Both Sides / No Sides: A Zen Community

ZAIKE TOKUDO For Mike Inmo Dretsch

2012-02-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

This Saturday (February 18th) Mike Inmo Dretsch will take the next step in his Dharma Practice--he will be ordained in the Zaike Tokudo Ceremony at the Wiregrass Zen Center in Headland, Alabama. Taiun Michael Elliston Roshi of the Silent Thunder Order will be officiating. The service schedule is detailed below in Mike Inmo's letter to me.

Several years ago Mike was in El Paso to do research at William Beaumont Medical Center and Fort Bliss. He was staying at the home of John Fortunato where our sangha was practicing at the time. Mike sat with us one Sunday and he immediately started walking down his own path of dharma practice and the study of self. For several years he studied with me personally through phone and Skype conversations, and he received the precepts at a Jukai Ceremony concluding a sesshin at the Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces. His Buddhist name became Inmo. I chose Inmo because it's rhythm has a certain manliness about it, and, if you know Mike, he has the presence of an athlete. When I first met him he was concluding his active career as a martial artist (free-style), but he still trains students. "Inmo," literally, means "it," as in "That's it!" or "Do you get it?" But the way Dogen and other Zen teachers use the term, it has come to mean reality or truth. I thought it a perfect fit for Mike.

Later he and his wife Elizabeth honored me by asking me to serve as the priest in the celebration of their marriage. Mike Inmo, as part of his practice, began the Long Leaf Zen Center at their home in Enterprise, Alabama. On the way to their wedding celebration, it was my honor to sit with them one night and to offer a teisho.

Mike Inmo's 1st Rakusu: Jukai January 15, 2011

From the beginning Mike Inmo knew how to bow. This might sound strange and insignificant, but usually when a person first bows in a zendo during all the rigamarole of Zen services, the bow is accompanied with all sorts of personal baggage--hesitation, embarrassment, pride, whatever we come with. It's interesting to watch over the weeks, months and years as a person's bow evolves. But with Mike Inmo it was different. From the first, he bowed with presence and authority. At the time I said to him he came from Alabama to teach us how to bow. My feeling is that he learned to bow in his practice as a martial artist--respecting his opponent, respecting the act of fighting, respecting himself. He's strengthened this understanding as he continues to sit and stare at a wall and as he shares his understanding with others. I am proud and delighted that he's taking this next step.

May he be a blessing to his family, his community, his Sangha and to us all.

To send Inmo your congratulations, his email is dr.dretsch1@yahoo.com. Here's his announcement:

Mike Inmo Dretsch to receive Zaike Tokudo

Please mark on your calendar Saturday, February 18th. I will be going through a lay ordination ceremony called Zaike Tokudo. Zaike Tokudo means "remaining at home and attaining the Way" versus Shukke Tokudo which means "leaving home and attaining the Way." With Shukke Tokudo leaves home... and you often see the monk shave his or her head. Luckily, I already do this :)

Zaike Tokudo symbolizes and reinforces a path in life devoted to practice. Zaike Tokudo is the penultimate ordination prior to ordination as a novice priest (the first initiate ceremony being Jukai). In essence, I will receive official status as a disciple of the Silent Thunder Order under the purview of Taiun Michael Elliston Roshi.

The day will start with a morning of sitting meditation (zazen) and liturgy. We will break for tea and prepare for the ceremony which will start at 1pm. All of this will be held at the Wiregrass Zen Center, 610 Mitchell Street, Headland, AL. A special thanks to Frederic Ji Ryu Lecut for hosting the event. Those of you that live closer to Enterprise where we practice can follow us from my house or meet us along the way. If you cant make it for the morning session, you can just attend the ceremony. After the ceremony we will have a potluck style luncheon. I will send out a sign up list for those that want to bring a vegetarian dish.

It would be a great if everyone could make it for the ceremony. For the last several years I have undergone mentorship (with Rev Bobby Kankin Byrd and Rev Harvey Daiho Hilbert out of Texas and New Mexico, and most recently with Taiun Michael Elliston Roshi from Atlanta Soto Zen Center/Silent Thunder Order), academic study (and sewing two rakasu's), and rigorous zazen/shikantanza from various cushions locally and at various locations (El Paso, TX; Las Cruces, NM; and Atlanta, GA).

For me, this ceremony is something I want to share with all of you, which I am very grateful for having crossed paths with, and without hesitation, consider my Sangha (community) and my family. Without the Sangha, there is no refuge in the Three Jewels. For it is the Sangha that brings about abundant good. Similar to what they tell you in football games... there is no "I" in Sangha :)

Gassho,
Mike

Michael Inmo Dretsch
Experimental Psychologist/Soto Zen Buddhist
http://longleafzen.vpweb.com/

Zenshin Philip Whalen on Writing and Meditation

2012-01-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

The poetry and life of Zenshin Philip Whalen is probably one of the big signposts along the trail that led me to become a Zen practitioner. His poems cleaned up all the intellectual mumbo jumbo along the way and helped me realize that it's okay just to sit down on a round cushion (aka zafu) and stare at a wall. I started reading Whalen's work in the mid-60s. First he pushed my own poetry along. In the 80s, when I first got down to some "erratic practice," his poetry was there waiting for me with some goofy advice. Just recently, because of some correspondence with a friend, I pulled out his collected poems. Perfect timing. His advice, goofy as it is, has always been a nice antidote to my psyche when the damn thing takes over and starts SERIOUSLY driving down the road like it's in charge. Here's some quotes I copied from my journal. They rang some bell for me. Ding.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

from the essay ABOUT WRITING AND MEDITATION

by Philip Whalen

(Pages 840 and 843, The Collect Poems of Philip Whalen

I thought I’d write books and make money enough from them to travel abroad and have a private life of reading and study and music. I developed a habit of writing and I’ve written a great deal, but I’ve got little money from it.
With meditation I supposed that one could acquire magical powers. Then I learned that it would produce enlightenment. Much later, I found out that Dogen is somewhere on the right track when he tells us that the practice of zazen is the practice of enlightenment. Certainly there’s no money in it. Now I have a meditation habit.

I like the idea somebody mentioned of erratic practice. It immediately reminded me of rocks that were left around when the glaciers receded. A lot of times setting out in a field there are no other rocks. It’s a very strange appearance. You can’t account for the rock’s position unless you remember the glacier that carried the rock there and then went away. Zazen is slow but leaves erratic boulders.
•
So far all we’ve been able to invent in the United States is the business of building small cabins in the woods and going there to hide out, then come back and write a book about it. That practice, that sort of individual, hermit, erratic practice is something that’s really important. The danger of Zen Centers or monasteries is that people will take them seriously as being real. We should find our own practice; we might start out in an official place, but we should discover somehow that we don’t need official institutions. It’s exactly like Lew Welch says in his poem about the rock out there, the Wobbly Rock, “Somebody showed it to me and I found it for myself.” The quote isn’t exact. Lew was an erratic Zen practitioner who was a great poet.

--Zenshin Philip Whalen

Saying Goodbye, Saying Hello

2011-12-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

Zensters JB Bryan and Bobby Kankin Byrd

enjoying a tea ceremony hosted by JB

Placitas, NM[1]

Dear All,

I needed someway to get ready for the New Year on our blog, and I found a wonderful librito put out by my friends at the Three Stones Sitting Group (aka Ordinary Mind Group) in Albuquerque, NM. The little book has a number of statements about Zen practice collected from Joko's writings, like these below answering the question: What Is Practice? The TSS is informally organized in the tradition of Charlotte Joko Beck although their connection is more figurative than literal if that makes sense. They sit every Wednesday night. If you're in Albuquerque, please join them. It's a trip.

Happy New Year to you all. May we all bea blessing to your communities. And I thank you for your continuing practice.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

•

WHAT PRACTICE IS

Practice is about experiencing the truth of who we really are.

Practice is about being with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.

Practice is about the clash between what we want and what is.

Practice is about the transformation of our unnecessary suffering.

Practice is about attending to, experiencing, wherever we are stuck, wherever we're holding, whatever blocks us from our true nature.

Practice is about turning away from constantly seeking comfort and from trying to avoid pain.

Practice ultimately deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence—the fear that I am not.

Practice is about willingly residing in whatever life presents to us.

Practice is about seeing through our belief systems; so even if they remain, they no longer run us.

Practice is about turning from a self-centered view to a life-centered view.

Practice is about learning to be no one; not giving solidity to any belief system-just being.

Practice is about learning to be happy; but we will never be happy until we truly experience our unhappiness.

Practice is about slowly increasing our awareness of who we are and how we relate to life.

Practice is about moving from a life of drama to a life of no drama.

Practice is always about returning to the true self.

Practice is about fmally understanding the paradox that although everything is a mess, all is well.

Practice is about learning to say "Yes" to everything, even when we hate it.

Practice always comes back to just the willingness to be.

--Charlotte Joko Beck

[1] I took this photo using a 10-second time delay on my camera. JB, who had recently finished building his adobe teahouse in Placitas, had invited me to a cup of tea—and a remarkable introduction to his version of the tea ceremony. As he made and served me tea, he told me the history of the tea ceremony. It was quite a remarkable event. If you visit JB's page, you'll find other links to tea ceremony documents, plus a variety of other odds and ends.

Chiyo-Jo

2011-11-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

A friend, the artist Linda Lynch, came by the other day and she shared with me this haiku.

Clear water

No front

No back

--Chiyo-Jo

Nice. And nice translation too. In Japan this is her most widely known poem:

morning glory!
the well bucket-entangled,
I ask for water

Which is the subject of the painting.

Chiyo-Jo was a woman poet of 18^th Century Japan. She lived the century after Basho but certainly welcomed the open heart of his poetics.

Turns out that Linda, who lives in Columbus, NM, also sits and stares at a wall doing nothing. Studying self. Forgetting self. Whatever you want to call it. Shikantaza is a good word to call it, huh? You can see Linda's work here and see how Zen understanding and her work intertwine, especially with her expression of negative space.

Zen through the Side Door

2011-11-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

Zen thru the Side Door

Those newcomers walked right by.
Polly yelled after them,
“There’re a bunch of side doors.
But this is the one we use.”

This little poem comes from an improvisational riff we had before services two Sundays ago. I had taped that note on the front door. We were expecting two new comers. Polly said that would be a nice name for a collection of poems, “Zen thru the Side Door.” We all laughed. The newcomers came, saw the sign, followed directions through the gate but then walked right pass the side door. Polly went after them and shouted “There’s a bunch of side doors. But this is the one we use.” Deb said, “Well, that’s sounds like a line in a poem.” “Oh, yes, it does!” Susan said. Thus our sangha’s collaborative poem.

I sent this story in our weekly newsletter and Susan followed up on it with two wonderful signs--one with Bodhidharma's fierce profile, the other with with a bunch of side doors--which she framed and gifted to the sangha last Sunday. I'll photograph them and post soon.

By the way, this week we'll be back to our usual hours on Sunday (10am) and Tuesday (7pm). I apologize for having to cancel last night (Tuesday, 11/8)

--Bobby Kankin

Seeing matter as emptiness. Huh?

2011-10-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is a recent blog posting from my teacher Harvey Daiho Hilbert of the Order of Clear Mind Zen. I recommend wholeheartedly that you follow Daiho on his blog or write to him to be included on his email list. The photo of Daiho I found on the Upaya Website. Somebody took it during Daiho's Street Zen practice.--Bobby Kankin

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

“Seeing matter itself as emptiness produces great wisdom so one does not dwell in birth and death; seeing emptiness as equivalent to matter produces great compassion so one does not dwell in nirvana.” Yun-feng

We should each study these words. They arise from the teaching of the Wisdom sutras and yield much support to our practice. All things come and go, why dwell in the coming and going, the seeking and the grasping? Since the true nature of coming and going gives rise to things themselves, we open to hear their cries. Neither seeking or grasping, we exist as an open channel in the flow of the universe. As an open channel, we experience the shore, the tides, the ebb and flow of all things.

As the meal chant concludes, “May we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus.”

Be well.

Rev. Daiho Hilbert
On the web at Clear Mind Zen

Zen & the Making of Art

2011-10-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last month I read Stephen Batchelor’s Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Somewhere in there (he’s a writer and photographer, his wife is a photographer) he makes the statement that Zen is the only religion (he doesn’t like that word, I don’t like that word, but we use what we got) that emphasizes art as a means of practice. It was such a simple statement, I was startled. He was correct (see postscript), but I was surprised that I hadn’t made such a statement, it’s so obvious. In fact, as I thought about it, it was art that brought me to Zen—in particular the peculiar little poems that go deeper and deeper the more you know them, and also the wonderful ink drawings and calligraphy pieces where negative space is such a constant.

If you hang out around me, you’ll hear me say that Zen is the only spiritual practice that teaches that those tiny moments of understanding—looking at a flower, a person, the ocean, when the self seems to drop away—is understood as a spiritual experience. The experience of oneness. Many of us first see this connection between our experience and a spiritual experience in haiku or other poems from Zen. Take for instance, Basho’s famous haiku:

The old pond.
Frog jump in.
Plop!

Back when I was growing up (teens, 20s, etc) I read a lot of poems by those American “Dharma Bums” Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. They were both serious students of Zen. Gary studied in Japan at a monastery; Philip was a longtime student at the San Francisco Zen Center with Shunryu Suzuki and later Richard Baker. Here’s one of my favorites of Whalen’s poems, which I’m always finding a reason to quote. I was sitting on the floor of the University of Arizona library when I first read it, oh, something like 44 years ago:

Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

I praise those ancient Chinamen
Who left me a few words,
Usually a pointless joke or a silly question
A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick
                         splashed picture—bug, leaf,
                         caricature of Teacher
    on paper held together now by little more than ink
    & their own strength brushed momentarily over it
Their world & several others since
Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it—
Cheered as it whizzed by—
& conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

▲

But I don’t want to talk about being a witness to art. I want to talk about making art as a way to practice Zen.

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe.

This is what Dogen said, and this is what we do when we sit zazen. And this is what the Zen practice of art is all about.

One of my favorite all-time books is Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It’s a remarkable book. I used it a long time ago. I was interested in trying to figure out if the experience of being a visual artist is like the experience of being a poet. Besides, I was envious of visual artists. I wanted to be one too. Edwards uses all sorts of exercises to teach hoof-handed folks like me how to draw. The two exercises I remember the most are drawing upside down and drawing a portrait.

Edwards said that forgers always turn a signature upside down to copy it. Why? Because they don’t want to be confused by what a letter “means,” they want to see its shape. They want to see the letters as they really are, not what the “think” they are. I did upside down signatures and I did a couple of upside down drawings. I was amazed at the results. Her point was that the rational mind (“the left side of the brain” in her terminology) got in the way of seeing. We have to figure out ways to let that go.

The same thing holds true for portraits. Most people (non-artists) when they try to draw somebody’s portrait it comes out totally out of proportion and warped. The face is usually magnified and takes up the whole head. The eyes are near the top of the head and the forehead is shriveled down. But really, she says, if you look at a head rightly, you’ll see that the eyes are in the middle of the skull so what we think of as the face is a much smaller element of the whole skull.

I was so happy. Especially when she described the experience of doing art as a place where time and place get lost. Minutes and even hours can go by and we’re not sure of what’s happened during that time except we were drawing. Also our sense of everything around us is dropped away. What’s essential is the act of drawing.

This is what happens when I write poems. Or “play with them,” editing them down to this and that. People ask me what some poem means or why did I choose that word, but really, I’m not making decisions like that. I’m listening to the poem, playing with it until “I feel it’s right.”

I think everybody has this experience in one way or another if they do something with conscious intention. What we could call love. Maybe they are doing martial arts or gardening or cooking or making love or other forms of creative activity. It’s our job, as Zen practitioners, to bring this experience to all parts of our lives—washing the dishes, resolving a conflict with a friend or spouse, engaging in our community or walking in the desert. By concentrating, by paying attention to what we are doing, by studying the self. Again, to repeat Dogen:

To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe.

So, when people not used to drawing or writing poems, try to do so, they let their “self” get in the way. When I teach poetry writing, I’m always inventing exercises to try to get people to get out of the way of their self. And I tell them, by the way, not to worry. No matter what you do, your real self will be there. Your own unique experience and your perceptions will not be lost. To this end I want to remind you of Joko Beck’s adaptation of the Four Noble Truths, what she calls the Four Principles of Practice:

Caught in the self-centered dream, only dukkha (suffering).
Holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream.
Life as it is, the only teacher.
Being just this moment, compassion’s way.

