Falling Here Sesshin

A few weeks ago we had our February Hybrid Sesshin, with people from far away joining the Temple sesshin residents on Zoom for a lovely weekend of serious Zen practice and play.  Our theme was a koan about Layman Pang and his famous saying, "Beautiful snowflakes!  They don't fall anywhere else!"  Back in February, we were starved for snow in Worcester, and now we've had one big storm to be followed this weekend by another.   It's deeply true that everything that happens, good, bad or neutral, is simply what is happening.  Nothing happens anywhere else!

 

snow

photo by Michael Herzog, sculpture by David Rynick

Blue Cliff Record Case 42 begins:  "Layman Pang was leaving Yaoshan. Yaoshan ordered ten of his Zen students to see Pang off at the temple gate. Pang pointed to the falling snow in the air and said, 'Beautiful snow-flakes! — they don’t fall on any other place.'"

This is just the beginning of the koan, and is followed by a dialogue between Layman Pang and a Zen student who challenges him.  But before the objecting mind of that student enters the story, we can relish Layman Pang's words by themselves.  

It's snowing in Worcester tonight.  Later, David and I will walk over to the Temple for our Sunday night service, through the darkness, through the falling snow.  It's not a big storm, and the whiteness spreading everywhere is so lovely.  Layman Pang, a Zen ancestor who never ordained and who is revered for both his ordinariness and his deep insight,  must have enjoyed a similar scene as he was ending his visit at the teacher Yaoshan's place.   Sometimes his additional comment is translated as "they don't fall anywhere."  But I like this translation -- there's nowhere else they can be.  There's nothing else that could be happening right now.  

Whether your present moment experience is lovely or painful, sweet or challenging, can you see this truth for yourself?  There is no other life than the one we are living.  And in a moment, there will be some other life.  Our way of practice keeps pointing us to this, this, this.  Nowhere else.  The mind that wants good things to last and bad things to stop has a hard time sinking into the reality of this.  Pause and feel it for yourself.  "Beautiful snowflakes!  -- they don't fall on any other place."

The Shining Grasses Sesshin

photo by Corwyn Miyagishima

 

The topic for our latest Boundless Way Temple sesshin, taught in our Zoom zendo by David Rynick, Roshi, Dharma Holder Alan Richardson and myself, was a story from the Record of Layman Pang.  

The Layman was sitting in his thatched cottage one day studying the sutras. "Difficult, difficult, difficult," he said; "like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree." "Easy, easy, easy," Mrs. Pang said; "like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed." "Neither difficult nor easy," their daughter Ling Zhao said; "the teachings of the Ancestors are written on the tips of the hundred shining grasses."

Indeed, this is the world we live in, full of sorrows and joys, while all the time the teachings about the Dharma, actual reality, surround us if we train ourselves to perceive them.  A Zen sesshin is one way to immerse the heart, mind and body in this way of seeing, hearing and feeling.   At a certain point in our practice life, we can find the teachings everywhere.  Sometimes it feels difficult, sometimes it feels easy.  And sometimes we recognize that those categories point us away from what is right here, always shining and ready for us.

Special thanks to the tanto (head seat) for this sesshin, Jenny Smith, and the assistant tanto Senior Assistant Teacher Michael Herzog, plus the whole sesshin officer team:  Adam Monty, Senior Assistant Teacher Rev. Paul Galvin, Rev. Corwyn Miyagishima and Assistant Teacher Rev. Ray Demers, who gave one of the evening encouragement talks.  And deep bows to everyone who attended, pictured above.  Our next sesshin will be in April -- for more information: Boundless Way Temple.