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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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?