Now think of these not so much as principles for deeper spiritual understanding, but think of them as a way to make art. And enjoy your practice.

Thank you.
Bobby Kankin Byrd
POSTSCRIPT: This was originally a dharma talk that I wrote up in July. I read a part of it on a Tuesday night, but went riffing off somewhere else. Also, I don't like to get into the never-ending discussion about Zen as a "religion." At least not here. I should say that I believe that some people would argue "that Zen is the only religion that emphasizes art as a means of practice." He's speaking of recognized world religions like Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Muslim. He's not speaking, for instance, of all sorts of indigenous religions or practices that include the making of art as central to their spiritual practice. Although they wouldn't make these categories. I think too that every religion has a sect in some nook and cranny where art-making is at the core of what's happening. The mystic Sufi poet Rumi and his Dervish brethren come immediately to mind. But generally I think Batchelor's statement is true. The making of art is a vital facet of Zen practice, although all practitioners of Zen are not necessarily artists in the narrow sense.

Thanks, Mr. Wang Wei

2011-10-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, I studied Japanese and Chinese Literature. My favorite for a year or so was Wang Wei, Chinese poet and painter in the 8th Century (Tang Dynasty). I often credit him and his cohorts--Li Po, Tu Fu, Cold Mountain, all the rest of those crazy Chinese poets and their Japanese brethren (Basho, Issa and that ilk) that came along later--with saving my life. They understood quite clearly that nothing is permanent, that everything was changing one moment to the next, including themselves. Here's a painting and two poems by Wang Wei.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

A portrait of Fu Sheng by Wang Wei

Passing Hsiang-chi Temple

Oblivious, I pass Hsiang-chi Temple
walking on through mountain cloud,
an empty trail through ancient trees.
Deep in the mountains, a bell resounds.

The susurrus rivr flows among stones.
Sunlight streams through frozen pines.
In this still pool, in falling light
Zen overcomes the serpents of delusion.

One-Hearted

When those red beans come in springtime,
Flushing on your southland branches,
Take home an armful, for my sake,
As a symbol of our love.

NOTE: "Passing Hsiang-chi Temple" from The Poetry of Zen translated by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton. "One-Hearted" copied and pasted from the Wikipedia page linked to above.

New Time New Place

2011-10-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

We've switched our services to my home--2709 Louisville.

We're between Piedras and Alabama.

Our new times are as follows:

Sunday, 10am.

Tuesday, still 7pm.

Sundays @ 10am, which I assume will be our most attended services, will be in the living room of my house. Go through the gate on the side and then enter my house at the side door.

I am keeping our Tuesday night services @ 7pm because several of our regular Zentistas can only come then. For Tuesday night services, we will sit in my office. Again, go through the gate, but continue ahead to my office. The lights will be on, the tea will be hot. Lee, by the way, will be hosting neighborhood children in the house.

Remember: my cell number is 915-241-3140 if you have questions. If you want special instruction about zazen and Zen practice, please come early or call to see me.

The Byrd House @ 2709 Louisville

The Side Gate: Come on in.

Sundays, enter the house through the side door.

Tuesdays, come on back to the office.

Back Office. Come on in.

I'll keep the light on for you.

Last night the zafus were all in place

2011-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

...but nobody came.

That happens of course. I’ve always promised myself that I would continue as usual. The zabutons and zafus were all arranged anyway, although I didn’t move the altar. It’s a two-person operation. So I sat for two long periods with a nice longish kinhin, doing the rinzai boogie to see how the faster pace felt on my old legs. The sitting was fine. I chanted the Maka Hanya Haramita. My voice loud in the big room. The bell. A lost grackle outside the door gave the dharma talk. I don’t speak grackle but I enjoyed the rhythms of what she had to say. The tea was delicious. I got to go home a little early. The moon rising from the east through those strings of clouds.

Still, I’m thinking that Tuesday nights are not the best time for folks who like to sit on zafus and do nothing. Attendance has been low since July. Three or four usually. Besides, there’s the $100 a month to the UUCEP. I’m thinking of moving our makings to my home. I have a nice but small office outback which we would have to share with my desk. Our sitting space would be organized among the helter-skelter, but I think we could manage five or six sitters pretty comfortable. We’d kinhin outside. Or we could move downtown to the Cinco Puntos office. Plenty of space at CPP.

My question to all: What would be a good time for you? I’m thinking Sunday 9am or 10am and also a morning sit on Wednesdays, 630am. Mondays don’t work for me for family reasons, and Tuesdays don’t seem to be working. Wednesday and Thursday nights are also possibilities. Likewise our old time of Saturday afternoons.

Finally, if you don’t want to receive these emails, that’s cool. Just tell me.

I hope you’re all well.

Bobby Kankin

915-241-3140 Cell

915-838-1625 Office

Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor

2011-09-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

Broken Buddha torso in ancient Buddha caves in northern Laos

At the end of his book Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, Stephen Batchelor speaks about a secular religion, a beliefless practice, although he understands the contradictory nature of the terms. For me it's a concept that rattles around in my head and heart in the mornings as I prepare to sit and stare at the wall. Settles there while I become quiet sitting on my zafu. I don't need to think about it then. I just need to breathe. It's afterward, that I can take up these questions. This morning, for instance, reading Dogen's Genjo-koan. The light of the moon reflected fully on a tiny drop of morning dew hanging from a blade of grass.

●

Below are quotes from page 237 of Confession:

"The point is not to abandon all institutions and dogmas but to find a way to live with them more ironically, to appreciate them for what they are—the play of the human mind in its endless quest for connection and meaning—rather than timeless entities ruthlessly defended or forcibly imposed.
...
What is it in Gotama’s teaching that is distinctively his own? There are four elements of the Dharma that cannot be derived from the Indian culture of his time. These are

The principle of “this conditionality, conditioned arising.”
The process of the Four Noble Truths.
The practice of mindful awareness.
The power of self-reliance.

●

Sit well. Hold the sky up with the tip of your head.
Bobby Kankin

Of Gods and Men

2011-08-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

For years now I remember and think about the koan where the monk climbs to the top of the flagpole and he's asked, Well, what do you do now? Daiho Hilbert in his dharma talks always came back to that koan. And that same koan is told in a number of different ways throughout Buddhist and Zen literature. Sometimes, for instance, the monk is hanging on a branch of a flimsy bush at the edge of a cliff. He's holding onto to the branch for dear life. If he climbs back up to the top, a hungry lion is waiting for him. If he lets go, he dies. So what does he do? I recommend watching this French movie Of Gods and Men for a way to consider this koan. It's the best movie about the life of the spiritual practice I have ever watched. A community of Christian monks in contemporary Algeria are confronted with the Mujaheddin on one side, the corrupt government on the other.Their practice has carried them to the very top of the flagpole, to the edge of the precipice. What do they do?

The Practice of the Eightfold Path is a creative act.

2011-08-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

Below, like the title of this blogpost, are quotations from Stephen Batchelor's memoir The Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. I highly recommend the book. Batchelor is also a photographer. I found this one from his collection "Sospel's Shadows"-- Bobby Kankin

"Buddhism has become for me a philosophy of action and responsibility. It provides a framework of values, ideas, and practices that nurture my ability to create a path in life, to define myself as a person, to act, to take risks, to imagine things differently, to make art. The more I prize Gotama’s teachings free from the matrix of Indian religious thought in which they are entrenched and the more I come to understand how his own life unfolded in the context of his times, the more I discern a template for living that I can apply at this time in this increasingly secular and globalized world." —page 181, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, Stephen Batchelor

"Nonetheless, old habits die hard. In my quest for the historic Buddha, I still keep catching myself in search of a perfect person: one how can do no wrong, whose every thought, word, and deed springs from infallible understanding. But Gotama cannot be perfect because he is not God. He did not exempt himself when he said that all hings are impermanent, suffering, unreliable, and contingent. He tried to respond as best he could to the situation at hand. When I try to imagine myself in his present moment, I hae to cancel everything I know abobut what happened to the centures that separate his time from my mine. He had no inkling of the worldwide spread of Buddhism that would occur after his death. In the fractious environment of his time, he did not know whether he, his community, or his teaching would survive even for another day." —page 186, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, Stephen Batchelor

Thanks, Mr. Li Po

2011-07-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain

The birds have vanished from the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

--Li Po (aka Li Bai, Li Bo, etc)
Chinese poet, 701-762

The poem is from the beautiful little book from Shambala Press entitled The Poetry of Zen selected and translated/adapted by Sam Hamill and J.P. Seaton.

Emptiness & Form

2011-07-22T14:19:00.000-07:00

Dear All, sometimes for my Tuesday night dharma talks, I jot down notes and sometimes these even become whole pieces. Like an essay. I keep them on my computer but I never get around to sharing them. I have excuses. Oh well. That's not right. I'm a writer. So as time allows I'll add my dharma talks here when I have them fully developed. Thank you.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

Rio Grande Gorge Enso (see note)

This dharma talk, in a different form, was given April 19, 2011

Here’s something the Buddha said: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” If you’ve had the opportunity to practice at the Clear Mind Zen Temple, you’ll see this statement on a nice piece of embroidery hanging on the wall hanging next to the altar as you round the far corner during kinhin. It’s a nice flag for remembering yourself.

Tonight I want to talk about the two fundamental laws, the central paradox, or koan, through which we come to understand our true nature. These are one, the Law of the Relative, and two, the Law of the Absolute. These two laws are expressed in our very breath, our bodies, our mind. Right here, right now. We say it this way in the Heart Sutra—form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Zen uses silly stories and sutras to redirect our mind, to confuse us, to make us think differently, to make us set aside thinking. But these stories—the riddles, koans, sutras whatever—these should never be considered “the truth.” They only suggest the truth, point to the truth. Like the old Zen saying, they are like fingers pointing at the moon, but they are not the moon. If the sutras or the stories or the koans are the truth, then we would be bound to the law of the relative, to “the this and the that,” to the yes and the no. Truth would exist outside of us, over there. This is the dilemma of most Christian thinking, which tends to be very dualistic. Thus, the Bible becomes the word of God. A Zen practitioner would say, No, the Bible is not the word of God, but the Bible is full of good stories, sacred stories, through which we can study ourselves, gates through which we can perhaps experience our true nature.

So how do we make stories and commentary that point beyond the relative to the absolute, toward the inexpressible? No, that’s not right. Let me say it this way: how do we make stories and commentary that reveal the emptiness—the Absolute—in form? In that sandwich you’re having for lunch. In that broken down man who came up to you to ask for a dollar. In the breath that you take.

Many teachers talk about water, the way it flows downhill toward the sea, and then it evaporates and circles back again. Or the waves in the sea, each of which—when viewed up close—has an individual identity, but which quickly melts back down into the body of the sea. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi talked about his journey to Yosemite and witnessing the waterfall there. Each drop of water, as it tumbled down off that magnificent cliff, became a separate entity, just for a second, and then, when it hit the pool, it once again became one with the pool and the river below.

It’s important to note that in the metaphors that teachers and the sutras use, “emptiness” is not “nothing.” “Nothingness” is not “nothing.” These words simply don’t work, but they are what we have. We need to re-think our understanding of these words. Emptiness, the way it’s expressed in the Heart Sutra, has no boundaries, it contains everything. For some the word “God” might be useful here but only if you’re able to insure that you understand “God” not as something other than you. “God” or “Absolute” or “Emptiness” or whatever word you use—it must contain us all. It must contain everything. But without boundaries.

So there’s the famous story about the two monks and the 6^th Patriarch.

The wind was flapping a temple flag, and two monks started an argument. One said the flag moved, the other said the wind moved; they argued back and forth but could not agree who was right. The Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng heard the two monks arguing back and forth, and he said, "It is not the wind that moves, it is not the flag that moves; it is your minds that move." "Oh," they said, and they were then able to sit there in peace.

The monks were arguing about yes and no, about the ying and the yang, about the right and the wrong. They believed in the words they were using. Flag. Wind. Me. You. These were their truths. The 6^th Patriarch pointed to their mind—the wind and the flag are a function of our mind. Like the Buddha said, we create the world in our minds. So for us to experience the absolute, to experience our true nature, then we must redirect our gaze and discover our true nature. Our Buddha nature. This is the practice of Zazen. We let go of our boundaries and we experience our True Self, our True Nature—little drops of water falling into the great pool of emptiness.

Thank you.

Bobby Kankin

Note: I took this photo on Lee's and my journey up to Taos, NM in mid-July, 2011. Just as the highway enters the gorge north of Española and then the little town of Velarde, we pulled over the side of the road to pee. I climbed up a little arroyo for privacy and there was this rock carrying the pictograph of circle. New Mexico can be magical like that. The cactus--here with its miraculous blossoms--was a gift from my daugther and her husband Ed for my 69th birthday. /bb

Poem by Ryokan

2011-06-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out my office at home. It's a mess. Books and CDs and lost ideas. It always takes me a long time because my mind wanders like a housefly. And I stop to visit with old books of poems. Like this poem I opened to in Between the Floating Mist (White Pine Press, 1992) by Ryokan and translated by Dennis Maloney and Hide Oshiro. The poem brought me back to myself. Have a good weekend. Sit strong. --Bobby Kankin Byrd

The flower does not invite the butterfly
and the butterfly has no intention of visiting the flower.
But when the flowers bloom the butterfly comes
and when the butterfly comes the flowers bloom.
I don't know these others,
and they don't know me either,
but we are all followers of the way.

Evening Gatha & Everyday Life

2011-05-30T09:52:00.001-07:00

Evening Gatha

Let me respectfully remind you
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken.
Take heed.
This night your days are diminished by one.
Do not squander your life.

●

My practice has resonated with the Evening Gatha since I heard the Ino at the Still Mind Zendo in New York City chant it with so much heart to conclude evening services. It’s a powerful reminder for strong practice, both for sitting on the zafu and for doing our daily tasks of life—whatever is in front of us to do. The next step. Breathing in and breathing out. Just being here, this is enough.

I found the nice Enso (“circle” in Japanese, symbolizing the Absolute) to illustrate the Gatha at the website of Converging Paths Meditation Center in Sandusky, Ohio. A bow to them and their practice.

I’m delighted to be home in the desert sunshine. I thank you all for your practice. I hope to see you soon.

—Bobby Kankin Byrd

Sitting Still Mind in NYC

2011-05-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

Still Mind Zen Zendo @ 37 West 37th, 6th Floor, NYC

Many thanks to Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi, Kathryn Soku Shin Masary, Mauricio Rosas and Polly Perez for stepping in for me the last two weeks. This next Tuesday the 24th we will not have services but come May 31, the day after Memorial Day, we’ll be back at our zafus sitting strong and quiet. I look forward to sitting with you all again. I thank you all for your practice.

Last night I sat with the Still Mind Zen Sangha. I enjoy going to different Zendos and visiting with different Sanghas and practitioners. Everything is different and everything is the same. Sort of anyway. The SMZ is a spacious Zendo up on the 6th floor on West 17th Street two blocks from Broadway. The Sangha members were happy to welcome me. And it turned out that one, Bruce Kennedy, is a business acquaintance. He gave me a big hug. I felt at home.

It was a cool wet night—it’s been raining here for two days—so the windows were open, the city sounds drifted up to give some music to our zazen and a breeze refreshed us. Their teachers are Janet Jiryu Abels and Gregory Hosho Abels in the White Plum Lineage of Maezumi, and their teacher is Roshi Robert Jinsen Kennedy—a Jesuit priest and psychoanalyst who received transmission from Bernie Glassman. Jinsen Kennedy is respected for his work in showing how Zen and Christian practice, if viewed rightly, are pieces of the same cloth.

