In gassho

Thank you, everyone, for such a fine evening Friday night and for a lovely retreat on Saturday. I was especially happy with the great sense of community we shared Friday night. What a nice discussion following Amongst White Clouds! Gassho (many deep bows) for your generosity of patience and financial support toward Joy Lane Healing Center. The inspiration of those monks' dedication and our sharing afterward made for an exhilarating support for my meditation practice the next day. I'm hoping to put something like this series together again, and I will be sure to let you know when it's in place. In the meantime, please join me for regular practice starting again this Saturday. The schedule is posted in the menu to the right.

Extended Day of Meditation this Saturday, July 25

I thought I'd post a schedule of this Saturday's events; all are welcome to join for the entire "retreat", or for just part.

9:20 Newcomer's instruction
9:30 Zazen (seated meditation)
10 Kinhin (walking meditation)
10:10 Zazen
10:40 Kinhin
10:50 Zazen
11:20 Lunch (provided; this will be soy-based, so please bring your own if you have an allergy.)
Tea & Discussion about "our teachers"
12:30 Samu (work practice)
1:30 Zazen
2 Ceremony to honor the life of Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi
2:30 clean up, say goodbyes.

July is Busy!

Hello and gassho: June travel time is finished, and I am glad to return to the zafu this weekend!

Open Palm Zendo is going to be a busy place for the month of July. In addition to resuming our regular sitting schedule, I'm happy to announce a special movie presentation and a day of extended sitting, all to commemorate the life and teaching of Kobun Chino Otogawa, Roshi.

Kobun, as he preferred to be called, was among the first teachers who came to the United States at the request of Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. Sensei helped American students learn such arts as kyudo and oryoki and in time, developed his own centers in California, New Mexico and Switzerland. You can learn more about Kobun's life by following the link to his website below.

It is a tradition in Soto Zen to hold a memorial sit to honor teachers who have passed from this world, and I am happy to be able to do the same this year! The movie I'll show on Friday night will put us in the right mood. I saw Amongst White Clouds at an independent film festival in Denver a few years ago, and found it very inspiring to my own practice. It certainly answered a lot of questions I had about the root of Japanese Zen, which is Chinese Ch'an Buddhsim and Taoism... not to mention successfully parting me with any romantic illusions I had about the hermetic lifestyle!! Saturday, we'll follow a traditional sesshin retreat schedule, albeit on a small scale. (I know many of us have kids to get home to, so I hope this works the best for all of us!) If you've got any questions, feel free to email me: pilar at joylanehealingcenter.net

Descriptions and details from the Joy Lane website follow. I look forward to seeing you!

Movie presentation: Amongst White Clouds

Fourth Friday Movie Night at Joy Lane
July 24, Friday at 7 pm to 9 pm

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to live the life of a religious hermit, sequestered away from the world on an isolated mountaintop, devoted to a life of contemplation and religious practice? Nothing captures the imagination quite like the life of the iconic hermit-monk, and until now not many of us could ever dream of seeing

what that kind of life might really be like. The movie Amongst White Clouds provides us with just that glimpse.

“An unforgettable journey into the hidden tradition of China's Buddhist hermit monks, the film is an intimate insider's look at students and masters living in scattered retreats dotting China's Zhongnan Mountain range. These peaks have reputedly been home to recluses for some five thousand years. One of only a few foreigners to have lived and studied with these elusive practitioners, American director Edward Burger is able, with humor and compassion, to present their tradition, their wisdom, and the hardship and joy of their everyday lives among the clouds." Filmed on location in China.

A discussion will follow the film with our presenter, Zen priest and Open Palm Zendo facilitator Pilar Teishin G. Dea.

Open Palm Zendo Extended Day of Meditation

July 25, Saturday at 9:30 am to 2 pm

In conjunction with the film, Amongst White Clouds, Soto Zen priest Pilar Teishin G. Dea is offering a day of extended sitting to honor the life of her teacher, Kobun Chino Ottogawa Roshi, who died on July 26, 2002. Zazen--zen meditation--will begin as usual at 9:30 am, and continue in 30-minute periods with kinhin--walking meditation-- in between each. We will break for tea, discussion and a simple lunch (to be provided), experience an hour of samu--work service-- for Joy Lane Healing Center and then resume sitting for one final zazen period. We will end the day at 2 pm with a simple ceremony and offering of gratitude for our teachers in life. All are welcome for the entire day or just part; no prior Zen Buddhist experience is necessary. As this is an offering of simple meditation and gratitude, all backgrounds are welcome!

