Dharma Life A Publication of the Missouri Zen Center June-July, 2001 The Missouri Zen Center 220 Spring Avenue Webster Groves, MO 63119 (314) 961-6138 Rosan returns in July We are very grateful that our teacher, Dr. Rosan Yoshida, will be returning to the US around July 13. He is expected to remain here through about mid-September. Zen Center T-Shirts Available Soon We will be ordering new Zen Center T-shirts for purchase. These will have Missouri Zen Center printed on the front and the calligraphy and verse from Dogen on the back, the same design as on the Zen Center T-shirts worn by many people in our sangha. Purchase price has not been set and will depend on our cost. Watch for more info at the Center and on our listserv. Hosta Sale A Success This yearÕs Hosta Sale raised more money for the Zen Center than any previous sale. The major factor in this was the dedication of so many members of the sangha to all the efforts involved in the Sale from the delivery of topsoil to the final clean-up. Now our plants are beautifying gardens all over the St. Louis region. Thank you for your efforts; may they benefit all beings. Visiting teacher June 9 and 10 Ray ÒSeidoÓ Ronci will visit the Zen Center on June 9 and 10. Ray has been a student of Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi for 23 years. He is the former co-director of the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado and is currently director of Hokoku-An Zen Center in Columbia, Missouri. He has a PhD in English and teaches mythology and cultural studies at University of Missouri - Columbia. We have arranged for opportunities to meet Ray on both days. On June 9, all are invited to go out to dinner with Ray. Will Holcomb is organizing the dinner and asks everyone who wishes to participate to meet him and Ray at the Zen Center at 8:30 p.m. Ray will give the teisho on Sunday, June 10. Please attend our Sunday service and enjoy this opportunity to hear Ray teach the dharma. The usual Sunday schedule will be observed. Following the Sunday service, starting about 11 a.m., the Zen Center will hold a veggie burger BBQ to provide another opportunity for Ray to meet with members of the Zen Center. Please come and share good vegetarian food with us and make connections with Ray and the Hokoku-An Zen Center in Columbia. Sitting 101 & 102 The Zen Center has developed a two-part introduction to Zen meditation for people new to our practice or who have practiced on their own or at other centers and wish a low-key introduction to our center. Members of the Center, and Rosan when he is in town, teach each class. The Sitting 101 class is a one-night introduction to sitting practice, etiquette in the Zen Center, and why we meditate. Class lasts for two hours. It includes a half hour of instruction in how to sit and Zen Center etiquette; a 20 minute period of zazen (sitting meditation); and a question and answer session afterward. We encourage everyone who wishes to begin practice at our center to attend this class. Cost is $15 and includes the Manual of Zen, published by our center, and a coupon for $5 off on one of the zafus we offer for sale. Following completion of the Sitting 101 class, we encourage newcomers to our practice to enroll in Sitting 202. Sitting 202 has two separate sessions, both two hours long. The first session introduces class members to the life and teachings of Buddha. The second session discusses how our practice applies to our everyday life. Each session includes a 20 minute period of zazen and time for questions. The cost of each session is $15. Sitting 202 is offered to people who have completed Sitting 101 or who have been attending the Monday evening sittings geared to beginning meditators. For more information on Sitting 101 or 202, including upcoming dates, contact Maku at 314-994-3492. Monday Nites Also, the special 20 minute sittings on Monday evenings continue. They are excellent for beginners to Zen practice who may not be ready to sit for a full 40 minutes and for those who wish to begin regular sitting before they are able to take Sitting 101 or Sitting 202. On Monday evenings, sitting is from 7 - 7:20 p.m. After sitting Maku will share a reading, followed by discussion. If you need extra help with sitting, come early and Maku will be happy to help you. The Monday night sittings have been popular with beginners and experienced sitters alike and will help you build confidence in your ability to sit zazen and get to know some of the members of our Center. Members Meeting & Potluck Aug. 4: Energy Conservation As Buddhists, we strive to benefit all beings and harm none. For this reason, we wish to reduce the use of energy at our Center to the lowest possible level consistent with continuing to practice and bringing our