August-September, 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 Events for August and September Slushie and veggie rice training: August 24 following sitting Japanese Festival food booth: August 31 and September 1 and 2 Sesshin: September 14 and 15 Lay ordination: September 15 See the articles for more information on each of these events. Check the listserv or the closet door at the Zen Center for events scheduled after press time. Rosan Here Until September 28 We welcome back our teacher Rosan. He will be in St. Louis until September 28. Please join us as often as possible while he is here and take advantage of this time to learn directly from him. Sesshin & Lay Ordination, Sept. 14-15 The Zen Center will offer a day and a half sesshin on Saturday, September 14 starting at 6:20 am through about 5:00 pm, continuing on Sunday, September 15 following the normal Sunday schedule. Then on Sunday starting about 11:00 am, we will hold lay ordination for the people who are taking the precepts. Following lay ordination we will enjoy a potluck vegetarian lunch. Please join us for the sesshin and lay ordination to honor and support our lay ordainees, and bring a vegetarian dish to the potluck lunch. We have four people who are planning to take the precepts as of press time. The Saturday portion of the sesshin includes an oryoki lunch. We may announce an oryoki training before the sesshin, or we may hold training during the Saturday morning work period. Please do not be intimidated by the formality of this meal. It is a wonderful opportunity to slow down and really taste the foodsŅchance to bring our practice off the cushion into our daily life. Suggested donation for the sesshin is $30. Those of you who will be attending the oryoki lunch, please contact the Zen Center so we know how much food to prepare. You may choose to attend part or all of the sesshin. We encourage you to try sitting longer than you normally do, whether that is for two, three, or four periods or for a whole day or the full sesshin. Please enter or leave the Zen Center during kinhin, the morning service, the work period, or other breaks before, after, or between sittings. We will post the schedule at the Zen Center and on the listserv. Sleeping space is available at the Zen Center for Saturday night. You will need to bring your own sleeping bag and towel. Rosan Teaches Beginners on Sundays During August and September (except for September 1 and 29), Rosan will offer instruction for beginners on Sunday mornings. Beginners may arrive between 8:00-8:10 am while kinhin is occurring and join the 20 minute sitting period from 8:10-8:30 am. Rosan gives his talk after sitting. Rosan will answers questions after the talk and offer personalized instruction and answer more questions during the work period following the talk. We encourage all beginners to attend as many Sundays as possible during August and September and take advantage of this opportunity to learn directly from our teacher Rosan. We greatly appreciate his clear and poetic explication of the Dharma and his example of how to live the Awakened Way. Sunday mornings are also an excellent time to listen to birds, insects, and the sounds of the waterfall at the Zen Center. Special Events Following Sittings During the past few weeks, some changes have occurred in the evening sitting schedule and in events following sitting on certain days. At press time, those changes and events are as follows. Please see the side-bar for the full sitting schedule. Monday evening: different members of the Zen Center act as doan each Monday evening and lead a discussion following sitting. Mitsu is again organizing this special event. Sittings are 20 minutes long, from 7:00-7:20 pm, and the doan will be available starting at 6:30 pm to answer questions about our practice. This is another good opportunity for people new to our practice and people who cannot sit for the full 40 minutes to join us, enjoy sitting, and learn more about our practice from many different people. Potential doans, check the sign-up sheet on the closet door and sign up for the Monday of your choice so that you may share your practice with all of us. Tuesday evening: Meiku is again doan and is holding tea and discussion following sitting. This is another chance to learn from our teacher Rosan while he is here. Please join us! Friday evening: there is now only one sitting, from 7:00-7:40 pm. Participants often go out to eat at a local vegetarian restaurant following sitting. Saturday morning: Kalen is holding a discussion period following sitting. Volunteers Needed For Japanese Festival Fund-raiser The Zen Center needs volunteers to work at its food booth at the Missouri Botanical GardenÕs Japanese Festival. This fund-raiser, one of three major fund-raisers put on by the Zen Center each year, enables us to meet Zen Center expenses while keeping dues at an affordable level. The Japanese Festival is held on Labor Day weekend, which is Saturday, August 31 through Monday, September 2. We will prepare and sell fruit slushies, green tea, vegetable rice, and sesame noodles. We need as many members and friends as possible to work one or two four-hour shifts anytime that weekend. It takes many volunteers for our food booth to be successful. People are needed to prepare ingredients; cook the food; transport food from where itÕs made to where itÕs sold; make