We're moving our digs

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.