Tuesday nights are their primary nights for sitting, and they filled the place up with 30 or wordless Zensters. They don’t bow as much as we do; they sit toward the center one time and the next time they face the wall; their kinhin is half Soto-slow, half Rinzai-fast; the chanting is sparser than ours and of course their translations are different. I just did everything that the lady to the right was doing. How hard is that? Since the two Abels were out of town, one of their primary students Marisa Cespedes gave the dharma talk. She spoke about contentment—accepting your life as you are and being complete with who you are. The cornerstone of her talk was Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s statement “Just being alive is enough.” Being right here is great good fortune. Breathing this breath and typing these words. There’s no other place to be, no other person to be. Later, going home on the subway (the N train to 42nd to change to the 1 train) I remembered talking to Mike Immo Dretsch about the practice of home zazen and hearing sounds—wife in the kitchen, a car going by, the neighbor’s dog barking—and not attaching meaning to those sounds. Simply letting them be sounds. If we attach meaning, then our mind follows off on a thought. The next step is to hear words—say, from a partner or a friend or an enemy even—simply for what they mean. Don’t attach the baggage of personality to hearing those words spoken to you.

When I left that evening it was 9pm and I realized that I was putting on my shoes about the same time our Sangha members at the UUCEP were taking off their shoes. That made me happy. From a note this morning I heard that my friend David Gallardo was there with his son Alejandro. David and I used to drive every Monday every to sit at the Las Cruces Zen Center. We became good friends, going back and forth. He and his family have since moved to Tacoma, WA. He had great El Paso stories about his growing up. I miss him.

Sunday morning I plan to sit with the Village Zendo and hear Enkyo O’Hara Roshi speak.

Both Sides No sides / The Calligraphy

2011-03-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's beautiful, huh? Many thanks to Yubao Li, a man I've happily sat next to, cross-legged of course, staring at the wall at the Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces.

Tomorrow, March 26th, we'll have Zazenkai 9am to 4pm at my house at 2709 Louisville. Please notify me if you expect to come for all or part of our day of practice. Cell is 915-251-241-3140. Below is a tentative schedule.

A bow to all who learn about our Zen community--Both Sides / No Sides--through our blog. Sit strong for all of us, sit strong for our planet.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR ZAZENKAI

MARCH 26, BOTH SIDES / NO SIDES ZEN COMMUNITY

9:00am to 9:30am—Opening Services, Tea Ceremony, Dharma Talk
9:30am to Noon—4 periods zazen with kinhin and short break between periods 2 and three
Noon to 1:30pm—Lunch, abbreviated Oryoki style, and after lunch break
1:30 to 2:00pm—Zazen, one period
2:00 to 3:00—Samu, or work meditation (Dokusan if requested)
3:00 to 4:00pm Zazen Two Periods
4:00 pm—Closing Ceremonies

March & April Schedule

2011-03-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

Weekly Schedule
Tuesdays 7pm @ 4425 Byron in the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso (UUCEP). For more information call Bobby Kankin Byrd @ 915-241-3140 or write bbyrd@cincopuntos.com. Services include chanting the Three Refuges and the Heart Sutra in English; two zazen (meditation) periods of 25 minutes each with Kinhin (walking meditation) between; chanting the traditional Sino-Japanese Heart Sutra; and concluding with tea and a short dharma talk.

March Zazenkai
Saturday, March 26th, 9am to 4pm @ 2709 Louisville, the home of Bobby Kankin Byrd. Our Zazenkai will include services, zazen, a vegetarian lunch (served in modified Oryoki style), samu (work meditation) and a concluding service. Please call 915-241-3140 or write bbyrd@cincopuntos.com for reservations.

Hanamatsuri Sesshin
The Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces and Harvey Daiho Roshi will host Hanamatsuri Sesshin beginning Friday evening, April 8th and concluding Sunday, April 10th. Hanamatsuri is the Buddhist Holiday celebrating the Buddha’s birth. Reservations are required. Please email Harvey Daiho @ harveyhilbert@yahoo.com

Japan

2011-03-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

The following five poems from Japan were translated by Kenneth Rexroth (see his beautiful book 100 Poems from the Japanese). I receive the Village Zendo Newsletter. A person who I assume is Nina K posted them this morning, having received them from another list operated by Larry Robinson of California, "who sends out poems almost daily." The poems found a place in my heart today, so I thought to share them. I wish you are all well. Peace and hope for the people of Japan. For us all.

●

I can no longer tell dream from reality.
Into what world shall I awake
from this bewildering dream?

                       — Akazome Emon

●

The fireflies' light
How easily it goes on
How easily it goes out again.

                       — Chine-Jo

●

The crying plovers
On darkening Narumi
Beach, grow closer, wing
To wing, as the moon declines
Behind the rising tide.

                       — Fujiwara No Sueyoshi

●

I loathe the seas of being
And not being
And long for the mountain
Of bliss untouched by
The changing tides.

                       — Anonymous

●

If only the world
Would remain this way,
Some fishermen
Drawing a little rowboat
Up the riverbank.

                       — Minamoto No Sanetomo

The Path Has Its Own Intelligence

2011-02-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

(The 3rd of the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures by Yokoo Tatsuhiko

Accompanying a Teisho by Kubota Ji'un

Based on the 10 Ox-Herding Pictures by KAKUAN Zenji in the 12th Century)

The Zen-centered internet of late has been blasted with controversy swirling around a couple of men teachers, one dead, one alive, and their relationship with women students. So much so that the controversy slipped into the New York Times like dirty water overflowing the kitchen sink. Like the dishwasher forgot to turn the water off. Have you ever done that—left the water running? I have. Shit, I say. Then I clean up the mess.

Anyway, if you’re interested in that sort of stuff you can track it down at the tricycle.com and sweepingzen.com websites. It’s not fun, but it can be valuable.

In Zen we are responsible for ourselves, but we practice for each other. Still, we are always surprised, myself included, that human beings continue to be human beings no matter how long they stare at the wall with their legs aching. Our stories tell us the fragile teacher/student relationship is fraught with incredible potential for following our path, but, on the flip side, terrible abuse if we are not paying attention. But Zen Buddhism does have the tools to turn the water off and to clean up the mess.

Zen is wise because it gives us no one tool—a rule, a punishment, a dictum, a judge and a jury—that will fit all occasions. We have our daily zazen, the precepts, and the Eight-Fold Noble Path. With these in our practice and heart, we must constantly be looking with fresh eyes. We must not rely on habit. Harvey Daiho wrote a piece on his blog and e-list about the turmoil. I wrote the following in response to his post and simply thinking about the confusion the controversy (aka scandal) caused in my own heart.

Poet Gary Snyder’s Rinzai teacher used to tell him that Zen was sitting zazen and sweeping. Some people have larger places to sweep, others smaller. That’s okay, that’s the way it is. But, he said, just don’t do too much harm. For me that’s very good advice. We can’t live on the planet—in our neighborhoods and cities—without causing some harm, but we should be aware of our actions and be responsible for them. Karma is about cause and effect. We can see every day how harmful actions (an inappropriate sexual relationship, a gun fired in anger, yelling at a child) can ripple for years and years and even generations through communities—whether they be families, Zen communities or political communities.

So this is how I try to understand the precepts—sitting zazen and sweeping and not doing too much harm. I like to add to those dictums the rule of camping—always leave a campsite better than you found it. This helps me add a dimension of aesthetics and the imagination to my life. I have to make decisions about the place where I live—both in my home and my communities. I want my life, and the lives of those around me, to be natural and organic, like the perfect campsite, in tune as much as possible to the place where we live. This requires some sweeping. Not too much, but just enough. Of course, remembering not to do much damage. It’s a sweet little dance.

The Ox-Herding verses and pictures are a wonderful tool for practice. They grow on you like koans.

Women In Zen Practice Support Group

2011-02-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

Judy Daishin Harmon and Bonnie Bussho Hobbs, April 2010

Women In Zen Practice Support Group
Thursdays 5:30-7pm
Kathryn Soko Shin's & Daiho's apartment
2190 Mars Ave, #6, Las Cruces 88012
575-644-8673

This is a women's group that focuses primarily on supporting members' practice and building sangha. We sit first, then have a light supper while discussing practice-related issues. Fern Roshi attends and shares her wisdom every week. There are 9 women signed up for the group and we usually end up with between 5 and 7 on any given week at this point.

We also get outside mentoring from Daishin ( Judy Harmon ) who just sent us a book to consider called Women of Wisdom by Tsultrim Allione. It's about 6 Tibetan female mystics and their spiritual journeys, in addition to the author's own--

And, we are planning a trip to Deming, as a group, to visit Bussho when the weather gets nicer. She will present topics on Native American healing and how she integrates Zen practice into that approach in her work with a prison population of substance abusers.

Women from Both Sides/No Sides sangha are encouraged to attend as they are able. We would love to have any of our dharma cousins here as often as possible!

Let me know if you have any questions.

—Kathryn Soku Shin

Gutei's Finger @ Byron Street up the hill in El Paso

2011-01-31T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last week after services we talked about the koan "Gutei's Finger." I've always been fascinated by the story, having first read it sometime in the 60s. (What the hell? The guy cut off the monk's finger!) I came across the story in my first copy (I've had maybe six of the years) of Sensaki's and Reps' translation of Zen Flesh / Zen Bones. It's the fifth koan in their version of the Mumonkon, The Gateless Gate, used by Rinzai teachers to test their students. The book is a staple in bookstores, you can buy it on-line and it's even available free on-line with a little search. Of course, as a publisher, I suggest you follow the first or second path.

Now that I've spent time being with the story, I'm hearing reverberations of it in most everything I read. For instance,...

"This is the practice of dying to the self."
--Charlotte Joko Beck

●

GUTEI’S ONE FINGERED ZEN

Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger.

Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened.

When Gutei was about to pass from this world he gathered his monks around him. "I attained my finger-Zen," he said, "from my teacher Tenryu, and in my whole life I could not exhaust it." Then he passed away.

●

[Oh, it's Monday morning. I'll paste a recent commentary from my teacher Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi, the founder of Clear Mind Zen. The commentary also rings with the understanding of Gutei's Finger. I recommend you follow Daiho's blog or write him directly and ask that he put you on his e-mailing list.]

Master Dogen taught that to study the Way is to study the self. This study is the act of burning away the construction we call self, allowing the pieces to fall away, and supporting what remains as that which was not born and that which will not die: our true nature. This is the universality of everything, the Great Breath, not one, not two, just this.

How do we “get there”? Simple, we get out of our own way. We realize we are already there, that there is no there, and that the desire to get there, the imagining of a there in the first place, is all part of the delusion.

We practice stillness. This is the practice of just coming and going, the practice of breathing in and breathing out, the practice of practice itself: zanmai o zanmai. The Samadhi that is the king of Samadhi.

Does raw land allow our plants to grow or do we need to till and otherwise care for the field? Do we need to weed and water? Do we need to fertilize? For our crop to be plentiful and strong, we need to do these things. Just so, Zen. We cannot expect to open the self to allow our True Nature to emerge without study. Right understanding requires a plow, hands, fertilizer, water, sun, and a willingness to set about the work itself.

●

Oh, not to forget, yes, we will be sitting this Tuesday night same time (7pm), same place (4425 Byron) doing the same old thing--sitting in the silence until the bell rings. Come join us.

LOGO FOR BOTH SIDES NO SIDES ZEN COMMUNITY

2011-01-18T11:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks to artist Polly Perez for our new logo. Last Friday (the very last moment) in preparing for Zazenkai and the Jukai Ceremonies of Kathryn Soku Shin Masaryk and Mike Inmo Dretsch, I realized I needed some sort of image for their certificates. I wrote Polly around 10am, wondering if she could come up with something quick. She accepted the challenge. She works half-day on Fridays, so she spent some time thinking about it and in a little less than two hours that afternoon she had accomplished the above. I was delighted.

By the way, I put photographs from the Jukai ceremonies on our Facebook page, and I'll be writing something here about the ceremonies when I get the time. I hope you are all well, and I thank you for your practice.

--Bobby Kankin Byrd

Merry Christmas, Zensters on Both Sides, No Sides, All Sides

2010-12-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas. So to practice we sit in the mornings and the evenings and maybe in-between. The practice of zazen informs our daily life. Going to work, eating breakfast, washing the dishes, saying hello to the people that cross our path.

If you’ve been raised in our culture, our civilization—aka, Western, the Judeo-Christian, American, whatever you want to call it—then you’ve been touched in one way or another by the story of Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and who 30-something years later was crucified in Jerusalem. It doesn’t matter if you’re an agnostic, Christian, Jew, Native American, atheist, Buddhist, something else or none of the above, the story of Jesus has entered into your thinking and understanding. It’s simply part of the language of who you are. So how do we, as practitioners of Zen, think about the story? Instead of ignoring it (or worse, mocking it) or, on the other extreme, accepting it as truth with no questions asked, my belief is that we should work to understand it. Like we work to understand all the many stories in the Buddhist and Zen traditions. The principle elements of the story of Jesus are found in so many stories of the Buddha and Zen Masters—human birth, practice, teaching, death and resurrection.

So what does it mean to be the son (or daughter) of God?

●

So yes we will be sitting this Tuesday, 7pm, @ 4425 Byron at the Unitarian Sanctuary. On cold nights the front door may be shut but it’s not locked. You can see the lights through the stained-glass windows. We’ll be sitting inside, ringing the bell, lighting the candle and the incense, chanting and sitting and sipping at our tea. It happens like that every time. Strange, how it’s never the same. I hope to see you guys there if you can make it.

And Merry Christmas to you all. And please, like Jesus of Nazareth taught, respond to others, especially to those in need, with wisdom and kindness.

[P.S. The painting is by Pieter van Breugel the Elder, one of my all time favorite painters. He was one of the masters during the Flemish Renaissance, and he loved to mixed the profane and the sacred, humor and wisdom into his work.]

Photographs from Rohatsu Sesshin 2010

2010-12-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

Boddhisattvas after Rohasu

Kathy, Alice & Suki before we got started

The altar atop the new floor completed right before the bell rang

Susan Hakushi Beckett

Taking the Three Refuges & receiving her Wagessa

The Altar for the Ceremonies

Heather Kishin Ogston

Taking the Three Refuges & receiving her Wagessa

David KoMyo Novotny and Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi

During the KaeSanbo Ceremony for KiShin

Kathy RyoGin Sorenson

Taking the Three Refuges & receiving her Wagessa

(Her husband John Shogi is taking her photo on the other side)

John Shoji Sorenson: Jukai Ceremony

Taking the 16 Vows

John Shoji Sorenson's Rakusu

Fresh with his Buddhist name & the date of the ceremony

Order of Clear Mind Zen Lineage of Priests

Beginning bottom right, clockwise:

Bonnie Bussho Hobbs, Celia Kajo,

Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi, Bobby KanKin Byrd, David KoMyo Novotny

Celebration afterwards @ the Village Inn down the street

Rohatsu Sesshin @ The Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces

2010-12-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Bodhi Tree

Over the December 6th weekend I attended a sesshin at Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces. This end of the year sesshin celebrates Rohatsu, the Buddha’s Enlightenment. It’s the central stories in our practice. It goes something like this. Siddhartha Gautama, or Shakyamuni (whichever you prefer—I like Siddhartha because I read Herman Hesse’s novel when I was a teenager) had given up his life of asceticism. He had whittled down his daily intake of food to several grains of rice a day, and he must have understood that he was dying from lack of food. He didn’t want to die. That was not the point. So he had begun to eat again, to take the path we know as “the Middle Way.” His compatriots left him because they felt he had gone astray. But he didn’t turn away from his practice of zazen. Thus, he sat down under the Bo Tree (aka Bodhi Tree), a huge fig tree, and he vowed not return to the world of men until he had received Enlightenment. And so he sat and sat some more. Surely, he rose from time to time and did walking meditation beneath the huge tree with its heart shaped leaves. Surely he ate some rice and vegetables, something to keep his strength. Surely he had to go out into the woods and relieve himself. He was a man after all. But he always returned to the lotus posture of his zazen.

Zazen, as Dogen always reminds us, is action.

Siddharta cupped his hands in the cosmic mudra and slipped into deep meditation. I don’t know how long this went on. But it was a long time. One morning before dawn cracked open the sky he looked up into the black sky in the southeast. There he saw the Morning Star and he received complete realization, complete enlightenment, nirvana. It has many names. The universe was exactly as it is. Nothing added. The shell of his self was empty and so was full.

My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, ‘Released.’ I discerned that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.’

There was nothing left for him to do. But he did not turn his back on the world of women and men. Instead, he returned as teacher. He went and found his friends who had left him and he told them about what he had become and the Four Noble Truths which concluded with the Eight-Fold Noble Path. These are our gateway toward our own realization. These are the foundation of the Buddha Way. Our practice.

