SERVICES CANCELLED FOR NOVEMBER 23, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.