Eido Frances Carney at Olympia Zen Center

Painting Gogo-an

2011-07-31T16:31:00.000-07:00

"Gogo-an" by Allyson Essen, 12 x 12 acrylic, 2011

Sunday afternoons finds us doing plein air painting at Olympia Zen Center. Allyson Essen has taken up Gogo-an as her subject and we're planning a small exhibit and sale of her Gogo-an paintings at the Ryokan event with the Port Angeles Zen Community next weekend. Any paintings not purchased there will be brought back to OZC and will be available for purchase here.

Allyson has truly captured the atmosphere of Gogo-an. If you try to paint it too strictly, you miss the point entirely. You have to paint it a little off kilter and free form to be with the loving heart of Ryokan and get at the soul of the hut.

Gogo-an is a unique architecture and just to see it creates an intimacy, a particular sentiment, a longing for solitude. It also generates joyfulness because it seems to say it has forgone all attachments to suffering. While living at Gogo-an demands great sacrifice, to draw near to the realization of one's Buddha Nature, to feel intimacy with oneself and nature, brings about great happiness. Gogo-an invites that realization.

Gogo-an in available for personal retreats and is most comfortable during summer. Very hardy individuals have done long winter retreats there. Please call Olympia Zen Center or email if you would like to stay there for personal renewal and reflection.

Urgent Prayer Request from the Apache Nation

2011-06-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Near Kobun Roshi's Stupa in Taos, NM

Southwest USA
Tribal Prayer 
Request
Friday 24 June 2011

Wallow Fire -

Special Request from the Native Brothers
and Sisters in the SW
Please forward as you see fit
Hello everybody - as you can see on the news the Wallow fire in

Northern Arizona is still uncontrollable and spreading.
The fire has destroyed everything in its path, over 1/2 million acres so
far, the largest fire in Arizona history. Please join us in a tribal prayer
to help the firefighters and all involved. Pray so the winds stop and the
rains start (without lightning please) We want to pray for the safety of
all. Ask for heavenly walls to protect our land and animals from fire. All
the choppers, manpower, planes, and bulldozers are not enough, they need our
help. We are one Nation as Natives and our traditional prayers to the
Creator as Natives can be pretty powerful; not only are our tribal lands at
stake (White Mountain & San CarlosApaches, possibly Zuni, and some Navajo
areas), but our non-native friends also need our help. Please let us all
connect our minds, hearts and our prayers across the miles and pray.
Wherever you are and whatever you have plan please stop for a few minutes
and raise your hands to the Creator to ask for help. If all of you can
forward this message across the Nations, we can reach many thru phone and
internet. Please start forwarding ASAP to reach as many as we can. Please if
your spiritual preference is not traditional - pray with us in however way
you talk to the Creator.
Thank you,
Dorothea Stevens, San Carlos Apache Nation

Function of the hermitage and the hermit

2011-06-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Gogo-an, our solitary meditation hut

On Saturday morning, we fell into discussion about the function of a hermitage and the purpose of living as a solitary in a life of prayer. I should explain that although we are called Olympia Zen Center, we are actually a hermitage, as our temple mountain name is Ryoko-an which means, Good Pond Hermitage. A hermitage is literally a small dwelling place of a hermit. The "an" at the end is the designator of whether a place of practice is a temple or a hermitage. Usually when a place is called "an" it refers to a quiet, holy place, a sacred space set aside for quietness, meditation, reflection. When a place is called "ji" as in Entsuji, it means temple, which generally refers to a place that is more like a community or cultural center where a great variety of activities take place. A temple is usually larger than a hermitage.

We refer to Olympia Zen Center as our temple although we may as well refer to it as a hermitage. As our practice evolves, we more and more reflect the meaning of hermitage because of the deep and holy atmosphere that is being created through our practice. Once in awhile we have social events, but the social is not our main interest and people don't come to satisfy their social needs but rather to answer their spiritual quest. Our interest is to provide a sacred place for respite from the turmoils of life in the fast lane, in the market place, in the hustle of corporate life. When we come together to talk, as we do on Saturday mornings, we may engage in rich laughter and lighthearted conversation, which inevitably occurs, but the continuous peace of practice has come to permeate the atmosphere and has become a guide which reminds us of the heart/mind of Zazen in all we do. In essence, when we come for practice at Ryoko-an, even as lay people we enter a hermitage and become monks and hermits in community with others.

For many who come to Zen practice, there is an inner calling to live a deep and meaningful life which must be nurtured. The hermitage is the nurturing connection that stands as a balancing force against the distractions and frivolous nature of materiality. It represents the sacred in the awakening mind so that we can sustain the heart of practice wherever we go. We essentially carry the image of the hermitage in the heart/mind. If we don't have that sacred space, or those who maintain it, that is, those who vow to live in practice, we can feel ourselves adrift in a callous and disheartening world. An imbalance is created and we have no touchstone for the mind of prayer. It's like having a city without a park.

The Sangha functions to help support us in maintaining our own practice of solitude. We can't be truly solitary without the backbone of Sangha which balances the solitary with the togetherness of community. Oddly, we can be truly solitary when the community knows where we are and wraps us in the mind of protection. Solitary practice is sacred and even in that we are never alone. If we just go off by ourselves without the Sangha knowing where we are or what we are about, we miss the true point of Sangha. That's the same as the Sangha having a gathering and not telling us. We are always a part of the whole, never separate from It. We continually negotiate our way between silence and sound, solitary and togetherness, hermitage and marketplace, intensity and lightheartedness.

And, in the interests of Buddha Mind and continuing practice and the presence of our hermitage into the future for generations to come: Ask not what your hermitage can do for you, ask what you can do for your hermitage.

The Function of a Zen Center

2011-06-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Years ago, Joko Beck Sensei spoke these words in a Dharma talk. They survived in someone's notebook, were retyped, and are now making their way in conversation as a reminder of the wisdom teachings of Joko Sensei who died on June 15, 2011.

The Function of a Zen Center

from a talk by Joko Beck Sensei

What I want to talk about today is the function of a Zen Center. In a general way we can say that it is to support practice; of course that’s true. But we have a lot of illusions about Zen Centers as we do about teachers. And one thing we tend to think is that a Zen Center is a place that should be very nice for me – in other words, it should be non-threatening (laughs). I think a good center should be quite threatening at times! It is not the function of a center to take care of your comfort or your social life. By that I don’t mean that we should not have social events – I think they’re great – but they are not the primary function of a center. A Zen Center’s function is not to provide people with social life. It is not necessarily supposed to make them feel good, and it’s not supposed to make them feel special.