So this event was what we celebrated on December 8th. Around the world others were doing similar practice this week, many much more intensive than our own, others less intensive. Ours is a Householder Zen. Our practitioners come from their families and their lives for the time they can afford and they come to sit together. We had folks from California, Las Cruces and El Paso. It was a good solid group, 10 to 14, depending when you walked in the front door. We sat three periods Friday night, 14 periods Saturday, five periods Sunday. The bell was ringing; the candles and the incense were lit. We all had a place on the floor for our zabuton and our zafu, we all had a piece of the wall to stare at. Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi gave us teishos on Friday night and Sunday morning--good stuff to ferment during our practice. David Komyo Novotny was the sesshin leader, and he made sure that all was quiet and he marked the time. Celia Kajo was our Ino, although she got pulled away from time to time by her life duties. I was the Tenzo, the cook, and Katia SokuShin Masuryk was my assistant. We prepared and served the meals. Truly, an honor. Luckily I had recently re-read Master Dogen’s “Instructions to the Cook.” Essentially, how to be present in the activities of being a cook, how to respect and prepare the food, how to organize the life of the kitchen and how to organize one’s own mind to make the process meaningful. On Sunday three members took their first deep steps into their practice. The ceremony is called the KaeSanbo, or taking the Refuges in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. They receive their Buddhist names of Zen practice and their wagessa which they had sewn. They were Susan Hakushi Beckett of Las Cruces, a student of Kajo; Heather Kishin Ogston of California and a student of KoMyo; and Kathy RyoGin Sorenson, a student of Daiho Roshi's. John Shoji Sorenson took the Jukai vows and received his rakusu which he too had made. They were beautiful ceremonies for each, and the talks of the teachers and the recipients demonstrated the power of this practice. [Note: I'll post photographs of these ceremonies in a separate post and on our Facebook page.]

We worked and we sat. That’s what Zen is--zazen and sweeping the floor. Being who you are, discovering who you are, and looking up one morning and seeing the morning star or hearing the mockingbird atop the juniper tree.

And you experience the universe as it is.
It’s been there all along.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
How can that be?

May we all sit strong in the New Year, may we all receive enlightenment together.

[Note: soon I will put up some photographs I took at the sesshin, so please check back later here or on our facebook page.]

Zen Fundamentalism: Just Sitting

2010-12-15T09:27:00.000-08:00

This is a cool video--Master Gudo Wafu Nishijima showing us how to sit. The half-lotus, the full-lotus--it's a pleasure to watch the old man fold his legs into zazen. His discussion of the ears helped me remember my ears and my spine. And zazen, just sitting, is where we learn the first step along the Eightfold Noble Path: Right View. Indeed, Right View "is the beginning and the end of the path. It simply means to see and understand things as they are." Or as Nishijima might say, Zen is about the experience of reality.

Enjoy.

The Dana Paramita: The Act of Giving

2010-12-12T16:19:00.000-08:00

We breathe in.
We breathe out.
We take from the universe.
We give to the universe.

The act of giving is Dana, the first Paramita, the first Perfection. Dana we discover is really a two-way street, receiving and giving, breathing in and breathing out.

I write this note to ask you all during this time of giving to remember our Zen Community, Both Sides / No Sides here straddled on the U.S./Mexico Border. We’ve been fortunate to have the use of the sanctuary at the El Paso Unitarian Community for our Tuesday evening services. For this opportunity we pay $100 a month. So far we’ve been able to pay each month, but for a few months we’ve had to wait a couple of weeks to gather enough funds for our payment. And to be honest our payments have fallen on the shoulders of several of our members who are with us every week. We have no reserves, and we will have expenses beyond the use of the UU sanctuary. I ask each of you to give as you are able. If you cannot attend our services and wish to give, please send a check to John Byrd @ 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901. On the memorandum line note that the check is to the Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community. John is our treasurer and keeps exact records of receipts and payments.

And oh yes, we will be sitting this Tuesday, the 14th, at 7pm @ 4425 Byron. And by the way, there are Six Paramitas, or Perfections—

Dana Paramita: Generosity, giving of oneself.
Sila Paramita: virtue, morality, discipline, proper conduct
Kshanti Paramita—patience, tolerance, acceptance
Virya Paramita—diligence, effort
Dhyana Paramita—concentration, contemplation
Prajna Paramita—wisdom, insight

The Human Brain: So Who Are We?

2010-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

"Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story."

Note: I thought this post was already up on the Both Sides / No Sides blog but when I went and looked for it, I couldn't find. That's because it was on my personal blog. I was looking for this interview for a practitioner who is studying with me--indeed, a person who has had an experience similar to Ms. Taylor's--and so I thought I'd add it here for future reference. Mike LaTorra, aka Gozen, a Zen priest and abbott at the Las Cruces Zen Center sent the link out on his list way back in April 2008. The video went viral for a while and I've thought about it much since. I have some differences with with some of the conclusion, but that's cool. Her talk is most important. At the link, you can read and copy the text of her talk, but I highly recommend that you watch the 18 minute video. It's a most remarkable lecture--scientific very interesting, witty and wise.

/ Bobby Kankin

Ms. Taylor, a neuroanatomist at Harvard, experienced a stroke on the left side of her brain, and because of her expertise she was able to witness the separation of her right and left brain lobes and to understand precisely how they each see the world. The talk is eight-plus years after the stroke, the time it took for her to fully recover. She became, in her words, in those few hours before help arrived like a new born baby in a woman's body. She had no language, no skills, no baggage of her 37 years on the planet. Yet, it was euphoria, a leap into what she called nirvana. And she realized during the experience that was soon to be dead. Luckily for us, this last transition didn't happen. She awoke finally in a hospital, startled to be alive. Her talk brings up incredible questions for me as a citizen of all the different communities where I hang my hat, for my work as a poet and writer and for my practice as a Zen Buddhist, those nagging spiritual or religious (I hate both those words, so much baggage) interests I carry around in my heart.

She says toward the end of her talk--

So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the “we” inside of me.

Coincidentally, about the time I first watched this video Lee and I were on a roadtrip back and forth to Dallas and were listening to an audible telling of War and Peace (those 1300 miles weren't nearly enough for that huge book). Tolstoi describes Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who when almost fatally wounded on the battlefield having an almost identical experience as the one Ms. Taylor describes.

Thank you, Jill Bolte Taylor.
And Peace.

SERVICES CANCELLED FOR NOVEMBER 23, 2010

2010-11-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

This long holiday weekend my youngest son Andy Byrd is coming home with his daughter, and Johnny Byrd’s birthday is Tuesday night, November 23rd, so I’ve decided to cancel our services for tomorrow night. Come next week, Tuesday November 30th, we’ll be ringing the bell again, bowing to our cushions—to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha—and sitting together in the big sanctuary of the Unitarian Center.

Light the candle on your altar and a stick of incense for peace in the city of Juárez.

Light the candle on your altar and a stick of incense for peace in our own hearts and minds.

I hope you are all well and that your practice is strong.

I bow to each of you.

Bobby Kankin

Practicing the Dharma: Buddhist Chaplaincy Program

2010-11-18T21:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mike Dretsch for sending this link via his Facebook page. Mike is a member of our Sangha although he lives in Georgia. His practice is leading him into new places. He is busy sewing his black rakusu. I thank him for his practice.

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

New Altar for our Sangha

2010-11-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

With many thanks to Hogaku Shozen McGuire Roshi (aka Roshi Ken), our sangha--Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community of El Paso / Juarez--now has a new altar for our practice. A few months ago when we first moved into our new digs at the Unitarian Community, Roshi Ken asked me if there a particular piece of furniture that we needed.

An altar, I said.
How do you like your altars? he said.

Ken is an accomplished wood-worker, as you can see from the photo of his workshop in Las Cruces. We talked back and forth. Since we must move stuff and set up every practice session, we needed an altar that is portable, but it also needs to be big enough to store all of our paraphernalia--the bells, the mukugyo (the fish), the incense bowls, all the odds and ends. Also I wanted the top to be hinged with handles on the sides for carrying the altar from one place to the next.

Yes, yes, I can do that, said Roshi Ken.

And besides, he added the extra ingredient--the stand and the altar are separate, which makes moving it from one place to another simple for a pair of zensters. Please join us on Tuesday nights, 7pm, at 4475 Byron in El Paso, and you can enjoy our altar with us.

Postscript: Some notes. Roshi Ken is in the business of wood-working (please visit his Zen Furnishings website) but he gave us this altar to us as Dana. "Dana" is the First Paramita, the first perfection, and it means generosity, the act of generosity. I have received it in that spirit. He didn't ask for anything in return, but I wrote him a personal check for $40 to cover his materials. We bowed to each other--giving and receiving, the act of reciprocity. He also gave us a beautiful hand-crafted incense bowl made of wood. It has two square containers, one for burning of incense and the other to hold the granules of incense that we offer during our incense ceremony. This was not a gift, but I took it along on $40 of credit which I hope the Sangha can pay in the near future. I write all this because we must remember as a Sangha our responsibilities in the everyday world, the marketplace. We pay $100 a month for the use of the wonderful sanctuary at the Unitarian Community. We did have a bit of a surplus, but that is no longer true. Please consider adding to our Dana Bowl, either when you sit with us or by mail. Johnny Byrd is our Sangha's treasurer. He can be reached @ (915) 861-9214. Or you can send a check to him at 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901.

Many thanks and a deep bow to all of you for your continuing practice.
Bobby Kankin

How to Eat Your Lunch

2010-10-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Going out to lunch in Galveston this last Saturday I took along John Daido Loori’s little book Bringing the Sacred to Life. Its subject is how to consciously practice our liturgy in the Zendo, how to perform our daily practice in our homes and, simply, how to practice out in the world. How to make our daily practice sacred? One of the subjects is eating. It's something we do everyday, but usually we're not paying attention, we're not conscious of the activity of eating. We read a book, the newspaper, we talk to others (real or imaginary), we daydream, we make plans. According to Zen, if we are eating, then we should eat. The point is to be conscious during the process of eating. So here:

We take our food in a bowl. We call the bowl the Buddha’s bowl. Master Dogen said:

"The Buddha bowl is not an artifact, it neither arises nor perishes, neither comes nor goes, neither gains nor loses. It is not concerned with past, present or future. This bowl is called the miraculous bowl."

Miraculous because it’s used in a miraculous event, at a miraculous time, by a miraculous person. On this account, when a miraculous event is realized, there is a miraculous bowl. There is no need to search for the miraculous. We’re surrounded by it, interpenetrated by it. Our very life is a manifestation of that miraculousness. When we acknowledge that the food we eat comes from the efforts of all sentient beings, past and present, we immediately identify with that Great Net of Indra.

Of course, after reading this passage, I had to set down my book, give a prayer of thanksgiving and pay attention to my meal. Spicy caldo de pescado. It was delicious.

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Tea cups, Tuesday nights

2010-10-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday nights @ 7pm services and zazen seems to be working fine. Last week Susana, representing our Sangha during the incense ceremony and offering the tea, had to pour seven cups of tea. We only have nine sets of zafus and zabutons. And the interesting thing is that Susana and I were the only regulars. The usual suspects were working late, sick, traveling or caring for babies. The new folks (they sat strong, like champs) had come via a friend, word of mouth and the blog. One had come for a third time. My gosh, soon we’ll have to be buying new zafus and zabutons. I look forward to sitting with our Sangha this Tuesday.

But right now I’m in Galveston with my son Johnny. It’s a beautiful sunny day, the surf pounding against the Seawall. Last night, when we got here, I walked along the Seawall, the surf was at high tide, the roaring incessant sound of the waves, the moist wind coming off the Gulf. The seashore always attracts a wild and very diverse menagerie of people, and I’m so happy to be one of them. Our family has a lot of personal history in Galveston, which I won’t go into now, but the city feels like home in so many ways. So I’m glad to be here, although tomorrow we turn around and come back home. Our 3rd floor room has a tiny little balcony and that’s where I sat Zazen this morning. When it’s possible I like to drag my zafu and zabuton outside from time to time and sit. It makes me realize how important it is that the senses be engaged—actively passive—during zazen. It’s important to keep the eyes open during practice, to let in a little bit of light, not to focus on any object, but to simply have the sense of sight present in zazen. I have trouble with this. My eyelids begin to feel heavy and want to shut, and sometimes they do, but when I notice them shut, then I open them. The light is there. So is the sound of traffic on the Seawall, a gull screeching about its morning hunger, some children playing, a worker taking out the garbage and banging the dumpster door shut.

Sit strong and straight. Breathe easy.

Bobby, aka KanKin

Sangha Building

2010-10-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

When Suzuki-roshi first came to Sokoji (San Francisco Zen Temple) people would be referred to him for direction. They would come with all kinds of questions, and wanted answers. He simply told them "I sit every morning at 5:45, you are welcome to join me."

This is a response by David KoMyo Novotny, a disciple of Harvey Daiho Roshi, to one of Daiho's blog about "Sangha Building" that I am pasting below. This is my belief also--if we sit, then our sangha will grow. And so it seems our Tuesday night schedule seems to be working: 7pm, 4425 Byron at the Unitarian Community. We sit and more people come. We've been averaging six or seven. Sweet. Who knows if that will continue. Who knows if we'll need to buy more zabutons and zafus. But, one way or the other, we'll continue to sit. Ken McGuire Roshi has built us an altar which I need to pick up this week. The weather is changing from summer to winter. It's so nice. I hope you can make it some evening.

If I want to build a sangha, I do not look for Zen Buddhists or even Buddhists for that matter. That would be a big mistake as I would be likely to collect a motley crew of people with all sorts of ideas about Zen.

No. First, I wouldn’t look period. I would find a place and set a time, and then I would just sit. Second, I would welcome whoever came to sit with me. The key is openness and keeping our eye on the ball: practice. I might post a flier or two. I would ask my friends. I would first and last, however, practice. People too often set out with ideas in mind. This is not the Zen way. We do not chase ideas. We practice zazen.

Training is important when we get past just sitting. Instruction is important before and during our zazen. We never get past just sitting. Training in the forms is an issue for Zen Temples and Practice Centers. Important, yes, but not essential. What is essential first is that we understand what we are doing and second, our limitations. We are practicing zazen. Instruction on this practice is readily available and quite simple. Its practice is difficult. We should be careful not to allow the fact that we do not have a sangha, room, or building to take us away from our practice. We always have a park or a tree or a sidewalk or some other public space we can just sit in. Kinhin can be practiced pretty much anywhere and at anytime. And mindfulness practice becomes a deeply ingrained way of life.

Let the labels go. Zen Buddhists? Not necessarily. People willing to sit down with us and take the backward step? Yes! Compassionate hearts? Yes! Diligent hearts? Yes!

It is the practice that is essential, nothing else.

NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH: I was looking in my archives for a nice photograph for "sangha" and I found this one from a wonderful sesshin (August 2005) conducted at Daiho's Refuge a bit off the grid northeast of Cloudcroft, NM. Bonnie Hobbs and Reba Montera, the two ladies on the right, still practice with Clear Mind. Mike Gozen LaTorra, the man in the middle, is the Abbott and teacher at the Las Cruces Zen Center on Mesquite Avenue. The lady far left and the man on the right I don't remember their names. And, I am embarrassed to say, I don't remember the name of the lady, second from the left. She was a long time practitioner in Las Cruces--a yoga teacher and masseuse. That very weekend she massaged my back and the tension and pain slipped away like water. She's moved up to Santa Fe and we miss her. And if you can, help me out with her name. Egads. I am embarrassed.

But what this photograph also reminds me is that the Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces is planning the Rohatsu Sesshin for the weekend of December 10. Rohatsu is the celebration of the Buddha's Enlightenment and, thus, it's the most important sesshin of the calendar year. And the most rigorous. Please look at your calendars and, if you can, plan to attend. More about this soon.

Genevieve

2010-10-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

Genevieve Ramirez, the baby daughter of Ruby Finlen Ramirez and Sangha member Sebastian Ramirez did not need to learn to do the mindfulness dance. She does it perfectly. Congratulations to the whole family from all of us.

Zazenkai Saturday, 9/11, 9am

2010-09-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

"Zen is not, in my view, philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity. That is, it restores the distorted nervous system to its normal functioning." This image and quote from the essay "Ordinary Mind" by Katsuki Sekida from the very interesting blogspot "We are Perfect Buddha Mind."