slushies and green tea; handle money; keep equipment and the booth clean; and answer questions about our practice. We need people to set up the booth each morning and to break down the booth on Monday evening. We have found that it requires at least 8 to 10 people per shift to prepare and sell enough food for our customers and to keep our booth running safely and efficiently. The booth offers us a wonderful opportunity to spread the Dharma while we prepare delicious food for festival-goers. Many people hear about us for the first time when they purchase food at our booth. Later they learn about the Awakened Way through taking our classes and sitting with us. Work shifts each day are from 8:00 am to noon; 11:30 am-3:30 pm; and 3:00-7:00 pm. On Saturday morning, we will need volunteers to arrive at the Zen Center early to help load and transport items to the Botanical Garden. The final shift on Monday includes time for breaking down the booth. An added treat for final shift workers on Monday is a group dinner out following the conclusion of cleanup. Everyone who works any of the shifts will receive free admission to the Botanical Garden on the day they work. This will save you several dollars over the normal admission fee during the Japanese Festival and allow you to enjoy the many festival activities during the time you are not working at our booth. If you are able to participate in this fund-raiser, we welcome your help with gratitude! A sign-up sheet for each shift is posted at the Zen Center. You may sign up any time you are at the Zen Center. You may also sign up by e-mail: send your name, phone number, and the shift(s) you wish to work to info@missourizencenter.org We will have a training period for making slushies and veggie rice on Saturday, August 24 following sitting. Please plan to attend and enjoy eating the veggie rice and drinking the slushies that we prepare! We may announce other volunteer opportunities prior to the festival. Check the listserv and the closet door at the Zen Center for the latest information. We look forward to working with you at our food booth at the Japanese Festival. E-mail Discussion List (listserv) 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 Ōsubscribe mzcĶ. You will then receive a confirmation message (including instructions on how to unsubscribe). Please only subscribe the e-mail address of individuals. Membership Information We welcome everyone to come sit with us. If you are able to help support the Zen Center with a financial contribution, we will be able to continue to spread the Dharma and to support each other in our practice. We suggest a contribution of $20 per month ($240 per year) to become a member of the Zen Center. You may pay quarterly, every six months, or once a year. Only members may vote in board elections or borrow items from our library. Newsletter subscriptions are $15 per year. Members may receive a paper copy of our newsletter as part of their membership dues. Please let us know if you wish a copy to be mailed to you. Paper copies are also available for pickup at the Zen Center. The newsletter may be read on our website. The Missouri Zen Center is a nonprofit organization. Donations may be tax deductible; consult your tax advisor. Dharma Life Changes Everything changes ... including this newsletter. The Dharma Life co-editors have proposed, and the MZC Board has approved, changes in the format and distribution of Dharma Life. Our intent is to lessen the number of trees killed and the pollution and energy use associated with paper and newsletter production and distribution, and to save on copying and mailing charges. The format changes begin with this issue; the distribution changes will begin with the next issue, October/November 2002. Starting with this issue, we have dropped the calendar from Dharma Life so that we may move to a four page issue rather than a five or six page issue. We have included a sidebar with dates of special events scheduled as of press time. These may be changed or other events scheduled in between newsletters. The most current information is available on the listserv and posted on the closet door at the Zen Center. You may also call or e-mail the Zen Center to check on scheduled activities. Starting with the October/November issue of Dharma Life, we will place each issue of Dharma Life on our listserv. We encourage everyone who has an e-mail address to sign on to our listserv. For directions, see the sidebar elsewhere in this issue. We will continue to make each issue of Dharma Life available on our web site for those of you who prefer to read it there. And we will have paper copies of Dharma Life available on the porch at the Zen Center. With Dharma Life available on the listserv, we will reduce the number of paper copies produced and mailed. This will save paper, postage, energy, and volunteer time. We hope that those of you who have access to e-mail or the Internet will choose to receive Dharma Life from the listserv or will read it on our web site. We will continue to mail paper copies to those who request them as described below. To determine what you need to do to receive a paper copy of Dharma Life, please check the code underneath your address on the first page of this issue and follow the directions below. In most cases the code will consist of four numbers. The first two are the year (02 for 2002, for