A center is primarily a powerful tool to assist us in waking up. As a sangha practicing at a center, yes, we need to support each other, but the nature of that support may not be exactly the kind of support that is often seen in an office. You know, a girl’s boyfriend leaves her – “oh you poor thing! Why you know, when my boyfriend left me….” (laughter) and off we go! There is a “we’re all victims in this together” attitude which is not support. The more we practice, well, the less of that fake kind of support is what is met at a good center.

It should be a place then that gives us support, yes, but also challenges us, and in that sense we’re all teachers of one another. Some of the most powerful teachings at a Zen Center have nothing to do with the teacher; sometimes the teaching is from another person, coming directly from that person’s experience. To be honest, to be aware of what real practice is, and to share it with others – this is what makes a center a different kind of place to be.

Sadly enough, Zen Centers tend to be somewhat ego-perpetuating: we want them to be bigger, better, more important that the other guy’s center, certainly! There are very subtle ego currents that can circulate in a Zen Center, as in any other organization if we are not especially careful.

And some thoughts on the sangha: one point is crucial – the longer people have been practicing, the less important the outward role should be. And for that reason I don’t want people who have been practicing for a long time to assume that they are always going to be monitors – sometimes, yes, of course, but the more senior the student, the more I want their influence to be felt through their practice, and through their willingness not to seem important; and to let the newer students begin to assume some of the outwardly conspicuous positions.

The mark of senior students is to be working when no one else knows they’re there. I see people working in the Center office at odd hours; sometimes I come back from shopping and they’re working hard. That’s a sign of mature practice, getting the job done and keeping our own importance out of it. Personally, I’m trying to go that way by downplaying the tremendous importance given to the role of teacher. And I want this to apply to all of the older students. So if you feel you are not getting to do what you usually do, GREAT! Then you have something nice to practice with.

Another mark of a good Zen Center is that it shakes all of us up; it is not the way we want it in our pictures. So, in our upset, what we get back to then, is the basis of practice – which is, as near as I can put it into words, to assume more and more an observer stance in our life.

By that I mean that everything in our life will continue to take place – the problems, the emotional difficulties, the pleasant days, the ups and downs, which are what human life consists of – but it is the ability not to get caught – to enjoy what is happening when it is “good”, to have equanimity when it is “bad” and to observe it all, which is the continuing work.

The mark of maturing practice is simply the ability, more and more and more, to notice what is going on and not be caught by it. Easy to talk about, but probably 15 to 20 years of hard practice are needed before we are like that a good bit of the time.

And that is not the final stage. When there is no object, no person, no event, no thing in the world with which I identify, by which I’m caught – when there is no object and no observing self – then there is a flip into what, if you wish to give it a name, is the enlightened state.

I have never known anyone whom I felt had accomplished that, but some persons have done well and, if you are lucky enough to encounter such a person, you sense the difference in one who is not caught by life (needing it, craving something or someone, insisting that life be a certain way) – You notice that such a person is at peace and free.

These are the people who are a healing and beneficent influence on any life that is near them. They don’t have to do anything – the healing comes from the way they are. That transformation is what we want from our practice. We are more than lucky to have such an opportunity in this lifetime. Let’s take advantage of it and do our very best.

Charlotte Joko Beck

2011-06-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Charlotte Joko Beck died peacefully this morning, June 15, 2011, at 7:30 a.m. She was a deeply influential American Zen teacher whose writings touched and supported hundreds and hundreds of people around the world.

She received Dharma Transmission from Taizan Maezumi Roshi and then founded the San Diego Zen Center where she served as Head Teacher from 1983 until 2006.

Her two well known books are Everyday Zen: Love and Work; and, Nothing Special: Living Zen.

This is a brief excerpt from Everyday Zen:
"Now, sometimes people say, "It's too hard." But in fact, not practicing at all is much, much harder. We really fool ourselves when we don't practice. So please be very clear with yourself about what must be done to end suffering; and also that by practicing with such courage we can enable others to have no fear, no suffering. We do it by the most intelligent, patient, persistent practice. We never do it by our complaints, our bitterness and anger; and I don't mean to suppress them. If they come up, notice them; you don't have to suppress them. Then immediately go back into your breath, your body, into just sitting. And when we do that there is not one of us who, by the end of the sesshin, will not find the rewards that real sitting gives. Let's sit like that."

Qualities of a Spiritual Friend

2011-06-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

In the past two weeks we've been talking about the Qualities of a Spiritual Friend. The Buddha speaks of these after Ananda asks him about friendship. Ananda says that he feels the importance of a spiritual friend is about fifty percent of practice and the Buddha corrects him and says, "No Ananda, it's one hundred percent." The Buddha goes on to name those qualities which a spiritual friend practices to bring about and express connectivity.

In our discussion in the Zendo, I said that I thought these qualities are at the base of all relationships - sangha, teacher-student, parental, spousal, sibling, work, professional - and they indicate, just as the precepts do, the spiritual-ethical qualities we cultivate in the Bodhisattva path. It's never easy to be a true friend, but it would be foolish not to try. Perhaps the main qualities that we cultivate in this practice are the virtues of generosity, honesty, and loyalty. And, there are other qualities that we can see that arise in our interactions. This list is a fine subject for the journal, exploring the many depths of each quality and examining how we are doing in our spiritual expression and quality of life.

Here are the Seven Qualities of a Spiritual Friend which the Buddha expresses as most important:
A friend gives what is difficult to give.
A friend does what is difficult to do.
A friend patiently endures what is difficult to endure.
A friend reveals her or his own secrets
A friend keeps another's secrets.
A friend does not abandon another in misfortune.
A friend does not despise another because of their loss.

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

For the past several years, on Memorial Day or Veterans Day I've posted poems by my brother John Carney who is a Vietnam vet. John writes poems in tribute to the lives of those who serve their country. This poem is a new one for Memorial Day 2011.

THEY WENT

Many have given their lives,

Because they were called to war,

Often lonely and afraid,

On some distant foreign shore.

We tend to recall the names,

Of big battles that were waged,

Such dubious distinction,

Where horror and conflict raged.

But many comrades too,

Were lost along the way.

A little known town or hamlet,

In some empty field they lay.

Who has heard of Samawah.

Outpost Harry, or Ong Thanh,

Kesternich, Wanat,

Or maybe Ap Tinh Anh?

Some fell from the air or were lost,

Manning posts on a ship.

Some were just driving trucks

On a simple supply trip.

Others were struck down by fever,

Or run over by a tank or jeep.

There's a lot of different reasons,

For how they met their sleep.

