent some time on yesterday was the upcoming newsletter. I worked with our layout person on the new software (Adobe InDesign), and we were both just delighted with it. We've been working with an old version of Calamus, which was a good program in its day, but has some serious deficits when it comes to working in a Windows environment. I've learned a lot of new programs in my time, so it felt familiar to be working on a job with new software and figuring out how to use it as we go along. Our layout person has similar proclivities, and so we were both just having a great time helping each other through this, laughing when we discovered that the program would do this or that -- look, it has an "Undo" button! you can drag-and-drop photos! you can delete a page and it just moves the next to the next page! -- and we would shriek and do little dances of delight. Okay, I know, weird, but if you had wrestled with that old program as much as we have, you'd be a little silly too.

Our teachers are scheduled to return tomorrow or maybe Thursday. They are driving up from southern California, and may encounter weather issues between here and there. So far it's great here. We had a faint dusting of snow this morning, which is now all gone. We've had hail, wind and rain. Outlying and higher elevation areas have had snow, but right here in inner-southeast Portland, not enough even to mention. Right now the sky is mostly clear and blue. It's warming up a bit -- it was supposed to get down to 25 degrees this morning, but after today there are no more freezing temps forecast. Rain and snow mixed forecast for Thursday, but still temps from 35 to 45.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the teachers come back, and I know the cat (who I've been taking care of) misses them a lot as well. And of course they will be happy to be together here where they belong once again. It's been a long haul -- 6 months since Kyogen's step-mother went on hospice, and then her death, and then his father's diagnosis of bladder cancer, and his decline and finally death two weeks ago. I suspect they will be tired and ready to rest a bit.

Sunday we are all scheduled to head out to the monastery for Rohatsu sesshin, which is an annual 7-day silent retreat to commemorate the Buddha's enlightenment. I'm actually looking forward to it, though it sounds like I will be "working" it again as chant leader and maybe some time-keeping stuff as well. Last year I was sick practically the whole time. Hope that doesn't happen this year.

And so much of this week will involve preparation for that retreat, along with trying to get the newsletter as close to complete as possible (maybe even sent to the printers?) and whatever day-to-day stuff comes up.

Segaki and Founders

2006-11-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

I think the last update I did was before Segaki. It's been a busy time, no question about it.

Segaki was wonderful last weekend (Oct27-29). For me it was entirely successful as a retreat. What I mean by that was that I relaxed into it, and was able to take full advantage of it to do some significant work. The festival of Segaki is designed to invite us to look at old unsettled karma and also to honor those who have died, especially those in the last year. For me, in addition to having a couple of names on the list that were read out loud as we chanted, it gave me an opportunity to confront some of the old karma I've been working on in a particular way, within a particular structure. I don't know that I would say that I have resolved this karma yet, but I made what I consider to be important progress in the work I've been doing and will continue doing in that area. The metaphor of Segaki was very helpful in this stage of it.

What we do is to chant various dharanis to invite the "hungry ghosts" into the temple. These are beings who really want the truth but can't accept it. So we cover all of our statues, and set up a special altar in the back of the hall (near the front door), and cover it with junk food, so they will be interested in coming in. Basically, we give them something they can accept, and then try to teach them a little bit of dharma. The kids act this out after the adults have their service, and it's always a lot of fun. The photo shows a couple of gakis (hungry ghosts, played by high schoolers) at the altar trying to eat some of the junk food.

I find that sitting meditation is more and more rewarding. I really enjoyed all the sitting we did (typically about 8 hours total during a day on retreat). I led work practice (still as sewing master), and did a little bit "extra" in terms of jobs, but for the most part I was able to relax, taking naps during the afternoon rest periods, etc. Others took over some of what I usually pay attention to in terms of opening and closing the center, monitoring lights, the altar, etc. It was great. And I was also able to repeat my experience of last year of playing the taiko drum for the Sunday evening Segaki Toro ceremony. I just love that drum.

