Dharma Life (text-only version) February-March, 2002 A Publication of the Missouri Zen Center 220 Spring Avenue Webster Groves, MO 63119 (314) 961-6138 Visit us on the web at www.MissouriZenCenter.org Rosan to Arrive Late February As of press time, we believe our teacher Rosan will be back with us in St. Louis around or soon after February 20 and remain here through about mid-March. But changes in his schedule are always possible. Please sit with us as often as you can, and we all look forward to whatever time Rosan is able to spend with us over the next couple of months. Anyone who may be interested in taking lay ordination this fall should talk with Rosan while he is here. We already have two members who will be taking lay ordination and have begun to sew their rakusus. WomenÕs Night Suspended Things change. . . and as a result, so will WomenÕs Night. It had been held on the third Wednesday evening of the month starting at 8 p.m. as a time for women to get together to discuss their practice and how being women might affect their practice. But the last few WomenÕs Nights have been sparsely attended, in many cases due to changes in jobs and other scheduling issues. So WomenÕs Night will be suspended for a while. It may start up again when our lives and schedules change to allow us time to get together once a month. Watch the newsletter and listserv for announcements of when it may begin again. Board Nominations Open Nominations for new members to serve on the Zen Center Board of Directors are open through Thursday, February 14. Members serve three year terms. You may nominate yourself or someone else. If you nominate someone else, please ask their permission first. Members of the Board must be current members of the Zen Center. To nominate someone, please mail or e-mail their name to the Zen Center to arrive on or before February 14, or give their name to a current Board member by that date. At press time, Kalen, Jien, Gertraud, and Mitsu have been nominated to the Board. Tenmo and Genro will be continuing their current terms. Members Meeting & Potluck February 16 Board Elections On Saturday, February 16 starting at 5 p.m., the Zen Center will hold a Members Meeting followed by a vegetarian potluck. All members and their families are invited and encouraged to attend this meeting. The first item on the Members Meeting agenda is election of new members to the Zen CenterÕs Board of Directors. The BoardÕs job is to ensure that the Zen Center functions according to its bylaws and meets all legal requirements of a nonprofit organization. According to our bylaws, all people who meet at least one of the following requirements are eligible to vote: (1) all dues-paying members of the Zen Center; (2) all persons who have taken lay ordination; (3) anyone who has been active at the Center but not fulfilling the above requirements, who petitions the Board to vote during this meeting. If you fall under this last category, please notify the Zen Center by February 14. After voting, we will discuss membersÕ ideas and priorities for the Zen Center during 2002. Please take some time to think about what you would like to see the Zen Center doing and what you are willing and able to help with in 2002. All members and friends of the Zen Center are invited and encouraged to take part in this conversation. Following completion of the meeting agenda, we will enjoy a vegetarian potluck. Please bring a dish to share. Past potlucks have demonstrated the excellent cooking skills of our members! Next Board Meeting February 17 The next Zen Center Board of Directors meeting will take place on Sunday, February 17 following samu. Officers for 2002 will be chosen and any other necessary business will be conducted, including setting the date of the next Board meeting. Everyone is invited to attend any Board meeting. Prior to Board meetings, an agenda will be posted to the listserv and at the Zen Center. Help Build Hope on March 16 Zen Center members and friends have an exciting opportunity on Saturday, March 16 to take part in Habitat for HumanityÕs efforts to build high quality, low cost housing for people who cannot otherwise afford such. Think of it as a chance for 10 to 15 of us to take our practice off the cushion and into the street (or building). We expect to be working inside Habitat St. LouisÕ new building complex, in which HabitatÕs offices, construction warehouse, and ReStore will all be located. We will be helping deconstruct and reconstruct within this space to fit it to HabitatÕs needs. While it may seem less fulfilling than building a house, this work will allow Habitat to function more effectively and thus enable them to build more houses this year and in the future. Their goal is to build 15 more houses in Wellston in 2002 and 30 houses in 