Not knowing what the price would be,

Or the cost they'd have to pay,

They packed their bags and kissed goodbye,

And we sent them on their way.

So on this day of remembrance,

It's not how or where they fell,

Not about huge battles,

Or valiant tales to tell,

Nor any kind of discussion,

Of the reason they were sent.

We honor them in thought or prayer,

For the simple fact they went.

John Carney - 2011

Sleeping Through the Alarm Bells

2011-05-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Bell at Felsentor, Switzerland

This Letter to the Editor in the THE OLYMPIAN on May 15, 2011, was written by Barbara Monda and is reprinted here without permission, but the message is urgent and I feel hardly anyone could object to furthering this call to action.

I plan to set my alarm for 6 p.m. every Sunday evening and will ring our 'Zendo wake-up bell' for five minutes joining Barbara Monda. This seems like a simple thing to do, but imagine if we all did it, what actions and demands on our corporations and governments we might wake to.

   "Today in global news: "Global mercury emissions could grow by 25 percent by 2020."
   "That's certainly a threat to all life as China, India and South America enter the race for energy consumption and pollution once monopolized by the industrial U.S. and Europe.
   "Closer to home, there is discovered a huge level of dioxins in Budd Inlet. It is not disputable that these kill.
   "According to the U.N., world population will reach 7 billion to 10 billion by 2050. This is beyond the earth's ability to sustain a healthy biosphere.
   "Everyone knows dioxins and mercury kill. Everyone knows people are sick or have died because of impure water, tainted food, airborne toxins, radiation, new germs and viruses developing because of weakened hosts.
   "Now add to that the industrial family of mega-corporations working very effectively to kill environmental controls and protections. The TV is full of their million dollar ads to convince a dying people of how safe they are without government interference.
   "The number one threat to human population on this planet is humans populating and the polluting effect of their existence, enhanced or caused by monetary greed and thirst for power.
   "The consequences are so frightening, we avoid its reality. We hide, get distracted. We sleep through all the alarm bells.
   "I propose we wake up. Every Sunday at 6 p.m., I will ring earth bells to alarm us to the threats of ecological disaster.
   "Join me. Ring loud."
   Barbara Monda, Olympia

The days run away...

2011-05-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

...like wild horses over the hills. This, I do believe, is the title of a poetry book by Charles Bukowski. The days do run away is how it seems. Perhaps this is preferred than to sit around bored and wishing for someone to show up to make something happen. But the days do run by and it often feels as though nothing gets done, nothing gets accomplished. Bukowski says that that is how it should be. His gravestone says, "Don't Try." In a letter to John William Corrington in 1963, Bukowski wrote that someone asked him about his creative process and he answered, "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important; not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."

Michael Long will enjoy that quote.

I'll wait for the right words of prayer and poetry to write to hang in the garden tomorrow for the Day of Prayer and Healing for Japan. Meantime, there's the sun today, and the sky is high up and deep blue. This day too will run away...

Maylie Scott

2011-05-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago on May 10th, Maylie Scott, a Zen teacher at Arcata Zen Center, died. Alan Senauke who was her Dharma brother and friend, inherited responsibility for her teaching in Arcata. He writes in his blog today at Clear View Blog about Maylie. Maylie had a particular interpretation of the Metta Sutta and I print it here while remembering her on the anniversary of her death.

"Maylie reworked the Metta Sutta, the Buddhas discourse on lovingkindness into a prayer, blending her own words with the Buddha’s. The unique point of this prayer emerges in the next to last line: “…our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice.” The notion of “justice” is not commonly found in the Buddha’s teachings, and some people are uncomfortable with it. The Buddha often spoke of “just” or correct, in balance. The Western image of Justice is a blindfolded woman, impartial even to her own preferences, holding a scale. Justice is about balance, finding the proper balance in our lives and in our society. Maylie was passionate about social justice without turning away from her adversaries, without seeing them as less than fully human. And in her steady everyday devotion to zazen, she was again and again finding balance, finding what was just in her own life."— Hozan Alan Senauki

Metta Prayer

May I be well, loving, and peaceful. May all beings be well, loving, and peaceful.

May I be at ease in my body, feeling the ground beneath my seat and feet, letting my back be long and straight, enjoying breath as it rises and falls and rises.

May I know and be intimate with body mind, whatever its feeling or mood, calm or agitated, tired or energetic, irritated or friendly.

Breathing in and out, in and out, aware, moment by moment, of the risings and passings.

May I be attentive and gentle towards my own discomfort and suffering.

May I be attentive and grateful for my own joy and well-being.

May I move towards others freely and with openness.

May I receive others with sympathy and understanding.

May I move towards the suffering of others with peaceful and attentive confidence.

May I recall the Bodhisattva of compassion; her 1,000 hands, her instant readiness for action, each hand with an eye in it, the instinctive knowing what to do.

May I continually cultivate the ground of peace for myself and others and persist, mindful and dedicated to this work, independent of results.

May I know that my peace and the world’s peace are not separate; that our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice.

May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful.

— Maylie Scott, 1994

All things are temporary

2011-05-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

Days, words, events, even blogs are temporary. Being away from blogs is temporary. The weeks in preparation for David Loy's appearance for the 10th Annual Ryokan Lecture have been busy as I've eased back into daily life in Olympia. Or did I come crashing in? Believe me, the sense of light is an extraordinary change when someone is attuned to light, landscape, and color. We had the coldest April on record and perhaps not the wettest, but it was plenty wet and grey, gray. Payne's gray. We are still getting only an occasional brilliant sky which is followed by another long period of falling water.

Loy began the workshop on Saturday by telling us about the origin of his writing the book, LACK AND TRANSCENDENCE and about the trilogy of his books, the connected unfolding and exploration of his basic thesis in Buddhist studies. From there, we moved into a day of dialogue with him that flowed from the nature of the Self/No-Self to the work of the Self/No-Self in the social context. From there we discussed the importance of story in the human experience and then ended with specific questions about the book LACK AND TRANSCENDENCE which the Sangha had taken up for its annual study. For me, I took not one note but listened intently allowing the teaching to wash through me as the Dharma soaks into the blood. I apologize that I have not one quote to give you which you may have been hoping for, to give you the feeling that you were there. You can find Loy's work online and make your way to the text of his lecture on Healing Ecology at David Loy's website.

So, it was a rich exchange over this weekend. Now we go forward with daily life, Zazen each morning, and preparing for A DAY OF PRAYER AND HEALING FOR JAPAN on May 21. More thoughts to come as I begin to gather myself together and still transition into life in the north.

