Crest of the Wave March 2023 Sesshin

Our first fully in person sesshin (Zen meditation retreat) for quite some time ended this past Monday, and here are most of the participants in a lovely group photo taken by Dharma Holder and Temple Director Michael Herzog.  Michael was also the tanto (head seat/sesshin manager) for the weekend, along with Jenny Smith, who was the registrar and assistant tanto.  The retreat was taught by David Rynick, Rōshi, Dharma Holder Alan Richardson and myself.  We focused on a new translation of a kōan that appears in both the Blue Cliff Record collection as case 24 and the Book of Equanimity collection as case 60.  It turns on the relationship between Guishan and his Dharma heir, known as Iron Grindstone Liu.  Their friendship and connection, along with our own gratitude towards our ancestors who provided us with the forms of sesshin, permeated our silent practice throughout the weekend.  Alan gave an encouragement talk about our present moment demonstration of our inheritance as the crest of a great wave of dharma, of the teachings that have been handed down to us for the last 2600 years, and the power of this was felt by all.  If you are interested in experiencing this inherited energetic force, please consider registering for one or all of our next three sesshins.  April will be on zoom only, May will be a hybrid of in person and zoom, and June will be a 2 day zoom only sesshin.  More information is here:  Boundless Way Zen Temple.  As our home page on our website says:  Welcome Home!

Masked and Unmasked

Priest and friend, masked and unmasked

 It's been a long time since I posted anything beyond news of events at the Temple.  Something about the times we've been living through have left me "taking the backward step" as Dogen says, rather than reaching out to people through this blog.  But I've made a new commitment, and, in the way of all such plans, while I am fairly sure that this post will happen, I can only hope and trust that I'll continue to post more regularly.

The photo above is from a billboard in front of our local Roman Catholic church, about a national giving campaign.   I love the look on the face of our old friend white Jesus, happily unmasked and looking over the shoulder of one of his priests.  There's something about the two of them that points us all to finding a way to our common ground as human beings in the middle of a pandemic.  I've been practicing with my reactivity to people who don't wear masks, figuring that, on some level, they don't believe in the pandemic.  While the emotional-cognitive reaction I have is based on delusion, since I don't really know why people out in public aren't wearing masks (did they forget? are they having trouble breathing?  are they angels, bodhisattvas or saints appearing among us to show us the way?) it provides an opportunity to look deeply into my own tendency to create reality out of a partial understanding of what's happening at any time, anywhere.  

Zen teachings point us to the opportunity to meet everything as fully as we possibly can, to engage directly with the world we perceive and to be suspicious of the conclusions we draw.  The guideline is to be curious about everything.  I will probably never know why the people I meet during my daily walk are masked or unmasked, but I do know that they are probably human beings like me, struggling to figure out how to live in a challenging world.  This allows a more spacious internal experience, and I am then free to greet them sincerely, with a hidden, masked smile, as another companion on the path.