SCHEDULE FOR ZAZENKAI ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2010
2709 Louisville (click heer for map)
Call Bobby Byrd at 915-241-3140 for more information

9:00 - 9:30AM           Beginning Services, Tea and Talk
9:30 - 11:00               Three Zazen periods
11:00 - 11:15 Break
11:15 - 12:15PM       Two Zazen periods
12:15 - 1:00             Lunch / Rest
1:00 - 1:30                 One Zazen period
1:30 - 2:00                 Samu (Work meditation) and Dokusan (see note below)
2:00 - 3:00                 Two Zazen periods
3:00 - 3:30                 Closing Services with cookies and tea

Note: Dokusan is a private interview with a teacher. It gives you an opportunity to talk personally about your practice and to ask questions. It is not required, but can be requested.

"Let's get on with it." Robert Aitken: 1917-2010

2010-08-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

ROBERT AITKEN

1917-2010

The passage below is from The Mind of Clover, p110, the chapter "Eating the Blame." In the chapter Aitken is discussing some of the famous stories of Zen, how the monks and their teachers can participate in "Dharma Combat" because they have stepped aside the self, the "me," and are able to speak from their true self. This is his question of us: Do you, in speaking about your practice, defend yourself, exonerate yourself? Or do you simply dance with the other and thereby reveal the dharma.

Sangha is a treasure of the Buddha Tao, ranking with enlightenment and the truth. Singing and dancing are the voice of the dharma; cooking and gardening are the voice of the Buddha. Sangha is the complementarity of unity and diversity, of emptiness and form. Sangha is the story of the Buddha, lived out in our work together.

The sangha ideal is our guide through the complexities of people in combination. Everybody is different, and so misunderstandings arise. With our realization of pure emptiness, with our sense that nothing really matters, we find true devotion because we no longer worry about ourselves. The great potential of the Dharmakāya becomes our own unimpeded great action. Differences become configurations we can use and our collective energy can be focused on the task.

Let’s get on with it.

TUESDAY NIGHTS, 7PM: ZEN BUDDHIST PRACTICE, EL PASO/JUAREZ

2010-08-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

NOTE: A minor modification in our schedule. We’ll ring the bell at 7pm, not 715pm, Tuesday nights, in the Sanctuary of the UUCEP, 4475 Byron in Central/NE El Paso. The sanctuary has a big hand-crafted double-door. It's very welcoming. I’ll be arriving 30 minutes early to set up, moving chairs and arranging our zafus, zabutons and altar. All are welcome to come early and help.

Sanctuary in the Morning Light

Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso

4475 Byron Street in Central / NE El Paso

Last Tuesday night our sangha had our first services in the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso. Janet Kincaid, the president of the UUCEP Board, served as our welcoming host. She gave me a key, helped us set up and showed us all the little odds and ends of our new surroundings so that we will feel welcome in our new practice hall. She was very generous and helpful. Four of us were in attendance, and others have said the time is right for them. We expect attendance to grow. Janet has said members of the UUCEP may be interested. Herself included.

The sanctuary is a big room made cozy by the hand-labor and love that the UUCEP community put into creating it back in the 70s. We are honored to sit there, but it will take some getting used to. The new space, the new time. It throws a little chaos into our lives and into our practice. That’s good. It’s not supposed to be easy. The acoustics are very different. The room swallows up the sound so I’m glad we have the big bell and our big mukugyo, the wooden fish, its eyes always open, as we beat upon it, chanting the Heart Sutra—form is emptiness, emptiness form. And we’ll need to be more attentive. Chairs have to be moved before services, and they need to be returned afterwards. We’ll need to be responsible for the altar and the flowers and the candles and all the chores of our service that John Fortunato did for us in offering us his home for our practice. I am personally thankful for his work for our sangha. And now we move on.

Gone, gone, gone to the other world, having never left.

That’s what the Heart Sutra says. But how does that happen?

The bell and the fish and the flowers and the candle and the zafus and our voices and our silence. Especially our silence. Being upright in our silence.

So we sit down and shut up.

Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces opens August 27th

2010-08-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

Clear Mind Zen Temple

642 South Alameda Boulevard, Suite E

Las Cruces, New Mexico 88005

www.clearmindzen.org

575-680-6680

Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces, NM, Opens August 27th

The Order of Clear Mind Zen will officially open its Temple and dedicate it to serve southern New Mexico on Friday, August 27th, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. Please come, see our new Temple located at 642 South Alameda, Suite E, meet the Abbot, and help us in the Temple’s dedication. Light refreshments will be served.

The Temple offers Zen meditation Monday through Friday at 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM. The Temple also offers a full Zen service on Sunday at 9:00 AM and a Zen discussion group on Fridays at 4:00 PM. T’ai Chi Chih is offered on Wednesdays at 4:00 PM and Yoga will be offered on Thursdays from 4:30 PM to 5:15 PM (beginning in September). We practice Zen in the Park on Mondays and Fridays at 9:00 AM.

Clear Mind Zen Temple is the headquarters Temple for the Order of Clear Mind Zen, an Engaged Zen Buddhist Order with affiliates in Texas and California. Please visit our website at www.clearmindzen.org for additional information or call Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi at 575-680-6680.

New Digs for Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community of El Paso and Juarez

2010-08-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso has graciously offered our sangha the use of their sanctuary at 4425 Byron. The bell will ring tomorrow night, Tuesday August 17th, at 7:15pm. We will pay the UUCEP a monthly stipend, which we will settle on tomorrow. In the first few months, there may be a disruption on one or two Tuesday nights until our schedule and that of the UUCEP are both 100% in sync, so remember to check the emails and/or the blog.

To get there, follow this google link.

I hope to see you tomorrow night.
Bobby

We're moving our digs

2010-08-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

We change, everything (dukkha) changes, our creations change.

It was decided last Saturday that the No Sides / Both Sides Zen Community will be moving to new digs and we will also change our schedule. We have not decided as yet where we will be, nor what time we will sit together to stare at a wall in silence.

The Saturday 3:30pm schedule was not working. Saturday is a day scrambled together with home chores and family responsibilities, so it was difficult for folks to get there. I thank all those who have been able to work their schedules around the Saturday time and come sit with us. If you have a preferred time, please contact me, and I will throw that into the mix. My preferred time is Monday evening because Lee has a weekly engagement 6-9pm. Other nights may also work. And, if at all possible, we will try to throw a morning sit into the mix.

We are looking for a place to hold services. I will be contacting the Unitarian Community on Byron Street about the possibility of holding our services there. They did, at one time, have a Zen group practicing there on Tuesday night. There are other possibilities. We’ll see what happens. I think it’s important that there is some reciprocity involved--that we pay rent.

Finally, I want to thank John Fortunato for the years he has allowed the Sangha to use his house as our practice hall. We’ve spent many hours in that spacious back room, the light from the windows, the white floor and walls, the smell of incense, the bell ringing, our voices, our silence. Not too long ago I was ordained there. It was a glorious event, and John covered the altar with flowers.

But really our lives--our homes and our places of work, the marketplace--this is our practice hall.

Do good.
Avoid evil.
Bring about abundant good for all beings.

●

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact me at bbyrd@cincopuntos.com or 915-241-3140
Many thanks for your continued practice.
--Bobby Byrd, aka Kankin

Walt Whitman meets Hotei the Happy Buddha in El Paso

2010-08-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

For whatever reasons, this week Hotei and Walt Whitman popped into my head. Like they were holding hands and whispering into my ear about the same thing. So I posted something about them below. But before that, here's this week's schedule. Please come to our Sangha meeting. It would be good to see you. Thank you for your continuing practice.

--Bobby / aka Kankin

Wednesday morning, August 4, 6am. Basic zazen. No chanting, no services, simply sitting.

Saturday afternoon, August 7, 3:30pm. Formal sitting with services, zazen, tea and dharma talk.

NOTE: This Saturday, instead of a dharma talk and discussion, we will have a Sangha meeting. We want to discuss ways to bring new members to our sangha, our current schedule, scheduling sesshins and zazenkais, our finances, chores to help, etcetera. All are welcome.

Hotei, the Happy Buddha

Anyone walking about Chinatowns in America will observe statues of a stout fellow carrying a linen sack. Chinese merchants call him Happy Chinaman or Laughing Buddha. This Hotei, aka Budai. He lived in the T'ang dynasty. He had no desire to call himself a Zen master or to gather many disciples around him. Instead he walked the streets with a big sack into which he would put gifts of candy, fruit, or doughnuts. These he would give to children who gathered around him in play. He established a kindergarten of the streets.

Whenever he met a Zen devotee he would extend his hand and say: "Give me one penny."

Once as he was about to play-work another Zen master happened along and inquired: "What is the significance of Zen?"

Hotei immediately plopped his sack down on the ground in silent answer.

"Then," asked the other, "what is the actualization of Zen?"

At once the Happy Chinaman swung the sack over his shoulder and continued on his way.

●

Walt Whitman

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches,
Give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others,
Hate tyrants,
Argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown
Or to any man or number of men—
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young, and with the mothers or families
Re-examine all that you have been told at school or church or in any book,
Dismiss what insults your very own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem;
And [it shall] have the richest fluency,
Not only in [your] words,
But in the silent lines of [your] lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body.

Time Passes Quickly: Zen Buddhism in El Paso and Juarez

2010-07-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, Saturday July 31, 3:30pm we'll be having our services at 711 Robinson. Also, the following week after services and during tea Approximately (4:45pm), we'll have a general Sangha meeting to discuss general concerns. Anything that can be done better or differently, what we need to do, times for services, how we can attract new members--all this basic stuff will be up for discussion. Please make plans to be there. Your input is valuable.

Han at Upaya

Every morning at a Soto Zen Monastery a practitioner beats on the han to call her colleagues to the zendo for services and zazen. Below are the words on a han in the Soto lineage.

生死事大

無常迅速

光陰可惜

時不待人

Shou ji ji dai

Mu jou jin soku

Kou in oshimu beshi

Toki hitowo matazu

Great is the matter of Birth and death;

Life slips quickly by;

To waste time is a great shame;

Time waits for no one;

Thanks to Brad Warner for the calligraphy and the translation. As he says, others use different translations. The point is always the same: You won't be here long.

Han at Tassajara

Obon Sesshin

2010-07-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

The Both Sides / No Sides Zen Buddhist Community of El Paso and Juarez will be having our services Saturday, July 17, at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place Neighborhood of El Paso. Our weekly schedule also includes Wednesday morning sits (no chanting, only sitting) at 6am to 7am. All are welcome. Below are my comments about the Obon sesshin which I attended in Las Cruces this last weekend.

Lifted from Ken Ireland's Spiritually Incorrect Blog

"Feed the Hungry Ghosts, Stop Feeding Greed!" (5/7/2010)

This last weekend I participated with nine others in the Obon Sesshin. Our host was Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi and the Order of Clear Mind Zen in Las Cruces. The Obon celebration in the heat of the summer is the time to feed the hungry ghosts. These beings reside in hell. They have tiny mouths and pencil thin necks perched like grotesque one-legged birds over huge ravenous bellies. The ghosts cannot stuff enough food and drink through those mouths and necks to ever fill those bellies hanging slack over their belts and starving for nourishment. To prepare for the Obon ceremony at the end of sesshin the cook (tenzo) bakes a small cake and cuts it into equal pieces. Each helping of cake is then gift wrapped for the ceremony and placed on the altar.

Before the final ceremony one of our Sangha members spoke to the rest of us. She is a recovering addict, and she understands deeply the nature of hungry ghosts. She indeed understands that she was, and is, a hungry ghost. She never could get enough drugs to satisfy her craving. She asked us to think about addiction and addicts and her own practice during the ceremony. So at the appropriate time, the bells rang and we took turns approaching the altar. Each of us bowed to the Buddha, took a package of cake, offered the cake to the Buddha and to the hungry ghosts, saying our own private prayers as we did so. The recovering addict did likewise but she crumpled her piece of cake into pieces inside the wrapping. She wanted to make sure the hungry ghosts could nibble at the food and swallow it. She wanted to save them, she wanted to save too herself and the rest of us. She wanted to save all sentient beings. We are all hungry ghosts in one way or another. After services, the pieces of cake are unwrapped and scattered in the desert.

I brought a package home. Monday morning, remembering all of this, I wondered what happened to my package. So much confusion and family stuff when I got home, I had forgotten it. But happily I found it in my car. Like my friend taught me I broke up the cake into thousands of small pieces and scattered them through my yard, feeding the hungry ghosts, praying for my family, the sangha, my friends, the people of Juárez, for all sentient beings. Of course, Zen is not magic, the hungry ghosts are not real beings, hell can only be found in our own delusions and so feeding the hungry ghosts is only an exercise, a way of remembering. The only way to feed the hungry ghosts is to take our practice out into our worlds—our families, our sangha, our places of work, our neighborhoods. This is our practice hall. Right now.

--Bobby, Kankin

Los Sesshinistas after the concluding ceremony

A flowering datura plant (jimson weed) in the early sunlight

that Reba Montera and I saw on our way back to sesshin

after our morning sit in the city park.

Beware the datura. It's poisonous but beautiful.

What Practice Is: Charlotte Joko Beck

2010-07-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Photo from an interview "Life is Not a Problem"

with Amy Gross in Tricycle Review.

I recommend the interview wholeheartedly.

WHAT PRACTICE IS

Practice is about experiencing the truth of who we really are.

Practice is about being with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.

Practice is about the clash between what we want and what is.

Practice is about the transformation of our unnecessary suffering.

Practice is about attending to, [and] experiencing, wherever we are stuck, whatever we’re holding, whatever blocks us from our true nature.

Practice is about turning away from constantly seeking comfort and from trying to avoid pain.

Practice ultimately deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence—the fear that I am not.

Practice is about willingly residing in whatever life presents to us.

Practice is about seeing through our belief systems; so even if they remain, they no longer run us.

Practice is about turning from a self-centered view to a life-centered view.

Practice is about learning to be happy, but we will never be happy until we truly experience our unhappiness.

Practice is about slowly increasing our awareness of who we are and how we relate to life.

Practice is about moving from a life of drama to a life of no drama.

Practice is about finally understanding the paradox that although everything is a mess, all is well.

Practice is about learning to say “Yes” to everything, even when we hate it.

Practice always comes back to just the willingness to be.

Note: These statements about practice I found in a little book JB Bryan gave me. I assume he published a small edition of the book, although he didn't add his imprint La Alameda Press. There's more where this comes from. The video is fun too, huh? We get to see how other people go about their business.

Remember our weekly schedule. Plus the Five Remembrances.

2010-06-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Remember our weekly schedule--

Wednesday Morning, 6am, 2 25 minute sits

no folderol, simply sitting (aka Zazen)

Saturday Afternoon, 330pm

all the folderol and the fun that goes with it

Below are the Buddha's Five Remembrances as Translated by Thich Nhat Hahn. Buddha would have his new disciples remember these and silently recite them as they were doing kinhin. The Five Remembrances have been very important to me for years. I recite them at least once a day, and in difficult times or times when I'm physically and emotionally exhausted, I likewise recite them, simply to keep my feet on the ground and my heart calm. [Note: Through the weeks that follow I will add what I think of as "Tools," like the Five Remembrances, and label them as such. Thus, you'll be able to find useful practice tools simply by clicking TOOLS in the list of labels on the right.]

image by stedye4

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Sitting in the Summer Heat

2010-06-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

In general, a quiet room is good for experiencing Zen balance, and food and drink are taken in moderation. Abandon all involvements. Give the myriad things a rest. Do not think of good and bad. Do not care about right and wrong. Stop the driving movement of mind, will, consciousness. Cease intellectual consideration through images, thoughts, and reflections. Do not aim to become a buddha. How could it be connected with sitting or lying down?

from Dogen's Fukanzazengi

as translated by Gudo Nishijima and Mike Cross.