I think I'll include a very recent poem which speaks to grief, art, expression, loss, the human condition.

“Trodden Weed”

The title does not reveal the power of the man’s boots,

his determined stride across a deserted, colorless plain

somber snowy hill in the distance. No sky. Just the hem

of a black coat brushed at the top of the painting.

This is all Wyeth gives us

except for the single weed beneath the right forward foot

that must be searched out on the landscape as it disappears

in the tangled wintry meadow. It’s a nameless

thing, the weed, snuffed out by capricious footfall

a juxtaposition of place and time

of purpose and what is easily broken. We’d almost expect

to see spurs, the buckle fed through a notch on the bridge

of the ankle. These large feet suggest lungs that heave

with the effort of movement. And yet, and yet

we know nothing of this man

where he is going or coming from. What of his hands?

Does he carry a rifle? Is there anger in his stride?

Is he walking toward rescue, vengeance, or is it escape?

Is he sure of himself, or turning from sorrow?

Is he moving toward someone he loves?

It’s as if these boots that can tread on fields with ease

are shielding a wound, a grief so deep

that someone can’t survive except by edge and sway.

A loss that eats the heart from inside out

freezes tears in their welling.

Harada Shodo Roshi's report of his travels to Sendai

2011-04-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,
Harada Shodo Roshi of Sogenji Temple in Japan wrote a report of his visit to the tsunami devastation area in Sendai. The report is long but so moving and informative that I've decided to post it here in full and also on my own blog.
Sogenji is a Rinzai temple in Okayama, and during my time living in that city, I visited and sat Zazen many times at this temple. When I returned to Olympia, a student of Harada Roshi came to stay with me, and Roshi visited my apartment in Olympia with some of his students when they came to pick her up. Harada Roshi has a temple on Whidbey Island, WA where he comes to visit for sesshin several times a year.
Thank you.
Eido in Gassho