Feel free to visit http://www.kobun-sama.org/english/biografie.htm for more about the life of Kobun-sama.

To register for the day-long sit or to RSVP for the movie night, please contact the Center, Marin Goldstein at 301-373-2522 or email info@joylanehealingcenter.net, for additional information. These events are entirely free; donations for the Center are gratefully appreciated.

Summer Practice Schedule

Here is an update of our current summer schedule.

As I will be traveling through much of June, I've decided to cancel our meetings June 13, 20 and 27.

There are, however, a few goings-on at the Center you may be interested in, in place of our usual zazen: The 12th through the 14th, Dr. Marcy is offering a retreat at the Temple of Light. The meditation style she teaches is very different from zazen, but for those of you who have an interest in all types of meditations (from all types of traditions), this may be a rewarding experience for you. The Friday night introduction is free; Sat & Sun require a night spent in the forest. (Bummer!) Then on the Solstice, Sun. the 21st, there is an introduction to the Labyrinth-- a wonderful meditative walk that is most famously known in medieval churches such as Chartres Cathedral. Check the Joy Lane web site for details: www.joylanehealingcenter.net.

We'll resume our weekly zazen practice on Saturday, July 4: what a wonderful way to celebrate Independence Day!

Finally, I'm happy to announce that we're hosting a Joy Lane Movie Night and offering an extended day of sitting in honor of my late teacher, Kobun Chino Otogawa, roshi. You may check here for details, which I will be posting here soon. In summary, our movie on Friday the 24th will be Amongst White Clouds, a documentary about Chinese Zen and Taoist hermits; and sitting on Saturday the 25th will be an extended schedule of 9:30 to 2. You are welcome for any part, or all.

Enjoy the beginning of your summer! Gassho, Pilar

Die on the Cushion

In this crisp morning after last night's thunderstorm, I went off to my cushion at Joy Lane with a gnat of a thought buzzing in my head. Dosho Port, sensei posted an intriguing case about death at his blog Wild Fox Zen. (If you click the link, you'll see the post.) In it, he quotes from a report that investigates the afterlife beliefs of Japanese Zen monks. It was rather thrilling, I have to admit, to get to read the innermost, quiet beliefs of these men who are singularly dedicated to living and breathing zazen....

And it was surprising, for what they think is not necessarily what you'd think they think!

Reading of it was refreshing, in a way-- for if these people who are so dedicated to zen practice could hold such beliefs, they could be human too, rather than the enlightened stalwarts I elevate them to be. Ahhh!

What annoyed me was my sanghas' responses to this post. Dosho asked, "What do you believe?" And as usual, most answers were either "why bother worrying about it? It's not happening now (it's not enlightenment?)," or some quote by some long-dead Zen Master, proving how clever the post-author was. As if avoidance was perceived to be "enlightened behavior".

So I grit my teeth and set about "dying on my cushion" this morning, following the first zen instruction I received early in my practice. Humph. We must face death earnestly and honestly!

Well....thoughts floated and buzzed and by the end I'd gritted and grunted through the lot of it. Zazen is hard, when you have a "mission" or something to prove.

It wasn't until later in the evening that a lightningbolt of understanding struck me. (Yes, a tooth-flossing kensho, you might say.) It seems that one of the sangha had responded to another of Dosho's posts to say he'd had a very strange dream about death that night. Clearly the conversation had given him a bit of a mind-scramble. I understood. Death is hard.

We can't think our way through death. And we cannot think our way through to enlightenment; and it follows, we oughtn't think our way through life, either. My earlier grit fell away, my disgust over over-intellectualization dissolved. We do it--think-- because life, existence is so large, so overwhelming. There's too much to comprehend; and we think the more we can mentally organize, the safer we are. We cannot.

So I leave you with this bit of advice from Buddha himself, culled from yet another blog I find very inspiring, that of Eido Frances Carney of Olympia Zen Center. She's paraphrasing her own dharma talk. And what she had to say seemed a good approach to this string of events. Enjoy!

When we think of "self" we think of consciousness or mind as that which defines us. But, the Buddha pointed out that it was much wiser to take the physical body as the self rather than the mind, or consciousness, because the body was slower, more settled, solid. Our minds are moving very quickly and our thoughts change very rapidly, much much faster than does the body change. Also, if we must think of a self, by placing the notion of self in the body, we can release ourselves more easily from the tyranny of thoughts and be more equanimous moment by moment. That is a moment of the Buddha's sweet wisdom.