practice to others. As a nonprofit organization operating on limited funds, we also seek to keep energy use low as part of the responsible use of the funds we receive. All members and friends of the Zen Center are invited to a Members Meeting and vegetarian potluck on Saturday, Aug.4. The meetiust g will begin at 5 p.m. with the potluck following the meeting. Our topic for this meeting is energy conservation at the Zen Center, and we are looking for everyoneÕs ideas on how we can reduce our energy use. A short analysis of the forms and amount of energy used by the Center will be available a few weeks prior to the meeting to help get your idea-juices flowing. Please bring a vegetarian dish to share for the potluck. Garden Work Periods Saturday Mornings The Zen Center is in a beautiful setting in Webster Groves. Rosan and members and friends of the Zen Center have spent much time over the years in planting and tending the grounds as a way of expressing the Dharma and our gratitude to Buddha and all those who have illuminated the Dharma for us. To maintain and increase the beauty of our setting, flower beds need to be weeded, planted, and mulched. Grass needs to be mowed. Trees and shrubs need to be pruned and, sometimes, moved, removed, or planted. We grow in our practice and strengthen our sangha when we join together to tend our gardens. Starting on Saturday, May 26 and continuing each Saturday in June and as needed afterward, join us to work on our gardens following the regular Saturday morning sitting from 8-8:40 am. Please park in the Webster Groves public parking parking lots rather than on the street, so that our neighbors across the street can do their own garden work without finding access to part of their gardens blocked by our cars. We anticipate working for a couple of hours on weeding, mowing grass, trimming vegetation along the walks and drive, planting annuals, mulching garden beds, and other such lawn and garden work to maintain and increase the beauty of our grounds. All people who participate in the work are invited to join a veggie burger BBQ after the work is complete. Please use the donation box in the kitchen to offer donations toward the cost of the veggie burger BBQs. Another way we can help to beautify our Center is through contributions toward the materials, such as annual flowers and mulch, needed for the garden and grounds to look their best. The donation box in the kitchen of the Zen Center may also be used to offer donations toward garden and grounds upkeep. Please sit and work with us this summer! New Friday Evening Schedule The zazen periods on Friday evenings have been changed to allow people to sit two zazen periods and have time to go out to dinner afterward. Starting on Friday, May 25, the Friday evening schedule will be: 6:00 - 6:40 p.m., zazen 6:40 - 7 :00 p.m., kinhin 7:00 - 7:40 p.m., zazen Please join us for either or both sittings. As usual, you may enter or leave quietly during kinhin. Board Meetings The MZC Board will meet on Sunday, June 17 and Sunday, July 22 beginning around 9:30 am, following samu. All members and friends are invited to our Board meeting. We welcome your input and need it in order to make beneficial decisions for the Center and all beings. Japanese Festival September 1-3 DonÕt forget that the Japanese Festival will be taking place at the Missouri Botanical Garden over Labor Day weekend, September 1-3. We operate a food booth during the Japanese Festival, which is the Zen CenterÕs biggest fundraising activity of the year. Many volunteers will be needed to prepare and serve food, act as cashiers, clean up, and set up and take down our booth in order to ensure success. Please include time to volunteer at our booth in your plans for the Labor Day weekend. Volunteers receive free admission to the Botanical Garden during the Festival and can enjoy the many activities at the Festival that exemplify Japanese art and culture. Our August-September newsletter will discuss our food booth in more detail, including how to sign up to volunteer. BACK TO BASICS: SIT DESPITE CONDITIONS by Ando Our practice is zazen, or just sitting despite conditions. The masters in our lineage all found that sitting in the lotus position and breathing, and not attaching to any thought, is the most effective way to fully experience each moment. Non-attachment means not attaching any of our own preconceptions, misconceptions, desires, and aversions to things, thereby allowing them to be, and experiencing them, as they REALLY are. The Òten-thousand thingsÓ (our environment) are just as they are. Our practice is to live in this moment, fully, without acting on the delusion of self. Self is the problem. The Buddha's First and Second Noble Truths are, Life is suffering, and Suffering is