> FROM SHODO HARADA ROSHI ABOUT HIS VISIT TO SENDAI
> APRIL 11, 2011
>
> To all of the One Drop Zendos around the world, to the many people
> concerned, and to those with whom we have a karmic affiliation, I
> am writing to you about the recent great earthquake and tsunami
> tragedy. From their most profound mind, everyone has worried about
> us and supported the disaster relief. I deeply thank you from the
> bottom of my heart.
>
> On the eleventh of March at 2:46 in the afternoon, a huge
> earthquake occurred in Japan, at a magnitude of 9.3. As a result,
> there are presently 12787 people known to be dead and 14991 still
> missing, making approximately 28000 who have died. In addition,
> 95232 people are living as evacuees.
>
> Almost one month has passed since then. On the 8th of April we
> celebrated the Buddha’s birthday with a flower festival. At that
> time, a gatha for the day was given :
>
> The gigantic powerful tsunami overturns the heavens and the earth
> 28000 enter the Buddha's realm
> Gathered on Buddha's Birthday here and now, we honor his birth,
> While the brilliant colored cherry blossoms (the souls of the
> 28000) blow petals and perfume the pond (receiving the Buddha’s light)
>
> The tsunami was over 38 meters high. A t 2: 46 pm the earthquake's
> shook, and about thirty minutes later, from Ibaragi prefecture all
> the way down the whole coast - Iwate, Ibaragi, Fukushima, Miyagi,
> Chiba - all of the prefectures bordering on that part of the
> Pacific coast were poured down upon by the tsunami.
>
> It was a huge earthquake, and countless buildings were destroyed
> immeditaly. And then those weakened by the quake were hit by a
> huge tsunami, pushing them all over with its power.
>
> The area affected is called the Sanriku Coast, and has long been a
> place where this kind of disaster happens, again and again. In each
> disaster, without exception, many have died and it is known that
> this is the natural way of life there.
>
> 28,000 people. Perhaps many died in the instant of the earthquake,
> but most were killed by te towering wave that followed. Even now
> there are still so many missing, pulled into the ocean by the
> undertow, all tangled up with the garbage and debris. Because even
> the ocean divers cannot get to the bottom, they have not able to
> find the missing bodies. Because the diver’s lives are at risk
> diving in this area, it will probably take many years for them to
> be uncovered,
>
> Today on the Buddha’s birthday we celebrate with a flower festival.
> But for the 28,000 who died, their souls have returned to the
> Buddha’s source, gathered at his knees, gone to the where he is. We
> must think of them as being welcomed there.
>
> In Sogenji’s garden right now, the weeping cherry tree is bright
> and in full bloom. We can see the 28,000 in each one of the
> flowers, coming nto being in each of the petals, dancing on the
> wind and drifting down onto the lake with their bright colors and
> then fading away.
>
> On the 11th day of March we felt nothing at all in Okayama. We only
> had the news about the tsunami and the earthquake. We tried and
> tried to call the temple and the people we know there, but there
> was no way to contact them. Eerily, this was the same experience
> we had during the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, although then we could
> already feel the hugeness of what happened. We tried everything,
> and finally cell phones and email were possible. Although we could
> not communicate with them directly, we were able to leave
> messages. As time passed we heard more and more about the
> situation from the people themselves, but no one, including those
> on site knew what was actually happening.
>
> The next day, Saturday the 12th of March, we contacted many
> companies and businesses in Okayama. Even though it was the first
> day of Osesshin, the whole sangha went to the city to do takuhatsu,
> gathering funds for earthquake relief. It was only the first day
> after the earthquake, and so no one - all of the newspapers , all
> of the systems and relief organizations - had their windows open
> for receiving donations yet. We took the money we raised
> immediately to the Red Cross who was ready to recieve donations.
> Soon, the news of the horrendous depth of the disaster started to
> become known.
>
> On the television, we saw cities buring and people reaching for
> heavenly help. On the internet, the reality of the tsunami became
> clear as more and more photographs were posted. All of this could
> be found on the screen and in the newspapers.
>
>
> In Sendai there is a priest and a temple with which we have strong
> kharmic affiliation. He has always sent samugi, sent rice, sent
> straw sandals for takuhatsu for the people training at Sogenji.
> Many, many times he has sent these things for the people at Sogenji.
>
> In some way, in any way possible, I wanted to go there and support
> him. The Shinkansen (high speed train) was not yet running up
> there, the local trains were irregular and frequently
> nonexistent ,and all the roads had been destroyed and were still
> impassable. Anywhere near the site of the disaster it was
> impossible to enter, except for the national guard and other
> emergency groups in their special vehicles. Regular vehicles could
> not get there.
>
> On the 27th day of March, the roads finally were opened and it was
> by chance that it was the end of the month so this was the
> opportunity I had, using every possible means we were able to go to
> Sendai and to the Fukushima area. Luckily, there was an all night
> highway bus going all the way there after changing from a train to
> Kyoto, and we were able to get seats.
>
> But there was already radiation leaking from the damaged power
> plants, it was known to be a very risky situation. Considering the
> one chance out of a thousand in which something could go wrong, it
> was decided to not take younger people training at Sogenji there,
> so Ekei Zenji and Domyo Koji were taken to represent the sangha.
> We entered by going to Kyoto and then getting on the all night bus
> that would go straight there. This was the chance we were given and
> so we took all kinds of food supplies, and dishes to eat at meals.
> They had told us on the phone that they could only make cooked
> rice for us, and that they had nothing to eat with it. "We have no
> supplies or fuel, and so please bring your own food,” they told us.
> “we want to go visiting here and there, so for the children and the
> various evacuees, please, as much as possible, please bring sweets
> and simple foods that they can eat without any need for preparation."
>
> People at Sogenji worked as hard as they could to get the
> breadbaking done and get as many loaves as bread made as possible
> before our departure.It was very insufficient, only a little
> something in a time of big need but our time had been limited.
> People gathered candy to bring as well. Since there is very little
> water available and they cannot brush their teeth, they also asked
> for a gum that cleans your teeth when you chew it. We also packed
> many many ,many hot packs, since it was still very cold. As we
> didn' t know what we would encounter, we went in boots, warm
> clothes, and samugi.
>
> In the morning we arrived in Sendai, a large city in the area of
> Tohoku . There were many buildings which were still standing erect
> and appeared to have no damage, that there was a strange weird
> feeling. After our bus came into Sendai station, the priest who
> was supposed to pick us up arrived and we put our packages into his
> car. As we drove, the priest, told us that although the buildings
> look so normal, inside all the offices were completely turned
> upside down and a mess. Not one single place that can still be
> used inside the buildings. He told us this.
>
> As we drove out of the center of town, there were cars in huge
> traffic jams with endless lines. The priest told us that they were
> lines of people waiting to buy gas, they were all waiting in lines
> of one or two kilos length. There was no gasoline and everyone was
> waiting for the tank lorry to come but the tank lorry did not have
> enough gas to bring gas to every gas station and so it was putting
> a little at each place and in a very short while the few cars that
> received the gas were given gas and it was gone.
>
> In this situation people could only leave their cars and go home
> until the next day, but people being so desperate to get gas would
> leave it there and walk home and come back the next day,
> everywhere, at every gas station there was a huge line waiting.
> Finally, we began seeing rows of destroyed homes. Everywhere that
> the Shinkansen tracks usually passed through was full of bent and
> broken poles, and it was clear that it was still very very far from
> being able to be back into use.
>
> Zennoji Temple was located about twenty minutes from the station.
> Zennoji san's temple also had been seriously damaged. There were
> 1600 graves in the cemetery and every last gravestone had toppled
> over. It was a hideous scene. The hondo was just barely being
> covered by its roof. There was continually a small earthquake
> every thirty minutes or so. He said that they could not even use
> the hondo yet. In the great stone lanterns there were big cracks
> and all of the rocks were moving around, having been loosened by
> the disasters.
>
> Even so ,the buildings were somehow still standing and had been
> protected even in such a severe disaster and that was already a
> great good fortune, he said. They already had their life lines of
> electricity and water reconnected from a few day before and they
> were still without gas. They apologized for not being able to make
> a bath for us
>
> His wife came out and greeted us saying she had wanted to get our
> bellies readied and had prepared some rice balls. Eating them with
> instant miso soup, we had breakfast. That day when we arrived we
> were first to go around and look at the area, and take around the
> things we had brought and then the next day from the morning we
> would work on the cleaning up of the Zennoji temple and house. This
> was the plan.
>
> According to plan we went around in Zennoji's car with his son
> driving. We drove and went around the city, to near the area of the
> dunes and the coast . Zennoji's temple is near the mountains so it
> has a little less damage because of its elevated location. Right in
> front of us where the coastal area was it was so extreme, you could
> see where a two meter tsunami had washed away everything, cars were
> jammed together at our feet, and houses were destroyed and upside
> down, and everything in the houses had been washed away by the
> water, and so inconceivably a car was hanging from a telephone
> line! How could his have happened? It was just so unfathomable,
> the enormous power of the way of Nature left us in greatest awe.
>
> The cars that were all pushed together were bumped and ruined and
> full of cracks and scratches, they were upside down, and sideways
> and there was not a single car that was in its usual condition. all
> of those cars had also crashed into houses and crushed the houses
