Sangha Life
A Publication of the Missouri Zen Center
October-November, 2004

220 Spring Avenue
Webster Groves, MO 63119
(314) 961-6138

Visit us on the web at www.MissouriZenCenter.org
(pdf and html versions of this newsletter and the calendar are available from the website)

Coming Events
• October 31 (Sunday): Daylight Savings Time ends
• November 6 (Saturday): Unplug the  Christmas Machine workshop
• November 6 (Saturday): Mindfulness Day, Thai Temple

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.

Zen Center Requests Permit
Recently the city of Webster Groves informed the Zen Center that in order to continue using our building, we need to receive a conditional use permit. These are standard for businesses, churches, daycares, and similar operations in an area that is zoned for residential use, as is the area in which we are located. Several members of the Zen Center have been involved in the meetings and fact-finding which have already occurred and which are to come. They have received a positive impression from Webster Groves officials they have spoken with. It is their understanding that as long as the Zen Center follows the recommendations made by the officials who are examining the conditional use permit, it is very likely to be granted.
Because the codes for businesses, churches, and so forth differ from those for residences, the Zen Center may need to make some changes to its building and/or grounds. Subsequent meetings with Webster Groves officials will make it clear to us what, if any, changes will need to be made. Please watch for more information on the listserv and in this newsletter. 
Update on the Free Willie Drive
by Kalen
The sangha responded in full to help William Pizzola, the man who petitioned for Buddhism in Missouri state prisons, when he is released from prison on October 8th. Upon his release he owes about $1800 for repairs to a riding lawnmower he damaged prior to his imprisonment. If he were not able to pay this debt he might have to return to prison. He will be released with only $20 and had no place to live. I made a request to the sangha for donations to repay his debt and help him start over in St. Louis.
About $1490 was raised in cash donations from members of the sangha. Of this, $1190 went to pay his first month’s rent plus deposit on an apartment in the University City loop area. There is $300 left to help him get through his first month. Others have donated furniture and one couple will fill his cabinets with food, toilet paper, etc. Another person stepped forward and paid off his $1800 fine. William will be doing yard work to repay this donation.
Kris will pick him up on October 8th and drive him to his new apartment. We get the key to his apartment on October 1st and will do some decorating before he gets here.
Thanks to all. I’m sure he’ll come to the Zen Center once he is settled in and thank everyone in person.
MZC garden restoration continues
The garden at the Zen Center has made remarkable progress since its meetup with the falling oak tree last May. Over the last couple months, the areas around the pond and next to the back porch have been replanted with many new annual and perennial plants. Rosan and others created “Mount Fuji” in part of the new garden area. Mount Fuji is clothed in evergreens, low groundcovers, and mosses and even has a snowcap on top! Thanks to all the volunteers who have assisted in this project. Anyone who has perennial plants they wish to divide and donate to the new garden area, please do so. They can be planted where the annuals will die once frosts set in.
The Zen Center has received an insurance settlement for the pond and waterfall structure, and it has received several bids for repairs. At press time it is not known if a bid has been chosen, or when the work will be done. There may be an opportunity to help with the repair work; watch the listserv for announcements. The back porch reconstruction, for which the Zen Center also received an insurance settlement, is in progress. Thanks to the volunteers who have assisted on both these projects.
Finally, remember that in return for a special donation to the Zen Center, anyone may claim some of the firewood that the oak tree has become. May it warm the hearts of many beings.
Mindfulness Day 2004: The Middle Path
Each Fall St. Louis-area Buddhists and other spiritual seekers come together for Mindfulness Day, celebrating the Way of Awakened Living taught by the Buddha. Sponsored by the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis, this year’s Mindfulness Day will be held on Saturday, November 6th, from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm, at the Thai Buddhist Temple, 890 Lindsay Lane, Florissant, MO. The event is free and open to the public.
SPEAKERS:
Kongsak Tanphaichitr, M.D., Chairman, Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis, will be talking on Dependent Arising/Origination, the Center of all Dharma.
Ven. Ji Ru, Abbot of the Mid-America Buddhist Association, Augusta, MO and the International Buddhism Friendship Association, Chicago, will give a talk on Chan Buddhism.
Ven. Yung Han, Abbot of the Fo Guang Shan St. Louis Buddhist Center, will be talking about the Fo Guang Shan tradition. 
Events will include		
Meditation:	
	1:00 - 1:40 pm: Hands-on, Various Techniques
Dharma Talks: 	
	2:00 - 2:30 pm: Dependent Arising by Dr. K. Tanphaichitr
	2:30 - 3:00 pm: Chan Tradition by Ven. Ji Ru
	3:15 - 3:45 pm:  Fo Guang Shan Tradition by Ven. Yong Han
Circumambulation: 
	Walking Meditation Paying Homage to Triple Gem 
Directions:  From I-270, go North onto Lindbergh Blvd. for 1.5 miles, passing Washington Street. Turn Left onto Lindsay Lane, and go 0.5 mile. Temple is located on the South side at 890 Lindsay Lane.
Unplug the Christmas Machine Workshop
Saturday, November 6 at MZC
The Simplicity Circle of MZC is pleased to offer the Unplug the Christmas Machine workshop at Missouri Zen Center on Saturday, November 6. Participants may choose to do the first exercise at home and start at 11am, or may do the first exercise starting at 9am at the Zen Center, take a break from 10-11am, and join the rest of the participants at 11am. The workshop will end by 1:30pm.
Based on the popular book Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Staeheli, this workshop will help people to reduce their stress and increase their enjoyment of the holiday season by making simple changes in the way they choose to celebrate. Participants will be given a chance to examine their current practices, define their values, imagine a satisfying holiday, and then combine their insights into a workable plan for the upcoming holiday season. This process can help people to reduce the overconsumption that seems to be part of the commercial holiday and to practice the values of love, peace, and goodwill traditionally celebrated around the time of the winter solstice.