2003! And since we will be working inside, we need not be afraid of any weather that a March day could throw at us. Anyone over age 15 is welcome to help (there must be one adult for every 3 volunteers under the age of 17). Family members fitting the age requirement are welcome. All volunteers should be patient and flexible; whatever tasks we are assigned are important to the overall effort. The volunteer workday is from 8 a.m. to about 3 or 4 p.m. All volunteers must commit to work the entire day and remain until all tools and supplies are put away. Please again note that everyone must be present for the entire workday Ñ because of the need to teach volunteers how to do their tasks safely, Habitat cannot accomodate volunteers who cannot work the full day. Volunteers should dress appropriately Ñ this means clothes which can get dirty or stained. Dress in layers as the worksite may be cold or warm depending on the weather. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes Ñ no open toed shoes or sandals! Work gloves would be very helpful. If you have hand tools such as hammers, tape measures, utility knives, tin snips, or such you may want to bring them (note that Habitat cannot be responsible for personal tools). Safety equipment such as gloves, hard hats, safety goggles, and dust masks will be provided as needed, or you can bring them if you have them. Be sure to bring drinking water and your lunch. Do not bring any glass containers to the job site. Also, do not bring children 15 or under or pets; no accomodations for them are available. Here is what your day will be like. At 8 a.m. all group members should be at the job site and ready to receive their assignments. (We will post the location of the job site and directions to get there on the listserv and at the Zen Center about two weeks beforehand. At that time people who wish can form carpools to drive to the site.) We will sign in and meet with Habitat staff for instructions and safety tips, and to answer any questions we may have about our assigned work. Then we will begin work. We will break for lunch around noon. After lunch, we will continue to work on our tasks until we complete them. Then we will clean up and return all tools and materials. The work day ends only after the job site is clean and tools and materials are put away. Expect that this may not occur before 3 to 4 p.m. Because the Habitat staff needs to know how many of us to expect, we need to have people let us know that they will be participating, and how many people are in their party. Please contact Dorothy Nootbaar at nootbada@webster.edu no later than Saturday, March 9 with this information. Then show up and help rebuild St. Louis one house at a time! Hosta Sale Workdays Coming OK, I know itÕs hard to think about hostas in the middle of the winter. But daffodils, crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths are already poking leaves up into the sunshine. That means April isnÕt far off. And the warm weather of late March and April prompts the hostas in our gardens to begin growing. When the hostas appear, itÕs time for us to dig them out of the ground and pot them up for our Hosta Sale fundraiser. This fundraiser, along with the food booth we run during the Japanese Festival and the bread baskets we sell in the winter, helps us to cover all expenses associated with keeping the Zen Center open and functioning. Any extra money we raise ais saved toward long-range projects. In the next newsletter, we will discuss the Hosta Sale more thoroughly and let everyone know when volunteer workdays are. Based on last yearÕs experience, we are likely to have a workday each Saturday in April after sitting, and possibly some weekday evenings as we get closer to the sale date. And we will have many opportunities for help on the sale date itself. So consider keeping time open on one or more Saturday mornings in April to help us dig and pot up hostas. Even if you havenÕt gardened before, youÕll find this easy to do. And youÕll be able to contribute towards the Zen CenterÕs continued existence. Sesshin, March 2-3 The next day and a half sesshin has been scheduled for Saturday, March 2 through Sunday, March 3, with an option to begin on Friday evening, March 1. The sesshin will begin at 6:20 a.m. on Saturday and will include an oryoki lunch. Sitting will end at about 9 p.m. on Saturday evening.. The sesshin will resume at 6:20 a.m. on Sunday following the normal Sunday schedule. We especially encourage those of you who have not sat sesshin before to join us for all or part of the Saturday sitting! If you have not sat sesshin before, consider coming for half the day on Saturday, either in the morning or afternoon. Or if you are uncertain about your ability to sit for three or four periods in a row, try