Evening Gatha & Everyday Life

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.

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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

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

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

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

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.




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

                       — Akazome Emon


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

                       — Chine-Jo


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

                       — Fujiwara No Sueyoshi


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

                       —  Anonymous


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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

(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

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