instance) and the second two are the month that your membership in the Zen Center expires or your subscription to Dharma Life expires. In a few cases the code reads XXXX or may be absent. If the code reads XXXX, you will continue to receive a paper copy by mail. If you prefer to read the electronic version on our web site, please e-mail us at info@missourizencenter.org and ask us to discontinue mailing the paper version. Or you may sign up for our listserv (see directions elsewhere in this issue) and then e-mail us and ask us to remove your name from the paper copy list. If you are a member of the Zen Center and your dues are current, the code should read 0206 or later (contact us if this is not the case). All members whose dues are current may receive a paper copy of Dharma Life upon request. If you want a paper copy mailed to you, please contact us by September 30 and ask us to keep your name on the paper copy list. Or you may pick one up at the Zen Center. If you have paid the newsletter subscription fee ($15 per year) and your subscription is current (your code is 0206 or later), you will continue to receive a paper copy of Dharma Life as long as you keep your subscription current. Please check the code, which shows the expiration date of your subscription, and remit the subscription fee when your subscription expires if you wish to continue receiving paper copies by mail. If you have been a member of the Zen Center but are not current with your dues (code 0205 or earlier), you may either renew your membership and ask to receive a paper copy of Dharma Life or send the $15 subscription fee by September 30 to continue receiving paper copies of Dharma Life by mail. Or you may pick one up at the Zen Center. If you are not a member of the Zen Center and have not paid the subscription fee, you are receiving Dharma Life because you have taken one or more classes at the Zen Center, you often sit with us but have not paid member dues, or you have asked us to send you the newsletter. In any case, if you wish to continue receiving paper copies of Dharma Life by mail, you will need to send us the $15 yearly subscription fee by September 30. If you wish to receive paper copies by mail but the fee is a hardship, please contact the Zen Center. Or you may get a copy at the Zen Center. We believe that by making Dharma Life available electronically, we may reduce yearly paper consumption by the equivalent of half a tree the diameter of a telephone pole and the height of a 4 story building. (See www.coopamerica.org/woodwise for information relating pounds of paper consumed to trees required to produce the paper.) We expect to save the Zen Center about $700 per year in reduced copying and postage charges. We will also save energy to produce and distribute the newsletter and reduce pollution associated with the production of paper. If you have other suggestions for how we might reduce the cost and resource use associated with producing Dharma Life or you experience difficulty in accessing the electronic versions, please contact us. RosanÕs Dharma Talk from Late August 2001 transcribed by Ando Now, we are in the best season for our sitting, not too hot, not too cold. Dogen said that Zazen is the Dharma Gate of comfort. That means Nirvana. This is the Dharma Gate of comfort for everyone, all beings. You never fail to achieve this unsurpassed awakening, unconditioned peace, if you constantly practice in your best forms. Dogen said dignified forms are awakened forms, or norms, when you sit in the best posture, best breathing, best mental state not only in sitting, but in all activities. The Zen tradition stresses very much on "off-seat" practice and "off-scene" practice*, where you face your self, your true mind and go along with the true being. We are going to have the Japanese Festival, so you all become Tenzo--cook monks. Dogen recommended three minds, Great Mind, Mature Mind and Joyful Mind. All the three are just one. You cannot separate them. Even if you get tired, there's an awakening mind, a Buddha mind living in you which goes beyond tiredness, with limitless effort for all Beings. It's not just for fund-raising. This is the way to reach the Awakened Way for everyone, everything, and you are representing the Center. You're practicing yourself. No one else can replace your mind, body, and word. Again, these three are just one. So, please practice well. *off-scene practice [Rosan comments that this is his translation of the Japanese "in toku", hidden virtue or meritorious actions unobserved by othersŅ Ando] Regular Zendo Schedule Sunday 6:20-7:00 am Zazen 7:00-7:20 am Service (sutras) 7:20-8:00 am Zazen 8:00-8:10 am Kinhin 8:10-8:30 am Zazen 8:30 am Talk/discussion, work period, tea You are welcome to come throughout the morning, but please do not enter the zendo during zazen. Enter quietly at other times. Monday 6:00-6:40 am Zazen 6:30-7:00 pm Instruction 7:00-7:20 pm Zazen 7:20-9:00 pm Discussion/questions Tuesday 6:00-6:40 am Zazen 7:00-7:40 pm Zazen 7:40-9:00 pm Tea/discussion Wednesday 6:00-6:40 am Zazen 7:00-7:40 pm Zazen After sitting Writing Practice Thursday 6:00-6:40 am Zazen 7:00-7:40 pm Zazen Friday 6:00-6:40 am Zazen 7:00-7:40 pm Zazen After sitting Dinner out Saturday 8:00-8:40 am Zazen 8:40-9:30 am Discussion Work periods may be scheduled following zazen. Any changes to this schedule: please contact the Zen Center.