sitting two periods in a row sometime during the sesshin. You may enter or leave during kinhin or during the morning service. We will post the sesshin schedule at the Zen Center and on the listserv a week or so before the sesshin so that you can plan when to attend. Here are the particulars: suggested donation for the sesshin is $30 and pre-registration is requested. Contact the Zen Center to register and indicate if you will be attending the oryoki lunch when you register. We will extend the Friday evening sitting for those people who wish to begin sesshin at that time. The normal Friday schedule will be observed for the first two sittings, followed by kinhin from 7:40-7:50 p.m. and a third sitting from 7:50-8:30 p.m. Sleeping space is available at the Center on both Friday and Saturday nights. You will need to bring your own sleeping bag and towel. Monday Night Guest DoŠn Series for Newcomers Continues All newcomers to Zen practice or the Zen Center are invited to attend the special Monday evening sittings designed especially for them. The doŠn will be available at 6:30 p.m. to answer questions and to demonstrate sitting posture and proper etiquette. If you have never sat before; if you have sat before, but are new to the Missouri Zen Center; or if you have been sitting for awhile but are experiencing discomfort or have questions about your practice, the doŠn will be available to help you. Sitting will take place from 7-7:20 p.m. This shorter sitting is ideal for people new to zazen practice. It allows both the body and mind to adjust gradually to sitting practice. A discussion will follow sitting. It usually lasts until about 9 p.m. Since January, Mitsu has organized sign-ups for the doŠn role on Monday evenings. Anyone who has been taught how to doŠn can sign up to be doŠn on a Monday night of your choice. Following sitting, the doŠn may offer a reading, talk about their own practice, or answer questions to get the discussions going, whatever they think would be most helpful to newcomers. Sign-up sheets for Monday nights are posted at the Zen Center. All doans are encouraged to sign up and share your practice with newcomers. Limitless Life, No Self Books by Rosan For Sale The Zen Center has copies of two books by our teacher, Dr. Rosan Yoshida, for sale. Limitless Life: DogenÕs World contains RosanÕs translations of three works by Dogen: Shushogi, Goroku, and Doei. Shushogi, or Significance of Cultivation and Verification, is composed of sentences from DogenÕs major work, Shobogenzo. It is a concise statement of the Awakened Way. Goroku, or Recorded Words, were compiled by DogenÕs attendants and later abridged. The Abridged Record was published in 1358. Rosan has included translations of 22 occasions in Limitless Life. Doei, or Poems in the Way, contains translations of all of DogenÕs poems found to date. A poem from Doei that Rosan has used in dharma talks is as follows. Flowers in spring. Cuckoos in summer, The moon in autumn, Snow in winter, Cool and clear. The other book by Rosan is entitled No Self: A New Systematic Interpretation of Buddhism. No Self Òdeals directly with the what and why of Ôno-self,Õ a uniquely Buddhist theory and practiceÓ according to the preface written by Prof. Hajime Nakamura. We have often heard Rosan speak of no-self in his dharma talks. This book is a detailed explication of no-self as it is revealed in the dialogue between the Buddhist monk Nagasena and King Milinda of Greece. Rosan uses the dialogue and his research to offer new interpretations of many Buddhist concepts such as samsara, nirvana, karma, and others, interpretations that Rosan uses in his dharma talks. Purchase prices for each book are shown on the books. They are currently found on the radiator in the front room of the Zen Center. Sitters Wanted for Celebrate the World, February 17 The Zen Center will be participating in Celebrate the World, a cultural festival taking place in Maryland Heights, MO on Sunday, February 17. Members and friends of the Zen Center will demonstrate zazen from 4:30 to 4:55 p.m. while speakers from the Zen Center explain to the audience why we sit, how to sit, and how we take zazen into our everyday lives through upholding the Global Ethics and through practicing voluntary simplicity. We already have some people who have agreed to be demonstration sitters, but more sitters are always welcome! Bring your own zafu and zabuton if you have them; otherwise we will bring some of each from the Zen Center. Please let the Zen Center know ASAP if you will be participating and if you need a zafu or zabuton, so we know how many to bring. The festival will take place at the Maryland Heights Centre, 2344 McKelvey Rd., phone 314-434-1919. From I-270, take the Dorsett Rd. exit west (it is the first exit south of