Good, Bad and...What Else Is There?

Welcome back, after a bit of an absence! Our travels for Mother's Day were wonderful; it's good to get away from it all once in a while, to change scenery and perspective. And I was very glad to be back in the Zendo last week. Personally, I had a "good sit"-- you know, one of those days where it's easy to enter the flow of things as the Mental Chatter is low and expectations are nil. Two periods of zazen flew by and I left the zendo feeling refreshed and light. I had missed my practice!

One week later, though, and it's more thorns than roses on the zafu. So, what's the difference? Why should I lose that energy that I had last week? Sits like these are disappointing, and I find that when I leave the cushion, I feel such regret for wasting an opportunity to have an hour of my life well-centered and at ease.

In Soto Zen, there are a couple of "tricks" one can use to quiet the mind in order to create a "good sit". One is counting the breath-- counting exhalations to 10, and thus focusing the mind. Another strategy I used this morning was simply asking, "what else is there?"

A nightmare of a thought popped in. "What else is there?" I asked myself as I found myself following a very negative thought-stream. And just with the asking, the negative stream abated, and on I went. Soon an agitated thought popped in. "What else is there?" And I recognized a pattern to my thoughts that seemed to suggest an agitation in my psyche. So rather than belittle myself for having "bad thoughts", I gave myself a dose of compassion, promising to address the underlying issue once I got off the zafu. Soon I felt that sense of flow again, a "good sit". But still, "what else is there?"

We don't meditate to have a "good sit", and zazen isn't about strategies-- though these can help to gain concentration. It's about just sitting, without aim or goal. It is a study of the self, and a forgetting of the self to find the reality of all things. Just sitting-- opening to the experience of enlightenment itself, beyond "good or bad". Just.

Shelter from the Storm

Buddha's Footprint, featuring the symbol for the 3 Jewels. 1st Century CE.

Another brilliant day of grey skies, and thus richer forest color and birdsong, at the Zendo today. But did I notice? No. Why is that? Ah, this was one of those days where my mind was spinning in a million directions of worry, concern and regret. We've all had sitting periods like that.

It's easy to want to escape from those moments on the cushion, but I attribute them to be flags of concern, reminders to myself to sit still more often, because evidently there is a lot happening in my life that is a little too much to bear. "My mind runneth over." Perhaps like many others, my present way of dealing with these overwhelming things is to ignore them and just move on... Keep moving!

Don't Just Do Something...Sit There! Sylvia Boorestein has a knack for creative Buddhist book titles, and that one has always been my favorite. I have yet to read it, but the title has certainly been a mantra for me on days like this. My other mantra is "I take refuge..." This phrase began my journey of dedicated practice, and over and over it continues to inspire me, especially when times are hard. Like today.

"I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha." These are the Three Jewels of Buddhism, and the basis of the vows one takes when practice deepens. These are also what is represented by the three bows I make before chanting the Heart Sutra on Saturday mornings, and the three bells rung at the end of our practice. But what are they?

Refuge can mean many things. What came to mind today for me was refuge as an oasis, a calm-in-the-storm, a moment to step out of the downpour under a shared umbrella of kindness. Refuge in the Buddha today then meant taking shelter in the idea that this, too, is a part of enlightenment; that beyond my judgments and worry, there is perfection in this exact moment. This moment is awake.

By taking refuge in Dharma, or the teachings of Buddha, today I chose to have faith in the act of sitting down in the midst of all my worry. The zafu itself, the moment, crowded as it was in my thoughts, became a rich teacher by my allowing it to be so. I didn't get up and run. The zafu was my refuge.

Taking refuge in Sangha often points to the community of practitioners one shares space with. And, it can also mean the teachers that have imparted Dharma in one's life. So today I took refuge under a large umbrella of compassion, upheld by all the multitudes of generations of teachers and students that have come before me, all of them with equally complicated human lives. Today, I took refuge in being fully human.

So I fell back on that cushion today, and allowed my mind to simply overflow, relaxing in the refuge of the heart of my practice. And guess what? Without me chasing after them so hard, those awful thoughts calmed on their own, and by the end of it, I was merely half as harried as I had been when I first sat down.

Ah, the power of the humility of "I GIVE UP!!!"
Have a peaceful week, everyone.