the result of selfish craving. These are truths, due to the fact that self (or ego) deludes us into believing that we are separate individuals that suffer under, or are gratified by, conditions. Caught up in self, we buy into the false duality of pleasure and pain. If we continue to live in the problem, we will continue to suffer. There is, however, a solution. The solution is the Buddha's Third and Fourth Noble Truths: Suffering can be transcended and The eightfold path is the Way to transcend suffering. As practitioners of Soto Zen, we believe that the eighth practice of the eightfold path, Right Meditation, is the most necessary practice. From this practice, adherence to the other seven will follow intuitively, and suffering will be transcended. If we continue to live and act according to the delusion of self, we endeavor to arrange and control our environment to alleviate our suffering. These are fruitless and destructive endeavors, because ultimately, we are not separate from our environment, and it is beyond our control. Acting under the illusion of control, seeking pleasure over pain, we only damage and pollute our environment, and ultimately, ourselves. All practice to bring about awareness and awakening is the Way to going beyond the suffering of conditioned existence. Conditions only affect the impermanent body and mind. When we sit earnestly with right intent, body and mind drop away, and we are one with our environment. We experience all things as they are, there is no duality, and thus, no suffering. We will intuitively be kind to our environment, as we realize that it IS US. This is our intent and purpose, as a Sangha and Zen Center. Please stay centered on the practice and come sit, despite conditions, with us!!! RosanÕs Morning Talk of March 5th, 2001 Transcribed from the tape recording by Maku Good morning, Whenever you come here, rain or snow, it is a good day. Because you have the time and mind to spend on something which is not for the pressing need but for a wider, deeper, more meaningful, essential thing. Dogen said, ÒThe day spent vainly is a deplorable day with deplorable forms and frames.Ó Because of pressing needs we scarcely have a chance to think and act in the right direction. Dogen said, ÒThe right way of requiting is the daily practice.Ó Todays practice saves one hundred years of one life and also one hundred years of another life. Requiting, you are acquainted with the unsurpassed awakening. Unconditioned peace lies in daily practice. Santikaro Bhikkhu came here yesterday and in the course of our talk he mentioned establishing his monastery. He mentioned that daily practice, like here, with committed members is importantÑmore important than the once-in-a-while retreat. Our life boils down to this day, this minute, this second of life. We cannot wait for sometime, some unseen day, to fulfill our life. The right way to practice is here and now. Our life consists of seemingly trivial things like washing our face, eating our meals, cleaning our rooms, working, sleeping. In all of these our life is nowhere else. So we need to know how to deal with whatever situation we face. This is called Ôjin jin samadhiÕ, Ôdust dust samadhi.Õ We concentrate on each thing. We deal with them in the fullest possible way. Then you make your life its fullest. You wonÕt deplore or regret your life. Not only for oneÕs own life but also for the lives of other people, other things, one by one, you save and requite for the dharma, right way, right life. Then you can face impermanence which may take from you whenever, whatever, suddenlyÑyou wonÕt regret. So please, make your daily practice strong and practice ÔgyojiÕ, which means sustained practice. You need to sustain, maintain, continue at each moment, anyplace. E-mail Discussion List to Change. . . maybe At press time, we learned that the email discussion list might have to move to a different server. We couldn't hold publication of the newsletter any longer, but by the time you receive this issue of Dharma Life, the e-mail listserv may have already switched over. If so, watch for an e-mail message notifying you of the new address for sending your message to the list. Most likely, existing subscribers will not have to resubscribe. Also, instructions on how to subscribe (for new subscribers) will be posted on our website: www.missourizencenter.org. Membership Reminder Just a reminder that the four digits below your address on the newsletter mailing labels represent the expiration date of your membership. (First two digits for theh month, the second two for the year.) If your membership is past due, please support the Zen Center with a contribution. Four asterisks (****) means no membership payment is needed (for honorary members, other Zen Centers, etc.).