Yes, the best secret in the world--711 Robinson, the site of our Zendo, is air conditioned. Real AC. No better place to pull up a zafu and stare at a wall. Or a curtain, as the case may be. We chant, we bow and bow some more. Every week we do our dance steps in the silence. The incense is lit. We sit. Nothing happens. The bell will ring after 25 minutes of sitting. We stand, bow to the cushion, the Ino claps the han and we do our kinhin walk. How beautiful all of us doing the same thing, how beautiful all of us these different expressions of the dharma. Coming around the west corner we get a glimpse of the Wood Buddha at peace with himself. He doesn’t pay any attention to us. What would we expect? Keep on walking, doing the kinhin boogie, eyes lowered, back straight, slow sure steps, breath in, breath out, like the universe, all of us. Approaching the east wall, yes, there’s that little breeze coming from the vent. Smile. Don’t giggle. Simply enjoy. And not to worry--our Ino likes the two-circuit kinhin. Breath in, breath out. One step follows the one step. The han claps. And you get to sit again. But wait until the incense is lit and the bell rings. Bow to the Zafu, bow to the Sangha. Smile. Sit down. There's the wall (curtain) again. We sit. Nothing happens. Once again. We sit for 25 more minutes. The bell will ring, we'll offer incense to the Buddha (so who is this Buddha guy?), we sit and have some tea and talk the dharma talk.

Please come join us.

●

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: WE NOW HAVE A WEDNESDAY MORNING SIT at 6am, same place--711 Robinson. Several Sangha members have asked for a weekday time to sit with the Sangha and John Fortunato has been generous enough to open his home where our Zendo resides. I call it "Fundamentalist Zazen." Two 25 minutes meditation periods. Only bells. No whistles. No words. No dancing. No chants. Between sits no kinhin. Simply a 5 minute break to enjoy in your own silence. Folks can leave and go about their lives. Folks can sip a quick cup of coffee they brought along with them. They can stretch and look at the morning. They can smile at each other. They can continue sitting. The bell will ring to gather us back together. A minute later the bell will ring again for the last sit. And the bell will ring again. Time to stack the zafus and skedaddle.

John Fortunato will need to close up the house and get to work.

A Workshop for Survivors of Violence

2010-06-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Coming Home:

A Day for Survivors of War and Violence
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, June 19th

Unitarian Universalist Church

2000 South Solano Drive, Las Cruces, NM.

Violence is a nasty business. On the battlefield, in the home--it doesn't matter where. It has a way of turning lives upside down, shattering our understanding of ourselves, and making home life difficult. So many survivors of violence suffer from symptoms of traumatic stress. These symptoms are normal responses to abnormal circumstances. They are uncomfortable and can be crazy-making.

Coming Home is a one-day experience for survivors suffering from post-traumatic stress that will offer specific skills toward healing and recovery from the effects of violence. We will off practice skills that are based in the mindfulness practice of Zen. Participants will learn Meditation Practice, Deep Listening Practice, Writing Practice, Mindful Speech Practice, Eating Practice, and Movement Practice in the context of their own experience through the day. Movement practice will include Yoga by Susie Citrin, RN Certified Yoga Instructor. Rev. Dalene Rogers of Ambercare Hospice will lead Deep Listening and Mindful Speech Sessions.

Coming Home Practice is a project offered by Zen monk, Rev. Dr. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi, founder of the Order of Clear Mind Zen and a disabled Combat Veteran. Daiho-roshi has worked with trauma survivors as a psychotherapist for nearly thirty years, was a consultant to the Veteran’s Administration, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and has written and published extensively on healing from the moral anguish of combat.

Come Home on June 19th at 9:00 AM at the Unitarian Universalist Church. There is a minimal fee of $10.00 for food offered during this workshop, but no charge for the workshop itself. Donations will gratefully be welcomed, however. The Order of Clear Mind Zen has applied to the State of New Mexico as a Non-Profit Religious Corporation.

For reservation and registration, call Rev. Daiho at Clear Mind Zen, 575-680-6680 or email at sodaiho@hotmail.com. For information about Harvey Daiho Hilbert and Clear Mind Zen, visit our website.

Tentative Agenda

08:30 AM Open Registration
09:00 AM Welcome
09:15 What is Wrong With Me? Absolutely Nothing! Keys to understanding trauma and our response to it. (Rev. Daiho-roshi)
10:00 Meditation Practice / Walking Meditation Practice (Rev. Daiho-roshi)
11:00 Deep Listening Practice (how to listen to heal / Mindful Speech Practice (How to speak to heal) (Rev. Dalene Rogers)
12:00 Eating Meditation: How do we nurture ourselves? (Staff)
01:00 Seated Meditation Practice / Walking Meditation Practice (Staff)
02:00 Writing Practice (Staff)
03:00 Movement Practice (Susie Citrin, RN)
04:00 Mindful Speech Practice (Questions, Comments, Dialogue) (Staff)
05:00 Close

Zazenkai in El Paso June 12th

2010-06-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

Zazenkai this weekend. Zazenkai will begin at 9am and go through the day until our regular services. Then we will have our services and end up at our usual time around 530pm. We will have a vegetarian lunch, so if you plan to attend please notify either me or John Fortunato so we can make appropriate plans. We will have Samu (work-meditation). John suggests that for at least some of us, we will be cleaning the grout between tiles in the Zendo so he can seal it later on. Work on our knees and our butts. You might want to have something different to wear for the samu. Schedule will be posted later in the week.

John Fortunato has given to the Sangha a beautiful new Buddha to sit on our altar. And there he sits now, very peacefully. Mr. Wooden Buddha happily manifesting Buddhahood. The Buddha is handcarved by craftsmen in Vietnam. This makes our Buddha even more special for to John because John--like other members of our Sangha and our immediate lineage--is a Vietnam vet.

Please visit with the Buddha the next time you are at the Sangha. Bow to the Buddha in yourself. Pick up the statue of Buddha, smell the wood, feel its texture, laugh at his big ears. He's only a statue. An emblem. A piece of wood that used to a living tree. Then be like the Buddha and sit at peace and stare at the wall and practice good. Bring about abundant good for all beings.

Practicing Street Zen

2010-05-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

Zen Buddhist practice is alive and well in El Paso and Juárez. So, yes, we will be sitting this Saturday, May 30th, 330pm, at 711 Robinson. I hope you can be there. It’ll be Memorial Day Weekend. We’ll sit for peace for the city of Juárez. Below are some reworked journal notes from my first practicing of streetZen with Harvey Daiho Hilbert two months ago.

●

Zen Buddhist Priest

Practicing Zazen for Peace

Toward the end of March I drove up to Las Cruces to sit streetZen--the practice of doing zazen outside in a public place--with Harvey Hilbert at Veteran’s Park. I had never sat StreetZen with him before. Stuff always got in the way. I am always doing this and that and the two hour roundtrip drive is always a good excuse not to go sit outdoors in the world. But I needed to talk to Harvey about my Shukke Tokudo Ceremony, the Home-Leaving Ceremony that was happening in the next few weeks. I was to become a teacher in the Clear Mind lineage of Zen. I also needed to give him my brown rakusu. I had made my own black rakusu when I took the 16 vows of Jukai and had received the Buddhist name Hen Shin, meaning rebirth or transformation. But the brown I had purchased from stillsitting.com, a Zen family-owned company. (I recommend stillsiting highly for a complete range of supplies for Zen practice.) Now, as my teacher, Harvey would once again write my Buddhist name on the white backing and the date of my ordination as a Zen priest. I learned also he had decided to give me a new Buddhist name, Kan Kin, aka Sutra Reader.

It was so good to see Harvey. I was the first time I had seen him since he separated from his wife Judy. Certainly it was a terribly difficult time for both of them. Still is for that matter. But he seemed relaxed and at peace. I hope so. I wish them both all the best. But I really wasn’t surprised. The practice of Zazen is a good, well-tested boat to navigate our particular journeys.

It was a beautiful spring morning in the desert. Harvey and his student Joe--an older man like Harvey and me--were waiting for me. As we prepared to sit, a road runner walked up and stared at us. He was maybe 12 feet from where we sat placed our zabutons and zafus. Then the bird walked off on his stiff legs, his head swinging back and forth. I was delighted. They laughed. That old bird comes every morning, Joe said. The bell rang. Three old farts sitting on a patch of concrete in the middle of the park. The air pure and cool, almost cold, a nice breeze blowing across my face. Time passed. Thoughts moved through me and drifted away. My attention always back to my breath. Bird twitter in the desert. The croaking of a crow, a mockingbird screaming somewhere off in the desert brush. Behind us men, maybe 40 feet away, practiced Tai Chi scuffling tennis shoes on the concrete. Turns out that they, like the road runner, are common witnesses to Harvey's practice of streetZen. In fact, they time their practice to the ringing of the bell. And the bell rang again, time for our kinhin boogie-woogie. The Tai Chi practitioners rested while we did our walking meditation. Then the next bell. We sat some more. Bird song, the breeze, the scuffling of feet. The minutes passed along with the breathing. The bell rang one last time and we were done. We sat there and talked. We watched a man who was playing with his remote control glider. He would hold the glider by its wingtip and swirl around like a dervish, throwing the glider into the sky. The glider, with the man at the remote, would catch hold of currents and lift higher and higher into the sky. Off in another part of the park a couple was walking with their daughter. The girl, maybe 12 years old, is disabled, a sufferer of cerebral palsy. She had very little control of her body, and her parents struggled beside her. The man pulled her along, sometimes roughly (not meanly) to get her up the steps, but that was okay with her. He was frustrated and sad, but he loved her. The way he touched her cheek and brushed back her head. The girl chanted some rhyme, some riddle, some song. Babbling really. I couldn’t make out any word. Buddha Nature. There it is. How do we bear witness to Buddha Nature, huh? How do we understand the presence of this little girl and her parents? Once when I was I was at the Bodhi Manda in Jemez Springs, old Joshu Sasaki Roshi was talking about enlightenment. Goofy little man. Smooth skin. Little bitty eyes that shone. He said, “There is no answer.” And he giggled and looked around the zendo. He added, “And there is no question.” So how do I understand that little girl and her parents? Daily life is full with these koans. And here I am, going about the practice of Zen in my home, with our sangha and out in the world.

StreetZen is about practicing out there in the world. You don't have to be sitting zazen, but zazen is the foundation of Zen practice. So why not drag your zabuton and zafu outside into a public place? Form is emptiness is form. Sometimes the weather is good, sometimes it's not.

Great Faith.

Great Doubt.

Great Effort.

●

I recommend sitting with Harvey during his streetZen. He practices Monday through Friday in Veteran’s Park in Las Cruces at 9am. To learn more about the StreetZen, click here. And we too can consider our own streetZen practice.

Zen in El Paso/Juarez: May 22

2010-05-20T20:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, we will be sitting once again this Saturday, 711 Robinson, 330pm. I hope you're all well. John Fortunato will be leading our services. I'll return next week. I look very much to sitting with you guys.

Recently, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote about the Heart Sutra on his Clear Mind Zen blog and also in a list-serv I subscribe too. Maria Lopez, aka Makya, one of the correspondents on the list serve linked to this nice Spanish production of the Heart Sutra. It's from the Thich Nhat Hahn tradition, and it's done very differently from the way we do it on Saturday afternoons, but it's very nice to hear the Spanish and, for our English speakers, to read the subtitles. Also, below the video are the links to Daiho Hilbert's discussion of the Heart Sutra.
Enjoy.

Heart Sutra, Part One by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi
Heart Sutra, Part Two by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi
Heart Sutra, Part Three by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi
Heart Sutra, Part Four by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi
Heart Sutra, Part Five by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi
Heart Sutra, Last Section by Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi

Photographs from Bobby Byrd's, aka Kankin, Shukke Tokudo

2010-04-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

For all photographs from this event go here. They are also on the Both Sides No Sides facebook page.

Zen Buddhism in El Paso / Juárez

2010-04-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, we will be sitting this Saturday, 711 Robinson, 3:30pm in the Kern Place neighborhood of El Paso. Please join us. For more information, you can call me at 915-241-3140.--Bobby Byrd

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I've had the luxury of late to be reading from The Gary Snyder Reader. When I was growing up, wanting to be a poet, learning the first few baby steps about Zen Buddhism, Gary Snyder was a hero. Still is, for that matter. I discovered this going through the reader this last month. His work seems just as wise to me now as it did then. While I read, I took notes in my journal. Below are some of the stuff I gleaned from reading "The East / West Interview." Peter Barry Chowka interviewed Snyder over a five-day period in April 1977 for the East West Journal.

The family is the practice hall.

In one of the Theravada scriptures, the Buddha says, “Be a light unto yourself. In this six-foot-long self is birth and death and the key to the liberation from birth and death.”

Beware of anything that promises freedom or enlightenment—traps for eager and clever fools—three-quarters of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.

To act responsibly in the world doesn’t mean that you always stand back and let things happen: you play an active part, which means making choices, running risks, and karmically dirtying your hands to some extent. That’s what the Bodhisattva ideal is all about.

Too quote my old teacher, Oda Sesso: “In Zen there are only two things: you sit and sweep the garden. It doesn’t matter how big the garden is.”

Find your place on the planet and dig in.

And then the fundamental ethical precept: Whatever you do, try not to cause too much harm.

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez (3/20/2010) y Upcoming Shukke Tokudo

2010-03-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, we will be sitting Saturday, March 20, 330pm at 711 Robinson. I hope you can make it. Also, we are making plans for the Shukke Tokudo Ceremony on April 3rd. We will have a potluck celebrations afterwards. And, for those of you who wish to sit with us, the day's events will start with a modified Zazenkai beginning at 9am. John Fortunato is the man in charge of both events. If you plan to attend one, the other or both, please get in touch with John so he can make appropriate arrangements.

Shukke Tokudo

On Saturday April 3 at 3:30pm at a gathering of the Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi will perform the Shukke Tokudo Ceremony to ordain me as teacher in the Order of Clear Mind Zen. I will receive the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts. These are the same precepts that I recited for the Jukai Ceremony but this time I receive them for a different reason. And I will exchange my black rakusu for a brown rakusu. I’m taking one little shortcut. I’m buying my new brown rakusu. The black I made myself.

The Shukke Tokudo ordination marks the passage from layperson to monk, nun or priest. I prefer to use the word “teacher.” Several years ago Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi asked that I take these vows. I treaded water. I didn’t want to be a priest. I enjoyed being a Zen layperson--staring at the wall and reading the books and participating in a Sangha. Of course I was happy with having received the precepts during the Jukai Ceremony. And I was happy with my Buddhist name Hen Shin, which he bestowed upon me on April 2, 2005. Ha! It will be five years minus one day. Hen Shin means transformation or rebirth. I liked that idea. For the occasion I made my black rakusu. I had sewed the thing together with my own hands. That was a task. In the evenings and on Saturdays I sat there at the dining room table and sweated and even bled over that rakusu. Nothing makes a man more mindful than jabbing a needle into his clumsy fingers. Lucky for me I had my wife Lee to give me advice with the pattern and even did some of the sewing for me when I thought I might weep. I was content with the black rakusu, I told Daiho. Besides, I said, I’m not comfortable with the robes or some of the language like disciple or master.

He smiled. “Words and robes, what are those?” he said.

In the meantime I started the Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community here in El Paso to give people interested in Zen and zazen here in our community a place to come together for practice. Time passed, as it always does. We collected dana in the dana bowl and we added zafus and zabutons. For a year plus some we sat at the Black Tortoise Acupuncture Clinic thanks to Richie Barajas and Briana Armendariz. Then we moved into our space on Robinson thanks to John Fortunato where we’ve been for two years. Many times we have sat with just two or three people, a couple of times it was just me, and now we are happy our little Sangha began to grow. Every week the bell rang, we chanted and beat on the wooden fish with its eyes that never close, we lit incense, we sat on zafus and practiced zazen, we did the silent kinhin dance, we sat some more, we chanted the Heart Sutra in Sino-Japanese (our voices so much stronger after sitting), and we had our tea. It was good. Then late last year, one of the men who has been practicing with us for some time told me that he wanted to receive the Jukai Precepts. I was delighted for him. But I said, “You’ll have to go find a teacher to practice with.” He looked at me and said, “I think I already have.” I was both startled and honored. After much thought I went up to Las Cruces. I told Harvey this story and asked him if he would ordain me.

“Of course,” he said, laughing so hard I wondered if he would fall off his zafu.