I-70). From Dorsett, turn right onto McKelvey (the first big intersection you come to). Turn right onto Ameling, then left onto the continuation of McKelvey. The Centre will be on the right. Within the center, we will be in The Movement Studio (2nd door on the right as you enter). E-mail Discussion List To subscribe to the Missouri Zen CenterÕs e-mail discussion list, send an e-mail message to , leave the subject field blank and in the message body type Òsubscribe mzcÓ. You will then receive a confirmation message (including instructions on how to unsubscribe). Please only subscribe the e-mail address of individuals; do not subscribe other mailing lists or forwarders to our list. Also, be responsible for anything you forward to people who have not requested it. Limitless Life Link In December, Rosan Roshi came up with the idea of a Limitless Life website where people all over the world could share testimonials, stories or whatever in order Òto promote the sense of limitlessly connected life.Ó At press time, a rough draft of the site is in place at Eventually it will have its own URL (something like LimitlessLifeLink.net). For now, your feedback and help with the project (as described on the site) are appreciated. Yoshida Roshi on Ultimate Religion by Ando During the holidays, Yoshida Roshi, commented frequently on his paper, ÒRealizing Religion.Ó The original paper was missing the conclusion. Roshi asked us to consider the paper and come to our own conclusions. Subsequently, Roshi did write a concluding paper which he called, ÒUltimate Religion.Ó For those of you who may not have seen them, the following is a synopsis of Roshi's paper, ÒUltimate Religion.Ó Religions, as they have been practiced prior to the 21st Century have become the source of suffering (delusion, duress, discrimination, deprivation, and destruction), and of sacrifices (human-offering, holocaust, slavery, segregation, and persecution). Religions often went against their original meaning (from the Latin Ôreligare', to reunite): reunion with the holy (wholeness and wholesomeness). Religions have been involved in power struggles, the opium of, or for, the people, and tied with egoism and group egoism. Now people suspect that religions are not solving the problems but stirring up passions. Religions, in general, with different degree of particularities, aim at the way to/for life, but for the most part, because they maintain the old religions and habits, religions have become a way OF life. Ultimately, because they have been mired in the old habits and traditions of conventional truth, religions have been unable to embrace the new realities revealed by new sciences and the new universal and global ethics required by a global community. To embrace these realities and become a way to/for life, religions must reunite with the Holy or the Whole. To do this, they must go beyond the concepts of a separated (sin = separation from the Holy) self. The Real Life system is limitlessly interrelated, but it is separated by our concepts for convenience sake. In the 21st Century, we must embrace scientific knowledge and establish a global ethic with regard to the Whole. Instead of simplifying and specializing science must be concerned with the systemic. Instead of being ignored or used for the in-group, a global ethic based on the universal ethical code of religions, must be observed by all for all. The tenents of the universal ethical code are: ¥Have respect for life ¥Deal honestly and fairly ¥Speak and act truthfully ¥Respect and love one another The Ultimate Religion, or reuniting with the Holy, is essential for everyone, anywhere, any time. It invariably excludes wars, exploitation, race/religion/gender discrimination. If not with ALL or LIMITLESS, it is NOT the genuine, ultimate religion. It is realized right here and now, not the matter of abstract dogmas and doctrines. ____________________ The night before he returned to Japan, Roshi told us that Uchiyama Roshi said that zazen is Òthe self ÔselfizingÕ the self.Ó Please come Ôselfize' with us!! MZC Income and Expenses, 2001 We have completed accounting for the Zen Center's income and expenses for the year 2001. The pie charts for both income and expenses show how income and expenses are distributed among our various fundraisers and programs. Before long, we will have a binder on the table in the library which will contain minutes from the most recent Board of Directors meetings and the full report of income and expenses for 2001. Members and friends are welcome to read these when the library is open. Normally the library is open on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. If you are unable to be at the Zen Center then, please contact a board member to make arrangements to open the library at a convenient time.