> in their collisions. It was truly full of violently ruined houses,
> broken down and fallen apart in a hideous way, unimaginable...the
> rooves of these houses in front of our eyes.
>
> First we went to the temple of Furinji, a temple related to
> Zennoji's wife. The temple of Furinji was in the very middle of the
> worst hit part of the earthquake and tsunami, but the temple itself
> is just a bit above the worst -hit area. Although it is in that
> very area it mysteriously did not suffer any damage whatsoever. The
> water of the tsunami washed up right to the main gate of the
> temple. and just because of its being built on slightly higher
> ground it was not affected by the Wave. All of the houses up to
> main gate were completely and totally destroyed.
>
> The temple priest had welcomed 200 people to live there, and every
> day was making their food. At a time like this the extensive size
> of a temple grounds was well put to use, the temple was able to
> welcome everyone in the area, to serve them and to protect them
> within the temple grounds. It had become a very important and
> precious place. In this area and in these areas and seeing all the
> various conditions, we continued to drive around in the car.
>
> We had seen many photos of the earthquake's damage but it was no
> longer like in a photo where it is just like scenery, when you see
> the actuality in front of your very eyes,it is actually possible to
> feel the incomprehensible power of the water that came over
> everything, and to taste the terror that the rapidly approaching
> huge water brought. Here there had been gas tanks which had
> exploded and caught fire, one after the next. It was said that the
> gas had burned there for three days and three nights continually.
> There were cars wrapped around poles, convenience stores completely
> destroyed, and many hospitals and clinics, all wrecked beyond use.
>
> There had been a huge and very old moat here, a beautiful moat,
> built by the Feudal Lord Date Masamune, it was circling all around
> this city of Sendai and used as a canal as well, a canal that was
> used for transporting goods in the olden days. This beautiful canal
> had been the pride of the people of Sendai, and was now filled to
> the top with all kinds of broken debris and heaps of rubble, it was
> impossible to tell if it was a river or a garbage dump.
>
> Zennoji san said, with a sigh, that for him this Teizan Canal, this
> Teizan Garden Park, had been his favorite and he had always been so
> proud to show it to visitors, now it made him so sad.
>
> Going past Teizan Park, this park that was built to commemorate the
> feudal lord Masamune Date, we came out on the other side of the
> hills at a place called Shirahama, at the mouth of the Matsushima
> Bay. There are seven small islands there, because this Matsushima
> Bay area is a place famous for its great beauty, each and every
> small island has a temple, seven of them all together,and one of
> them was the temple of a friend of Zennoji, the Doshoji Temple. We
> went there to visit next. This is the furthest small island and
> the water that had swept over it had destroyed its entire small
> town of 3000 people, all in the one instant that the wave had
> poured over them.
>
> The head priest of that temple ran a kindergarten at the temple.
> Taking the children of the kindergarten they had run up to the top
> of the mountain and been saved. But everything else just up to the
> top of that mountain had been swallowed up and covered in the
> tsunami's waters, buried. No matter how hard he had looked for a
> path down from the top he had not been able to find one. Everything
> had been destroyed, and strewn everywhere. They had all eventually
> been rescued from the top of the mountain by a helicopter of the
> national guard. The helicopter lifted all of them out, one after
> the next they had been lifted up and rescued by the helicopter and
> this had been played again and again on televisions all over Japan.
> And it had been this temple where that had happened.
>
> At this same temple they had just finished rebuilding their hondo
> into a new and different hondo, this huge work had all just
> recently been completed and now having entered this new year, they
> were planning the opening ceremony for this new hondo on the 16th
> of March. They had just been making the preparations for the
> celebration day. This brand new hondo which had never been used
> once was now completely buried in mud. It was truly a miserable
> scene of sadness after all of the huge efforts which had been made--
> then having them come to this result.
>
> This temple's young successor to be iscurrently in the training
> monastery of the famous Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto. He has been
> given time to come back to his parent's temple and was there
> digging the mud out from under the porches around the new hondo. He
> was ripping off he new floors to get in beneath the building, we
> watched as he was doing this. We made an offering there to the
> temple's founder, and departed. The water had not receded from that
> area yet, and the water level had gone up 75 centimeters since the
> water that had risen there was not receding. Even after several
> weeks the salt water remained, just as it had risen there.
>
> In front of our faces we could see how that the whole town that
> was left there was nothing but a field of mud. Passing hill after
> hill of debris we continued past the seven islands, went over the
> mountain and came out at Shiogama, the next town.
>
> Here in Shiogama there were homes that had no one had yet entered
> into so they had not been searched yet for missing people. The
> national guard had not reached there yet . This town of Shiogama
> when looked down upon from the hill above, looked perfectly regular
> and as if there had been no damage nor disaster there. But when we
> entered the town we could see what a huge amount of damage there
> had actually been there.
>
> Here there had not been a huge powerful tidal wave thrust but
> little by the whole shopping street had filled up with water and
> been ruined, all of the things for sale there were unusable
> garbage now, the houses had all been soaked through with salt water
> and would have to be completely rebuilt. They were useless.
>
> On a slightly raised area there stood the temple of Toeiji san. We
> called on them next. There had been a lot of damage at their temple
> due to the earthquake. In front of our eyes the line between Sendai
> and the neighboring town's houses was clear, the JR railroad had
> passed through there but the whole area had been destroyed. The
> Seashore Line had run there and the hotels along the seacoast had
> been serviced from there, with Zuiganji as such a famous landmark,
> it had been a huge tourist area. Because of that, there were many
> hotels for the visitors, and since there was a large damlike
> structure for protection, it appeared at first glance that there
> had been little damage.
>
> However, now there was no one coming to call at all. The hot
> springs hotels had opened their baths to all of the evacuees and
> other victims of the disaster. All of the people in the area were
> very thankful and so glad to have a place to bathe. Passing by the
> typical shopping street area we approached Matsushima's Zuiganji
> temple. The Zuiganji Roshi was not there, but we had brought Ekei
> Zenji on this trip especially because he had a kharmic affiliation
> with the Zuiganji temple. Zuiganji's former Roshi, Master Hirano
> Sojo, was the good friend of Ekei's earlier teacher in Mexico, Eijo
> Takata, and Ekei had come to Sogenji in the first place because of
> that kharmic affiliation. For this reason he wanted to go to the
> grave of Master Sojo Hirano to pray and since the Hondo was
> currently under construction we chanted sutras in the Shoiin
> instead. Here they gave us hot udon noodles which they had prepared
> and Zennoji san who works at Zuiganji as one of the top
> administrators, so it is like his own place, was very kind and
> hospitable to us. Here at Zuiganji, ever since the earthquake
> happened, 385 people were being given a place to live, there were
> 16 monks who cooked and took care of them.
>
> At Zuiganji , the area of Matsushima was a most beautiful place,
> furthest in the harbor,with many small islands which were visible
> from there and they had each absorbed the power of the tidal wave
> and had therefore saved Zuiganji from the strongest thrust of the
> tidal wave. There had been no touch of a wave there, there was only
> a slight damage to some buildings but in spite of it having been
> facing the ocean it had not been touched by a drop of water.
>
> Of course the area in front of the main gate had been sunk into
> deep water and there was much damage there, nevertheless the people
> of the area all called this the oasis of the area.
>
>
>
> WE then went again in the car and went to the place where the damage
> was greatest of all, the Nobiru area, on the other side of Ichigahama.
> Tthe area of Ichigahama was also terribly damaged, and on its other
> side, is Nobiru. At the very entrance of Matsushima Port. Going there
> we were simply astonished at the intense severity of the damage. There
> were no railroad tracks left anywhere. The train was probably stopped
> here, we could not be certain how that was, but every last thing was
> pushed completely up against the mountain there, all fallen over in
> every direction. The station master's building was pushed against what
> must have been the platform and on top of the roof there was a car.
> This was done by the vigorous pushing power of the tsunami. The very
> beautiful ancient pine tree boulevard there, its hundreds of huge pine
> trees had been uprooted by the tsunami, by its Sheer pressure and were
> all laid root side up, side by side in the same direction. It was as
> if they had each been thrown down and been placed there upside down in
> rows. Seeing this we could feel the awesome and terrifying huge power
> of Great Nature.
>
> The evacuation place where many people had run to after the
> earthquake,the school's gymnasium, had been completely pushed along
> and flowed away in the tidal waves' wake. There was a Soto Sect temple
> there which is now nothing but rubble. There are the ruins but the
> temple's hondo's roof is two hundred meters away in a river, where it
> still remains. All of the gravestones of the temple's graveyard are
> buried in rubble and debris.
>
> If you compare this to the lack of damage to the temple of Zuiganji of
> Matsushima, here there was a great swirling whirlpooling affect that
> sandwiched things into its path and damaged them completely. So many
> people and things simply disappeared here and are gone.The degree of
> damage and injury to things is so great it still Has not even been
> touched by anyone. It is from now that the various support groups and
> crews will begin to enter this area.
>
> Shorinji is a temple nearby here, the abbot was not there. This is
> where the National Guard is staying while it works in this area. This
> is the last temple where we visited. Since there are still bodies