Tokudo means ceremony, and Shukke is leaving home. Thus, “The Leaving Home Ceremony” or “Home-leaver’s ceremony.” In the old days monks-to-be left home and went into the monastery. Not so much anymore. Especially for American Zen Buddhists. Here Zen is much more a householder practice. But “leaving home” is still a very important concept. I like to think of “leaving home” as leaving that comfortable place called home or the ego to serve something greater than ourselves. In a way we all leave home, we leave the ego, when we do our home practice, the wall in front of us, alone with our breath and the universe in which we live. No separation—the absolute, the universe, the breath, breathing together in and out. We do this too when we come together to sit and practice as a Sangha. And we do this when we climb off our zafus and take our practice out into the city, the place of our life. I now vow to practice and to teach others, if they so wish, the Way of the Dharma as I understand it. I commit my life and practice to the understanding and lineage that comes from Shakyamuni Buddha and Dogen that flows down through all the Ancestors through Harvey Daiho Roshi and his teacher Ken McGuire Roshi.

I vow to appreciate my whole life as the life of the Three Treasures—the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and I vow to serve Family, Sangha and Community and to practice right livelihood. Daiho Hilbert Roshi has composed the vows of Clear Mind Zen as follows:

I take Refuge in Everything That Is (Buddha)
I take Refuge in Reality and its Teachings (Dharma)
I take Refuge in the Order (Sangha)
I vow to cease creating evil
I vow to do good
I vow to work to create abundant good for all beings,

These too are my vows. I hope you can join me on April 3rd.

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--Services February 27, 2010

2010-02-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

Come sit with us Saturday, 330pm, February 26th, at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place neighborhood in El Paso. Sit like a frog. Sit like Sengai's frog. A couple of weeks ago (via a Shunryu Suzuki essay) we talked about Sengai's frog sitting on his lilly pad, totally aware, intuitive, maybe a little bit hungry, ready for the fly that might suddenly appear, equally ready for the bird or the snake that might be lurking in the nearby. And what does Sengai mean anyway: "If by practicing Zazen one becomes a Buddha..."?

Hope to see you tomorrow?

Our Sanga Members in Juárez

2010-02-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

A few hours ago I received the letter I am pasting below. It's from fellow Sangha member and friend Edgar Acosta. He and his wife Cynthia, also a member of our Sangha, live in Juarez with their two-year-old daughter. Edgar is speaking of the terrible violent madness that is gripping his city, now exacerbated by the massacre of 16 (mostly teenagers) last Sunday. I have not edited his letter. Like my Spanish, his written English is halting and uncertain, but in this letter in particular his prose demonstrates the struggle of trying to express to us the difficulties he and his family face. Two other of our Sangha members, Susana and Lorena, also live in Juarez. They and their families all endure and witness the daily on-going bloodshed. They hear stories, they watch the news, they listen to rumors. And Edgar, Cynthia, Susana and Lorena take time to practice. I ask that in your morning meditation you remember our fellow practitioners, our friends, as well as all people of the city.

Light a candle.
Say a few words for peace.
Say a few words for our friends.
Remember.
Sit zazen.
Live the day mindfully.

Living here across the border a few minutes from where the Acostas lives, I try to understand my own responsibilities and my country’s participation in this madness that has gripped their community. The bloody sadness is like smog. It crosses the border and is present in our lives here. Many people perhaps don’t recognize it, don’t want to recognize it, want to ignore it, but it’s here, infecting our lives. We too, in our ways, can act to help affect a difference for our neighbors.

The photographs scattered through this blog are from Cynthia and Edgar's Zen Buddhist marriage ceremony in September 2007 at the Zen Center of Las Cruces. Harvey SoDaiho Hilbert Roshi presided at the wonderful event. Our little zendo was crowded with sangha members and friends of Cynthia and Edgar, up from Juárez for the celebration.

SUBJECT: Juárez City

Good Morning Sodaiho, Bobby, Roberto.

During the last two years, Juarez City becomes the most dangerous city in the world. In year 2007, around 300 people were killed, but because the war between drug gangs and the government, Juarez increase the homicides rate in 2008 by more than 100%, 1607 people were killed in 2008 and around 2650 in 2009.

I am a citizen of this country and this city, and all I can tell about this environment is : Terror, terror among the people, suffering among the families that lost some relative, many civil persons have been lost their lives, people who are not involved in drugs traffic. These violence have been touch all the social status (Students, teachers, families, kids, woman, man, business owners, workers, priests, etc etc) in all levels. Just the last weekend 13 students have been killed by a drug gang, it was a massacre, some of these students played football, others has a good school record, they were bright people. Sodaiho, Bobbie I saw the TV news, families of these innocent students are suffering, I realize this suffering, I saw mother cries, grandfathers cries, I felt bad very bad. And the authorities don’t apply justice. Is like a surrealistic Terror movie.

To go outside the house, driving in the streets of this city is a risky activity. You don’t know where a confrontation could be, if a lost bullet could touch you, or you could be a subject of carjackers or robbery.

I plan me and my family left this city in near future.

As a Buddhist i want Sangha meditate and think about this city and these families, think and believe that peace could be a reality in this city soon.

A vow to you Bobby, Sodaiho, Roberto

Edgar

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--Sitting January 23

2010-01-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, folks, we'll be sitting tomorrow, January 30th, 330pm. I hope you can make it. And I hope you've enjoyed this day.

SWIMMING WITH THE FISHES
(AKA a two Ha! Morning)

This morning before my meditation--coffee in hand, a bit of snow on the ground--I was standing at the back window and listening to the finches and sparrows at the bird feeder. Also I was scanning through Zen Flesh, Zen Bones in search of a story I’ve been thinking about. I wanted to make a blog entry for our blogspot. That’s what I do on Thursday or Friday mornings. It’s my pleasure. I didn’t find the story. Instead I happened on the story which concludes the book, the story which answers in one way the question, What is Zen? It's a story about fishes. "Ha! That’s a cool story," I thought. "I’ll put that in the blog." I finished up my coffee and went to sit. I lit the candle and the incense and, in reciting the San Ge Rai Mon, the Three Refuges, I was startled awake by the first:

I take refuge in the Buddha—together with all beings, may I understand through my body this cosmic life leading to the incommensurate awakened mind.

"Ha! It's like the story of the fishes, now I see." Then I sat on my zafu and stared at the wall. The wall hadn’t changed a bit. So what is Zen? Here’s how the story about swimming with the fishes explains it—

Inayat Khan tells a Hindu story of a fish who went to a queen fish and asked: “I have always heard about the sea, but what is this sea? Where is it?

The queen fish explained: “You live, move, and have your being in the sea. The sea is within you and without you, and you are made of the sea, and you will end in the sea. The sea surrounds you as your own being.”

--page 211, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--Sitting January 23

2010-01-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

We'll be sitting tomorrow, Saturday the 23rd of January, 330pm, at 711 Robinson. Hope you can join us.

Sunrise over the Pacific Ocean (NASA)

Back in the day when I used to drive up from El Paso to the Las Cruces Zen Center to sit on my ass and stare at a wall for an hour, Harvey SoDaiho Hilbert used to talk about that damned koan with the monk atop a 100 foot pole. You sit on meditate and you study and you get to the top of the pole. But what's the next step? There are several like-minded stories in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones where, for example, the hero is hanging over a cliff for dear life. A hungry tiger is waiting for her if she climbs back to the top and she falls to her death if she lets go. She has to make a decision. Well, of course, the answer is to let go. But who, for God’s sake, wants to let go? You can understand the answer intellectually and speak or write it, but that’s not nearly enough. You really got to let go.

So I remembered all of this when I was reading Philippe Coupe's commentary on Dogen's Fukanzazengi in Simply Sitting. Coupey is talking about the two kinds of “faith”—the faith of the small mind that says if I do that then something good (or bad) will happen; and faith of the big mind, the universal mind, which arises out of the emptiness of the universe itself and simply allows for us to let go:

Not long ago there was an interesting news story about a sailor who was crossing the Pacific Ocean on a freighter. He was at the bow of the ship when he was overcome by a wave and thrown overboard. It was dark out and no one noticed that he had fallen into the sea. It wasn’t until nine hours later that his cabin-mate realized it and informed the captain. Nine hours is a long time. But the captain decided to go back to see if they could find him, or what was left of him…if he hadn’t been eaten by sharks! Miraculously, eighteen hours later, they found the sailor. He was floating on the waves, sleeping peacefully atop the swells. They woke him up with the foghorn. He opened his eyes and saw the boat. They threw him a ladder and he climbed onto the bridge.

“How did you do it?” asked the captain.

“Since I couldn’t get anywhere by swimming,” replied the sailor, who was, obviously in the middle of the ocean, “I decided there was nothing to do but float on my back and give myself over completely to the powers of the ocean.”

Also apropos, Harvey even kept a little plastic bathroom ducky on the altar for a while as an example of how to live the life. The duck floats, like the sailor in the Coupey story, atop the waves and, come rain or shine, gives herself over to the powers of the water. Of course I didn’t like that little ducky. It was too cute and, besides, I didn’t want to let go. But some time or another we got to let go. We have no other choice.

I hope you're well.
Bobby

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--Sitting January 16

2010-01-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Yes, folks, we'll be sitting and staring at the wall, same time, same station: 330 pm at 711 Robinson. Hope you can join us. In the meantime, last week during tea I read the following eulogy that Father Robert Kennedy read at the funeral services for Taizan Maezumi Roshi. I thought it something we could all think about as the Both Sides / No Sides Sangha begins our New Year.

Maezumi Roshi and American Zen

Below the photo is the Afterword, or concluding story, in American Zen Bones: Maezumi Roshi Stories. The little book was put together by Philomene Long, a student of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and it's a collection of stories about interactions between Maezumi and his students, Philomene included. Coming to the U.S. in 1956, Maezumi is one of the three or four grandfathers of American Zen, greatly influencing our practice and, through his own teachings and the teachings of his Dharma successors, how we perceive Zen and its transmission from Japan to here. The obvious model for the little book is iconic Zen Flesh, Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki. AZB is certainly not a replacement for that book. It's uneven and has a taste of self-service about it. That said, it's a fun book, with bunches of interesting stories about Maezumi, his teaching methods and his communication with students. If you're like me, it's a wonderful book to keep in your library in the bathroom, ready for the Head Librarian. But this last story, which served as the Afterword, was very interesting to me and worth the price of the book. If you talk with Zensters for any length of time, you'll hear discussions about what American Zen will look like. Maezumi's take on this subject is very interesting. But a word of caution--what does not change is Zazen. Zazen is the bedrock of our practice. Father Robert Kennedy (the author of this eulogy) recalls, "Maezumi Roshi was so adamant in his insistence that we sit well that he advised us not to sit at all if we were not attentive to form." And it's said that he carried the stick for a reason.

This [eulogy] was originally delivered as a tribute

by Father Robert E. Kennedy, S.J., a Catholic priest and Zen master

at the funeral of Maezumi Roshi, August 27, 1995.

Distinguished guests and dear friends. It is my pleasure to relate to you my last and most memorable conversation with Maezumi Roshi here in Los Angeles.

Maezumi Roshi told me that Buddhism today differs fundamentally from the Buddhism of the time of Sakyamuni Buddha.

“Surely not fundamentally different,” I asked the Roshi.

“YES,” Maezumi answered, “fundamentally different.”

Maezumi Roshi said that Buddhism in Japan today with its strong ascetic emphasis was nowhere known in the time of Buddha.

More than that, Maezumi Roshi said that not only can Buddhism change fundamentally but it must change change fundamentally. In every century and every culture Buddhism must find new forms to teach the people standing out in front of them now. It is unthinkable to have a static Buddhism in a changing world. It is unthinkable for Buddhism to imitate old forms of teaching and living, no matter how precious those forms may be.

More than that, Buddhism must not only leave its old forms of expression, Buddhism must leave Buddhism itself in order to enter the Field of Blessings, the Field of Blessings that transcends every human insight and every religious civilization.

More than that, Maezumi Roshi said that Buddhism must be open to the non-Buddhist. Self-giving knows no boundaries, self-giving knows no end.

And then to my delight Maezumi personalized his teaching. He said how happy he was that I, a Catholic priest, came to Buddhism to study and to learn. And he said how happy he was that Glassman Roshi had prepared me to stay and teach.

For me this is the spirit of Buddhism: subtle and generous and open to the stranger. And for me this was Maezumi Roshi’s spirit--subtle and generous and open to the stranger.

More than that, Maezumi Roshi knew there was no stranger.

Maezumi Roshi, may I bid you farewell in a poem of your own language that you once said you appreciated and surely matches your spirit.

Kudakute mo
Kudakute mo ari
Miso no tsuki

Though it is broken and broken again
Still it is still there
The moon in the water

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--Sitting in the New Year!

2010-01-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, January 9, we'll be back in the zaddle, 330pm, 711 Robinson. Hope you can be there. Below is a bit of a commentary by monk Philippe Coupey in his book ZEN: SIMPLY SITTING. The book is a gathering of dharma talks about Dogen's Fukanzazengi, which is translated as "The Universal Guide on the Correct Practice of Zazen." Coupey discusses Dogen's little essay line by line. A good book. By the way, he quotes a poem by Cold Mountain, or Hanshan, a famous Chinese poet who lived in the caves of the mountain where he took his name. I love his poems, and I first ran into them in poet Gary Snyder's freer translations. Thus, I've typed the Snyder translation of the same Hanshan poem below the other. Enjoy.

And Happy New Year!

Dogen tells us that zazen is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Reality can’t be anywhere but here, right where you are. Reality isn’t yesterday or tomorrow. That’s illusion. Reality is a succession of heres and nows. Reality is what is. It is original nature.

Hanshan was a Chinese poet who practiced zazen in the 7th century. As is often the case in Buddhist history, he took his name from the mountain where he lived. Here is a poem by him about reality in which he talks about the mountain, the valley, himself, and, finally, the present moment:

Strange is the way that leads to Hanshan.
No ruts or hoof prints can be seen.
Valley winds into valley, peak rises above peak.
The grass sparkles with dew, and the pines whisper in the wind.
Don’t you understand?
Reality asks the shadows for directions.

--p55, Zen: Simply Sitting

●

And now the Snyder translation of the same poem. Except for the last two lines, the Snyder poem is clearly the better. The last two lines, however, makes me wonder if Snyder lost the point of the poem. It makes me want to look at other translations. I always wonder about translations, how simply a misplaced word can lead a person off in the other direction, huh?

The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,
A path, but no sign of cart or horse.
Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists
Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
A hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I've lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez--the end of 2009

2009-12-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

Our schedule for the rest of the year: Tomorrow, Saturday the 26th, we will be sitting as usual--330pm, 711 Robinson, but next week, the 2nd day of 2010, we will not be sitting. I hope to see you all tomorrow, but if not, I hope you are all having a wonderful holidays, full of joy and reflection, and I hope that in the New Year we will all sit strong and live our lives mindfully.

Joshu Sasaki Roshi once told the story of Siddhartha’s birth--the baby born to a King who would one day become the Buddha--and in the telling he told about the prophesies and miracles that surrounded the birth of this very special baby. And when he was finished telling the story he giggled and said, “Well, of course, it didn’t happen like this.” He paused then, and a few seconds later added, “But let’s see what the story is telling us.” Then for at least an hour he talked about the very human and spiritual meanings that are the foundation of that story.

Every Christmas I remember what the Roshi said--“let’s see what the story is telling us”--and it has long helped me think about and consider the story of the birth, life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Our culture here along the U.S./Mexico border, as well as our so-called Western civilization, is saturated with the story. It’s part of the way we think because it’s part of our mythos (in the old sense of that word) and our language. As practitioners of Zen I believe it’s of no use to argue with the story, just as it’s of really no use to accept the story as fact. It’s best to simply listen to the story and to sit with its meaning--the birth of Jesus, his teaching, his death and resurrection. What does this mean to us? Individually and as a people? In Zen our only fundamentalism is sitting Zazen, the place where the gate swings open between the relative and absolute worlds.

I wish you all a Happy Holidays. And for the New Year, please join me in lighting a candle and a stick of incense for our friends and neighbors--indeed, our sisters and brothers--in Juárez. May the New Year bring them peace and justice.