The only cost to participants will be the cost of a copy of the Participants Manual ($2 or less). People who elect to begin at 9am will receive their manual at the workshop. People who choose to begin at 11am will receive their manuals a week or so prior to the workshop so they may do the first exercise before the workshop and bring it with them. Participants need not purchase the book Unplug the Christmas Machine, but it will be helpful to read it following the workshop. Kuryo will facilitate the workshop. We encourage participants to consider donating a small amount to MZC in lieu of a course fee, but this is not necessary to attend the workshop.
You need not be a member of Missouri Zen Center to participate in the workshop, so pass along this information to anyone you know who might be interested in it. 
Please register with Kuryo no later than October 8 so she may order your Participants Manual in time. You may contact her at the Zen Center, by phone at 314-355-3505, or by email at cschosser@yahoo.com. To register, please give your name and a means to contact you (phone, street address, or email address), and indicate if you will be beginning the workshop at 9am or 11am. If you have questions about the workshop or the Simplicity Circle, please contact Kuryo.
Chris Clarke receives Dharma name Kuro
On Sunday, September 26, Chris Clarke took lay ordination. He received the Dharma name of Kuro. Rosan posted on the MZC listserv the following regarding Kuro’s ordination.
Congratulations with all and for all in all-embracing great, mature and joyful heart!
Ku-ro (pronounced Koo-ro) means shunyata-path.
Zen Center E-mail List
The Zen Center’s old list server is no longer in existence. A new one has been set up, and all members and friends of the sangha are invited to subscribe. To subscribe, send an email message from the address you wish to use for list messages to:
missourizencenter-subscribe@buddhistcouncil.us
The message field should remain blank.
You will receive a message asking you to confirm your subscription. Follow the directions in that message and your address will then be added to the list. If you encounter difficulties, consult the list owner at this address:
missourizencenter-owner@buddhistcouncil.us
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Living the Global Ethic:  Causes and Conditions
by Kuryo
To act according to Global Ethics principles, we must have awareness of causes and conditions at all levels, from our own minds to family patterns to larger societal patterns and events, and we must act from that full awareness. Recently I’ve read some articles and books which help to make this clearer to me and which I would like to share with you.
At the individual level, causes and conditions may be sequences of thoughts and actions that tend to drive future thoughts and actions whether or not we are aware of them. In the Fall 2004 issue of Turning Wheel, Scott Darnell writes about coming to terms with some of the causes and conditions of his life. He suffered severe abuse as a young boy at the hands of his mother, who died when he was just seven. In his young boy’s mind, he felt he caused her death. Those actions, and his thoughts about them, acted as causes and conditions that eventually led him to murder. Later, as a man, he came to acknowledge his mother’s difficult life and how it led to her abuse of him. As a result of this process, he began to see, with clarity and compassion, what he put his victim through. Coming to terms with his own suffering and the suffering he caused, he was able to begin changing the causes and conditions of his life. Now he says his life has become far more than a prison sentence; he looks for all opportunities to give back to a world from which he has taken so much.
Causes and conditions occur at societal levels as well. David Loy, in his book A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack, shows how a persistent but normally subconscious thought, that there is something “wrong” with us, has led to a series of different projects in the West, starting with the Greeks, to fix what is “wrong” with us. None of them, including our current project to fix what’s “wrong” by getting more fame, fortune, and goods, has ever or can ever work. There can be nothing “wrong” with the self because the self as we understand it doesn’t exist. But because we in the West aren’t aware of this, we continue to act from unconscious motivations, creating causes and conditions for more suffering for ourselves and for all beings.
Sometimes the chain of causes and conditions leading to an event is obscured. When that happens, it becomes very difficult to respond to that event in wise, compassionate ways.  A new book, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin, uses information available in public sources to examine evidence that the day’s events did or did not happen as we’ve been told that they did. Griffin shows that basic information about the events has been withheld from us or misrepresented to us, to the extent that official complicity by US government officials at some level appears very likely. Griffin does not claim to know what actually happened and why; he hopes to create a public demand for a truly independent investigation, by the press and by Congress, to determine that. If the evidence Griffin cites holds up to investigation, our responses to 9/11 have been even more tragic and dangerous than we’ve already realized. Without knowing what really did happen and acting from that knowledge, the chain of causes and conditions that has been set up by the events of 9/11 will continue to cause enormous suffering for many more people and other beings for many more years to come.
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Poem on the mind arising in no abiding: [from Limitless Life: Dogen’s World by Rosan Yoshida, p. 63]

  Waterfowls come and go
  Leaving no traces behind.
  And yet they do not forget
  The path they pass.
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Live the limitless law!
by Rosan Daido
The universal natural law of “interdependent origination” operates throughout the universe in time and space, making all systems related and relative (wholly), good for all always (wholesome). Limited artificial rules in limited areas and eras against this obstruct the system of wholesome whole. The global ethic of no killing, stealing, lying and discrimination is the holy wholesome code of conduct for all always. Limited national and local visions and actions against this are selfish, sinful sources of suffering. Live the limitless life law of ocean, not bursting bubbles and floating foam!
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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 (Beginner’s Night)
     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
     7:40 pm  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
     10:00-10:30 am Family Sitting

Work periods may be scheduled following zazen.
Any changes to this schedule: please contact the Zen Center.