> floating and priests came even from as far as Nanzenji Temple in
> Kyoto,from there as well priest/ were helping with the many bodies
> that were in the water that were being brought ashore. The crematories
> having been damaged, there was no where to cremate the bodies, and so
> they had to make the open land into graves by digging into the vacant
> lots and burying many bodies there. To perform the ceremonies for
> these burials the priests were all going here and there to do the
> group funerals.
>
> We chanted and placed our offerings at the place of the founder, at
> this temple there were still one hundred evacuees living. They were
> eating living and sleeping there and we gave them all of our bread and
> other supplies that we had brought along. There had been three
> hundred evacuees but as the public support came in, it became
> possible to
> move them .
>
> So many bodies were floating in the ocean still, they were raising
> them out and doing whatever they could, but even if they wanted to
> cremate them, it was not possible without any fuel for the fire or any
> electricity available, it s truly a very pitiful finishing up of a
> life. At present more than 12000 people have been verified as dead,
> and there are 16000 people still not accounted for, for these 28000
> people every possible effort is being made. There are so many cars,
> houses and businesses, and still no lumber available for rebuilding.
> In only Ibaraki prefecture alone 14600 cars were lost. In large and
> medium ships, 2000 of them are missing and the smaller boats missing
> are countless.
>
>
> Sendai airport was also poured down upon by the tsunami and there
> were 50 airplanes lost. The National Guard Base was also hit by the
> tsunami and everything there is gone. To just look around and see it
> like this makes one so miserable from the most profound place within,
> feeling exhausted, I returned to Zennoji. That night another
> earthquake of magnitude 6.5 came, every day again and again many times
> a day the earthquakes continuously come, people have become numb to
> them. In their mind the endless lack of feeling settled in any way,
> this is in every person's state of mind at this time.
>
> In this way we came to see how any resolution of this will be very
> far from now.
>
>
> And not only these myriad challenges, but that which is most feared
> by people all over the planet, in the neighboring prefecture of
> Fukushima is the damage done to the nuclear power plant there.
>
> In the whole area around it, the radiation has been spreading, in
> the air, in the things growing there, the vegetables raised there,
> all of the things nearby are being found to have high levels of
> radiation. In
> this area of Fukushima, broccoli, spinach, and other vegetables ,
> grown close to and usually sent to Tokyo these are the liveilhood
> of the people of this area and now they are forbidden to be eaten.
>
> Now is the usual time for planting the next rice crop, it is being
> forbidden by the government in this area and in the tap water, the
> pollution is all mixed in so just any water can not be drunk
> carelessly. Of course even if the water which is below the safe
> radiation standard is drunk, the results will not happen all at
> once, but, no one really knows what kind of bad affects will be
> lingering, and as long as there is a standard measure above which
> one should not partake of these foods, it will most likely be
> impurities that will remain in our body, and for this reason the
> tap water, the harvested vegetables, the seaweeds, all of these
> need to be checked thoroughly. When we see this we have to ask, why
> was there a nuclear reactor built
> here?
>
> It is impossible not to wonder about this.
>
> This is how it makes you feel. If you look closely at the past
> history of the area, in this area of the Sanriku Coast there have
> always been earthquakes, there are records from many eras, in the
> Meiji era, in 1896 there was the Great Sanriku Earthquake, on June
> 15th, and of course before then there were also earthquakes. In the
> Chile Great Earthquake a tidal wave of 5. 5 meters struck here as
> well. And at
> that time there was also a great amount of damage.
>
> And not only in the Meiji but in the Showa era as well, in 1933, on
> the 3rd of March, there was also a Great Sanriku Earthquake.In
> Iwate prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima prefecture,
> there were great amounts of damage. At that time a tidal wave of
> more than 30 meters also came, though in this time's earthquake
> there were many more people that died, but while even having had so
> much experience with this up until now, the experience of the past
> was not given life to, it has to be said.
>
> There was a famous earthquake in Tokyo , the Great Earthquake of
> Kanto, this great earthquake was really beyond anything usual, in
> its casualties, it happened in 1923, on September first, and when it
> happened 15000 died in Tokyo and 33000 in the neighboring
> prefecture.This was a huge and isolated case but in this current
> area there had already been so many big earthquakes. From the
> history of the year 869 on the ninth of July there was also
> recorded a huge earthquake but there were not so many people then
> so the casualites were many fewer, while 28000 lives were taken in
> this recent earthquake. In this area there are always tsunami
> shelters, an ongoing awareness of this possibility is constant, and
> people are always marking poles with a line to where the last
> tidal wave had risen, so many stories of past tidal waves and there
> were thirty minutes from earthquake to tidal wave, so why did not
> more people escape from it?
>
>
> During that time between the earthquake and the tidal wave, a 24
> year old woman announcer said on air over and over again " a
> tsunami is coming, run to somewhere higher, a tsunami is coming,
> run to somewhere higher" she said it continuously for everyone to
> hear, and she was then also swallowed by the tsunami.Those who
> heard this and ran to a higher ground were huge in number. They
> knew just where to go, and what to do, but the person who gave
> the announcement died in the tsunami for doing that. The police
> and firepeople were all helped thanks to her doing that, but many
> others who simply wanted to guard their food, possessions and
> places did not heed her warning and 28000 lives were lost. Isn't
> there some indulgent point there hat needs looking at carefully,
> This and the nuclear power plant being built in such a location, a
> plant which is still pouring radiation into the Pacific Ocean,
> there are so many points that must be seriously returned to and
> reviewed carefully here.
>
> There are 19 of these nuclear power plants in Japan all together.
> 19 of them now and above and beyond those already built that there
> are many more planned to be built on already acquired land but it
> is because of this accident that no one in the country wants
> these plants to happen now, and this nuclear power plant In
> Fukushima will no longer continue to function.
>
> Today all over the whole world, the biggest problem is this, the
> earthquake and tsunami's challenges will be taken care o, but the
> results of this nuclear power plant will not go away, this is why
> it is such a greatly terrifying matter for many , because it is
> unknown. Of course those at the site are working as hard as they
> can and doing everything possible, and the Navy and specialists on
> nuclear power plants are coming in from Japan and even from France
> and trying to help and support them, desperately and steadily.
>
> Japan is a long narrow country so from Fukushima to Okayama and
> Western Japan it appears to be a far distance but the winds change
> and China and Korea and Russia all have great doubts, fears and
> concerns. This is a matter of course.
>
> The high level of radiation polluted water in the ocean that cannot
> be prevented is not only here near Japan but going on the waves to
> pollute who knows where and who knows how much?
>
> Today the nuclear power plants are the number one producers of
> energy and all countries want to have them but any one has felt
> that these should not exists on the surface of this earth.
>
> This times huge disaster, in this disaster time, one very happily
> seen aspect was that this disaster, while being truly a
> ferosciously terrible thing, still people from all over the world
> extended their hands in kindness and made one united great
> hopefulness and effort and there is much data about all of the
> people together and what they have offered and also of their
> supporting with words from more than one hundred countries. I read
> these messages slowly ad carefully. They were from America, South
> America, Africa, Europe; all of its many countries,India, all the
> various countries of Asia, people from all over the world worried
> and were concerned and felt so deeply, wanting to know how they
> could somehow help those who suffered in the earthquake and
> tsunami. This is a very important thing. I felt it directly and
> experience it deeply.
>
> If you look at the Japanese economics from the Kobe earthquake to
> this point now, it is a big big difference. But in ten years from
> now also it will be back to normal. That is without mistake.
>
> But to cool that high heat temperature of the nuclear power plant,
> with its already greying reactors numbered 1,2,3, and 4, they can
> never be used again yet even these, when and if cooled which will
> take fifty years, these will have polluted things for that area,
> the land and so many things in those areas that cannot be used
> anymore. These must now become forbidden land to even enter. This
> is saying clearly that while nuclear power has a potential for
> providing energy for human kind, its power is also a terrifying
> evil which destroys.
>
> The scientists have called it a circumstance beyond anything that
> could have been imagined or estimated, it is this kind of an
> unlucky situation and these circumstances will never happen again.
> But it has happened now and this must not ever happen again. We
> must not have these. Now many voices against nuclear power plants
> have risen, and this is also for Japan a great responsibility
> which has to be understood.
>
> Along with that many countries support and donations have been
> given, those who suffered to gether and helped together, all of
> this gathered together, I want to use this opportunity to say thank
> you.
>
> The people who train here at Sogenji, every single one of them is
> working totally and intensely wholeheartedly and to cultivate
> them is my life work for the rest of the life left to me so that
> even one of them will be able to open the truly seeing eye, this
> is my deep vow.
>
> We cannot be deceived. We cannot be deceived by what we see and the
> circumstances in which we find ourselves . In each and every era we
> have to see from our truly opened eye which is seeing the
> truth ,and not deceive ourselves. This is zen and this is the
> harvest of our training and what our life is.
>
> Thank you very much
>
> Shodo Harada