Zen Buddhism El Paso / Juarez (12/19/2009)

2009-12-18T16:47:00.000-08:00

“The entire universe shines and preaches the Dharma.”
—the Chinese poet Wanshi

Join us tomorrow if you can: Saturday the 19th, 330pm, 711 Robinson. We'll be doing the same boogie-woogie. Funny how that doesn't change much and people still come. Last week we read aloud the FUKANZAZENGI by Dogen, recognized as the founder of the Soto Lineage of Zen. The text seems so transparent and simple on first reading, but as you read it and reread it you find yourself diving into a very deep pool.

Below is probably Dogen's most well-known quote. It's a foundation of Zen understanding--

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.

And while reading Dogen's biography on Wikipedia I found his death poem which he wrote a few days before he caught the boat to the other shore--

Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.

I hope to see you, but if I don’t I wish you all a wonderful holidays. The Winter Solstice is only a few days away and the year will be changing anew. The older I get the more I find that these same forces pull at my heart. May the near year bring each of you peace, good health and spiritual well-being.

--Bobby

Zen Buddhism El Paso Texas (12/12/2009)

2009-12-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

It's good to be back on the zafu in El Paso. I should write a song. But I won't. We will be sitting this Saturday, December 12, at 330pm at 711 Robinson. The same old, the same old. El mismo, el mismo. I hope you can join us.

A few weeks back, during the Thanksgiving Weekend when I was coming home from one business trip, getting ready for another and enjoying my family all at the same time, I had wanted to put something on our blog about giving thanks relevant to what we do when we sit and stare at the wall and then study the dharma, either separately in our own homes or together as members of the Sangha in our Zendo with such great sun light. And so I remembered these two little bits of text that I'm pasting below. I am also pasting a couple of the recent magnificent photographs from the Hubble Telescope, that remarkable instrument wandering around in the great beyond and sending us messages about this vast universe in which we live. [See notes at the bottom of this post for captions for the photographs.] Thinking about this post, it simply occurred to me that those photographs help illustrate the two verses below, especially the first.

The first is "The Verse for Studying the Dharma" which is repeated in our strand of the Soto lineage before a dharma talk. I did not include this verse in the Both Sides / No Sides sutra sheets because we were short on space, and, besides, at the time I thought the language a bit extravagant for my tastes. However, the more I sit the more I come to realize the wisdom of the verse. We should truly give thanks for the opportunity to practice the Dharma.

▲

The Verse for Studying the Dharma

The Dharma, incomparably profound and minutely subtle,
is rarely encountered in hundreds of thousands of millions of kalpas,
we can no hear it, listen to it, study and hold it,
may we understand the tatagatha’s true meaning.

The second verse is one of my favorite poems from the last century, one I've pasted in an email before, but I wanted to copy into the blog. It's Philip Whalen's whimsical "Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis." As I said in that email, the poem is one of my signposts for getting me to go sit on a zafu somewhere. I remember where I first read it--sitting on the floor in the stacks of the library at the University of Arizona. A long time ago. For me anyway, but not for these stars and galaxies in the vastness of where we live.

▲

Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

I praise those ancient Chinamen
Who left me a few words,
Usually a pointless joke or a silly question
A line of poetry drunkenly scrawled on the margin of a quick

splashed picture--bug, leaf,
caricature of Teacher

on paper held together now by little more than ink
& their own strength brushed momentarily over it
Their world & several others since
Gone to hell in a handbasket, they knew it--
Cheered as it whizzed by--
& conked out among the busted spring rain cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

▲▲

NOTES ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS

The first Hubble photograph I found at the New York Times website. Its caption reads: "The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, took this image of hot gas fleeing a dying star 3,800 light-years away in the Scorpius constellation. A so-called planetary nebula, it is also known as the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula. What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The star itself, once about five times as massive as the Sun, is some 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it one of the hottest known in the galaxy. In what amounts to a kind of galactic recycling, the lost gas, enriched by elements like oxygen, nitrogen and carbon produced by the formerly massive star, will form the stuff for future stars."

The second Hubble photograph I found here. The caption for this one reads: "The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across."

Zen Buddhism El Paso Texas (11/21/2009)

2009-11-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, we will be sitting this Saturday, 330pm, November 21, at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place neighborhood. Hope you can join us.

▲▲

THE FLOWER SERMON

Toward the end of his life, the Buddha took his disciples to a quiet pond for instruction. As they had done so many times before, the Buddha’s followers sat in a small circle around him, and waited for the teaching.

But this time the Buddha had no words. He reached into the muck and pulled up a lotus flower. And he held it silently before them, its roots dripping mud and water.

The disciples were greatly confused. Buddha quietly displayed the lotus to each of them. In turn, the disciples did their best to expound upon the meaning of the flower: what it symbollized, and how it fit into the body of Buddha’s teaching.

When at last the Buddha came to his follower Mahakasyapa, the disciple suddenly understood. He smiled and began to laugh. Buddha handed the lotus to Mahakasyapa and began to speak.

“What can be said I have said to you,” smiled the Buddha, “and what cannot be said, I have given to Mahakashyapa.”

Mahakashyapa became Buddha’s successor from that day forward.

▲▲

Since the November cold snap it’s been more and more difficult for John to find flowers for the altar in his neighborhood or in the arroyo, so he walked down to Albertson’s and bought a bunch of cut lilies, the three-bunches-for-$12 kind. He picked one for the altar, and the others he put in a tall vase on the dining room table. The lily he chose for the altar was beautiful--fully formed and open, a soft-russet spotted with dark specks and with white showing through, its creative parts fully exposed although of course no bees or hummingbirds are allowed inside the Zendo. While lighting the candle and seeing the lily I remembered the story the Buddha, his flower and his student. After serving tea, I placed the flower on the floor so we could see it easily. I rang the bell, we sipped our tea and enjoyed the flower in silence. Silence can be difficult but not always. Certainly not with the flower. After tea and the bell and the Four Great Vows, I blew out the candle, we thanked each other and we stacked the zabutons and the zafus. That’s been a few days now. The flower is probably dead.

By the way, scholars are not sure whether this story is true or not. The Wikipedia article suggests that it may be an invention of the Chinese Ch'an Buddhists. I don't really care. It's a good story.

Zen Buddhism El Paso Texas (11/14/2009)

2009-11-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, we will be sitting this Saturday, 330pm, November 14, at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place neighborhood. Hope you can join us.

Two books that have been recommended to me recently from Zensters I respect and listen to:

The first was BUDDHA'S MIND: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom (or here) by Ph.D. Rick Hanson. The recommendation came from Mike SoGozen LaTorra, abbot of the Zen Center of Las Cruces. Several folks in our Sangha and its suburbs are interested in the neurological and physiological responses to Zen practice, so here's an opportunity to dig a little deeper into that work. There are also a couple of videos available online dealing with similar material, and if you're interested, drop me a note.

The second is Philippe Coupey's ZEN: SIMPLY SITTING. Harvey SoDaiho Hilbert recommended this one in one of his daily commentaries: "It is a commentary on Master Dogen's Fukanzazengi [Universal Guide on the Correct Practice of Zazen]. I must say immediately, it is a wonderfully insightful and very practical volume. Sometimes, the best things are in the simplest formats. Direct, complete, simple."

Sit well, sit strong.
Bobby

Zen Buddhism El Paso Texas (11/7/20090

2009-11-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well, our blogspot is not showing up when I google, so for a while I will use the same title over and over again until we start getting some recognition in the digitized universe. Yes, we will be sitting tomorrow at 330pm at 711 Robinson. I look very much forward to it. I've been away for a couple of Saturdays and I certainly miss sitting with the Sangha and chanting and staring at the wall, the smoke of the incense rising and shifting with our breathing. The sermon of the incense, the sermon on the smoke.

This is a photograph of John Daido Loori Roshi (and here) who died October 9th at the age of 78. He received Dharma Transmission from both the Soto and Rinzai lineages, making him "one of three Western dharma-holders in both the Soto and Rinzai schools," according to scholar Richard Hughes. Loori is the founder of the Zen Mountain Monastery and the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen. In terms of his understanding of Zen in America, he called himself "a radical conservative," an explanation that makes sense if you read his work. During my own studies for Jukai, I read both his THE HEART OF BEING: Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen Buddhism and THE EIGHT GATES OF ZEN: A Program of Zen Training. They are important books, and I recommend them highly.

--Bobby

LOGICOMIX

2009-10-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

We'll be sitting Halloween Saturday. 330pm, 711 Robinson. Come join the silence. There's nothing to do. Just sit there and stare at the wall. Nothing to think about. What could be easier? I was talking to John Fortunato about a review of a comic book I read recently...about logic. Yes, logic. The book is LOGICOMIX: An Epic Search for Truth. In the page below the great logicians Bertrand Russell (the teacher) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (the student) are wandering around a wintry garden. The student is destroying the teacher's system of logic. Emptiness and form. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Zen Services Saturday, October 24

2009-10-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

Come join us Saturday, October 24th, 330pm at 711 Robinson for Zazen and Zen Buddhist Services. We'll be there lighting incense and beating on the fish and ringing the bell. Below is another useful quotation from Zen Meditation in Plain English. I like this little book. I like going back to basics, starting all over from a beginner's mind. I find in Zen you don't need a lot of tools--a a zafu and zabuton, some instruction in sitting, a sangha to sit with, a few prayers that keep drilling into the mystery of who you are. /Bobby

What we find in the day-to-day practice of Zen is somehow ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. In the midst of the usual, we learn to pause, to make a difference in how we appreciate the great complex dance of cause and effect, and to enter into that dance more and more fully and caringly. We become better able to appreciate forms and the formless, the relative and the absolute, being still and still moving.

--Page 92, Zen Meditation in Plain English

by John Daishin Buksbazen

[Note: I like to have an image in the blogs and this one seemed right today. The photograph above is of my home altar with a childhood photo of my deceased brother. The little statue is Hotei. He's sitting down and practicing Zazen. ]

Saturday 17th we will be sitting

2009-10-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

(This wonderful photograph is from the yogaworkshop.com website, Boulder, Colo)

Yes, we will be sitting Saturday, 330pm, 711 Robinson. Same old, same old. Ring the bell, chant the chants, ring the bell some more, sit and stare at the wall, walk the kinhin walk, sit and drink some tea, talk a little bit of the talk, ring the bell, go home. Nothing new, nothing special. In fact, an ordinary day at the sangha. You could do it at home...

But true Zen practice cannot be fully experienced in all its diversity and richness by just one person alone. Sooner or later it becomes important to join with a group of people who together form a community of practice. The community of practice comes out of each person’s determination to achieve some fundamental understanding of what this life really means, what this self really is.

If a Buddha is one who realizes and lives enlightenment, and sitting is the deepest expression of that realization and life, then community is nothing other than going deeper and deeper into that realization, and becoming more and more at one with that life.

—from Zen Meditation in Plain English

(the chapter on Community, or Sangha)
By John Daishin Buksbazen

John Daido Loori Roshi, 1931-2009

2009-10-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

John Daido Loori Roshi passed away last Saturday. I read his two books The Heart of Being and The Eight Gates of Zen when I was preparing to receive Jukai, the Buddhist precepts. Both were important to me, and I recommend them highly. He was a pioneer in American Zen--one of the first Zen Roshis from the United States. He received transmission first in the Soto lineage and then later in the Rinzai lineage. He established the Zen Mountain Monastery in the Catskill Mountains in New York and the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen. He called himself "a radical conservative," according to the very good New York Times obit. And this from Harvey SoDaiho Hilbert's blog:

I met him once in California at the 800th birthday of Master Dogen. He walked with a slow deliberateness and slightly hunched back. There was a slight smile on his face and seeming twinkle in his eyes. He taught through himself: a manifest buddha. Yet, also, was challenging. His teaching was as historic masters, the kyosaku [the "encouragement" or "warning" stick] and a word or bell were always present.

As practitioners we all owe something to his practice and his work. I recommend following the various links to learn more about him and of course reading his books.

--Bobby

Zen Meditation in Plain English

2009-10-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, we will be sitting this week, Saturday, 10/10, 3:30pm, at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place neighborhood near UTEP.

The last few weeks we've had newcomers come sit with us in Sangha. It's always a pleasure to introduce new folks to the art of sitting cross-legged (sometimes sitting on a chair) and staring at a wall. They've had questions of course--how to sit this way or that way and why do we do this or that. Like, why do we stare at the wall? Good question. Sitting is always a question, even as one evolves in her practice and the months become years and the years become more years. Etcetera. So I was glad to find this book at the Barnes & Noble: Zen Meditation in Plain English by John Daishin Buksbazen. Nothing fancy, no bells and whistles. It's just a simple little how-to book which I find refreshing and fun. I bought the last copy, so I'll call the B&N to tell them they should order some more. Below, to make life a little bit easier, I'm pasting reviews of the book from Amazon and Publishers Weekly--

Amazon.com Review
The jolt of confidence you get when discussing a day's performance with a seasoned veteran can take any activity to a higher level. In his concise and informative Zen Meditation in Plain English, meditation veteran John Daishin Buksbazen gives detailed directions for each step of Zen-style meditation, from getting into the different postures and developing breath concentration, all the way up to intensive training periods. With only one short chapter on what the mind should be doing while "sitting" (as they say in Zen), his focus is on getting the fundamentals right. He also offers a rare introduction to the importance and mechanics of group practice and a well-selected "Frequently Asked Questions" section at the end. While Buksbazen repeatedly says that there is no substitute for a good teacher, until you find one, Zen Meditation in Plain English will do nicely. --Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly
Buksbazen, a psychotherapist who was ordained a Zen priest in 1968 and is affiliated with the Zen Center of Los Angeles, offers practical and down-to-earth advice about the specifics of Zen meditation. He begins by encouraging readers to get involved with meditation and not just read books about Buddhism: "After all, cookbooks are fun to read, but... they are most helpful to somebody who is actually involved in cooking." The bulk of this short primer is concerned with introducing the basics of zazen, or seated meditation: how to position the body, particularly the legs; how and when to breathe; what to think about. Helpful diagrams illustrate the full lotus, Burmese, kneeling (seiza) and other positions. Buksbazen even provides a "zazen checklist" to help beginners remember all of the steps involved in zazen, which as he notes is more difficult than it appears. What distinguishes this book from any number of Zen self-help books is its final section, which focuses on community. Arguing that "true Zen practice cannot be fully experienced in all its diversity and richness by just one person alone," Buksbazen builds a strong case for the powerful effect of being involved with a community of other practitioners. He follows this ideological argument with concrete information about group practice, including meditation retreats and other intensive training periods. In all, this is a fine introduction to Zen meditation practice, grounded in tradition yet adapted to contemporary life.

Our New Blog

2009-10-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hello. Welcome to the new blog for our sangha--Both Sides / No Sides: A Zen Community for El Paso and Juárez and the surrounding region on both sides of the border. We meet every Saturday at 3:30pm at 711 Robinson in the Kern Place neighborhood. (See the google map pasted below.) Many thanks to Sangha member John Fortunato for lending us a large room ("a clean, well-lighted place") in his home to serve as our Zendo. John also creates a nice flower arrangement for our altar each week.

Our lineage is traced through the Soto Tradition. We have no priest or abbot serving our Sangha now, but I organize and facilitate our services and events. I also serve as primary Ino. John Fortunato helps in all of these chores.

My name is Bobby Byrd. For a number of years I've been a student of, and received Jukai from, Harvey SoDaiho Hilbert Roshi of the Clear Mind School of Zen (and before that of the Zen Center of Las Cruces) . Our services include chanting the Three Refuges and the Heart Sutra in English, two 25 minute periods of Zazen (seated meditation) with Kinhin (walking meditation between). Afterward we chant the Heart Sutra in its Japanese (actually, Sino-Japanese) form, we have a short incense ceremony, serve tea and talk and we conclude by repeating The Four Great Vows. It's a nice time, and we invite all to come sit with us.

I like to see an image in a blognote, so here's a photograph of John Fortunato and me in the Zendo. When we first began sitting at 711 Robinson, usually it was just John and me. Now our Sangha has grown to 25 folks on our mailing list, of whom we'll have five to 10 people sitting with us each week. But there's a lot more room.

On this blog we'll make announcements about upcoming services and events, and I'll add information now and again that might prove helpful to your practice. We hope this blog can become a place of conversation about the practice of Zen Buddhism for El Paso and Juarez.

Soon we'll also have a FACEBOOK page which will upload the feeds from this blog. If you have questions, please write me at bbyrd@cincopuntos.com.

The map is below.

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