This past week since then has continued busy every day. I've mentioned to some that the transition to winter has seemed more abrupt than usual this year, and the time change has felt more difficult for me this year than I remember in years past. But by now I've adjusted. We're back into rain, and heading back to colder temperatures tomorrow, I understand, and I'm just glad to be here where I live where I work, and don't have to go out in my car unless I want to.

My primary task this week has been working on the Center's website (www.dharma-rain.org), putting the Dharma School Manual up on the site. It's largely done, though I want to add a bunch of photos. I got some good pix of the children's Segaki festival, and will try to get those up this week. Of course, there has been plenty of other work as well. One thing I enjoy about this place is that there's always something happening, always things to do, and lots of variety. We had a seminary class on Tuesday where we're studying the Avatamsaka Sutra, and it's pretty amazing. I'm finding that to read it requires that I take notes, and read a fair bit of it out loud, though that doesn't guarantee that I'm really understanding everything. It's one of those texts that will take years to really understand, but is still rewarding to study.

One other thing that happened this week was that Gyokuko asked me to be a "dharma friend" to another person here, which I was of course happy to do. The same afternoon, I had a talk with someone else, and it seems that I am an unofficial dharma friend to her as well. Last year I was almost entirely focused on my own process, and needed to be there. I'm beginning to come out of that as an exclusive focus, and am beginning to be able to open up to other people who are going through their own process, and hopefully to be of some help and support to them. I find that rewarding, satisfying, and humbling.

This weekend (i.e., yesterday) we started Ango. This is a period of intensified practice that we do every fall and spring. For us, it means a little more sitting -- we get up a half-hour earlier 3 days a week to sit an extra half-hour, and do full morning service instead of a short service in the morning, and over at the temple building rather than here at the house. That's all it means in concrete terms, that is, what you see on the calendar. But I think for all of us it means some sort of ramping up of our practice. We started it off with our annual Founders Vigil last night, where we had someone sitting in the temple building all night long. I woke up at 3am today and went over there to sit from 3-5:30am, and there were always 2 or 3 of us in the hall during that time.

I found the weather delightful this morning. It felt warm to me, and it was a full moon. At 5:30 I got up and went outside to do my morning sweeping practice, and it was dry enough (though the leaves were still wet, of course) to make that a pleasure. I didn't have to wear a hat, and I wasn't even wearing socks with my sandals as I swept. After sweeping, I got to work on cooking breakfast for the 15 people we had this morning. Fortunately, several others showed up closer to the 7am breakfast time to help, so it all went just fine. The only problem is that I have a fair amount of oats and fruit leftover, and I'll have to eat that for breakfast tomorrow on my day off. I think I can handle that.

I enjoyed the sitting this morning a great deal. For whatever reason, I wasn't tired at all, and the 2-1/2 hours went by fast. I felt that I could easily sit for quite a bit longer, but needed to get up to do sweeping and breakfast prep. I did sit another hour later, of course, at our regular Sunday morning sitting and service. We did a special service this morning honoring our founders -- the woman who was our teachers' teacher, and also her teacher before that. Gyokuko gave a really nice dharma talk about them. She explained that Keido Chisan Koho Zenji was a Japanese master who saw that Zen in Japan had become encrusted with tradition and culture, and had a vision of exporting it to the West so it could become re-invigorated and then eventually re-imported to Japan with more life to it. Houn Jiyu Kennett was his student (one of the first westerners, let alone western women, who was able to study under a Zen master in Japan), and decided to bring Zen to America rather than her native England. She founded Shasta Abbey, where both of our teachers here trained. Koho Zenji died in the 60s; Roshi Kennett died in 1996. Both died in the first week of November, which is why we honor them at this time of year.
Gyokuko explained that each of those teachers had a vision, and that she and Kyogen, and all of us, are part of that vision. She expressed her hope and belief that all of us are part of that continuing thread of vision, and I think all of us felt that tie to the lineage (going back far beyond Koho Zenji, of course). It was inspiring.

Now it's almost time to go get some supper, and get ready to go sit with ZCO this evening. Tomorrow is day off, and I have plans to go do some errands, but other than that will just take it easy. I took a nap this afternoon, so don't feel shorted on sleep at all. Life is good.