From Gold to Grey and White

2011-04-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

Surely with all the vast problems in the world we ought not be so concerned about the weather. The fact of brilliant sunshine in California and prevailing gray skies in Washington can't be so important in view of the difficulties so many are facing these days. Deep down I know this and yet feel myself affected by climate and landscape, the slippery wet turf under my feet in Olympia, pthalo green tinted with black in the big forest trees with gray sky. This is in sharp contrast to the open primary green fields, yellow shadows and blue sky of California. Nickel azo yellow predominates in the south.

Gray is the result of mixing red and blue. To arrive at the north's forest colors we might mix anthraquinone blue with quinacridone magenta. Magenta and phthalo green will get you black. Granted there are browns in the tree trunks, but not the browns that lean toward orange. It's a gray brown close to Payne's gray. There's almost no yellow.

Yellow must be used to mix colors of the south. Yellow with magenta to get burnt orange and yellow mostly with red to get bright orange. The fields will turn from a bright primary green to the color of straw, or yellow ochre, in summer.

Color is around us all the time and various combinations of color have an effect upon us. We humans are capable of perceiving literally millions of hues and the combinations of colors are infinite. Some painters, such as Kandinsky, believed that color had sound and so he tried to paint the nature of sound. We certainly know that kinds of sounds are also infinite, and there are bright and dull sounds, unpleasant and pleasant sounds as well as colors and combinations of them.

I'm no expert at color theory. It's a very big subject and there are various scientific as well as cultural theories of color. I only know I am aware of color and light and how I am affected by light and landscape wherever I live.

And, it must have been a very strange thing to have snow fall on that bleak destruction in the Japan tsunami zone. One moment to be looking out at the array of color heaped with the goods of everyday life and hours later as the flakes fell, to look at a vast white field as if even the destruction had been erased, like a giant white band-aid that would make the horror go away. The howling of color silenced by snow.

Heartbreaking Events in Japan

2011-03-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've spoken on this blog. The events in Japan have left me stunned, and left others sleepless with disturbing dreams. The latest problem of the potential nuclear meltdown seems like a nightmare. Can we possibly imagine what it is like for the Japanese?

With all this going on, I was still to keep my commitment to visit Stone Creek Zendo in Sebastopol, about 50 miles north of San Francisco to visit and give a Dharma talk at their practice on Sunday morning. This is a lovely Zendo run by Rev. Jisho Warner with whom I've had a long friendship. We served together on the board of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association for many years have kept in touch ever since.

On Saturday morning it was decided we'd take a drive out to the coast with her partner, and a friend, a Rinzai priest and student of Maureen Stuart Roshi who was visiting from Massachusetts. We took a lovely scenic route through various habitats, lush rolling meadows, and climbed to the top of a ridge before getting to the ocean where we could look to the south and barely see San Francisco Bay in the distance.

We arrived then at the ocean and stopped at the scenic Portuguese Beach. Jisho and I climbed over the rocks and strolled in the deep sand, and I admit that I never took my eyes off the water. The warning sign posted clearly on the beach said that this was one of the most dangerous beaches in California. The shore has an abrupt angle with a sharp drop off. This creates a strong undertow and every year, people are swallowed by the ocean. Also, there are sleeper waves that come in suddenly and mysteriously and gobble up people sitting on the rocks at the water's edge. Every wave seemed ominous to me. The ocean never seemed more powerful. Once we climbed back onto the cliffs I was rather relieved as the scenes of the tsunami were fresh in my mind. And, by Saturday morning, the nuclear situation was well underway.

We drove south to Bodega Bay and stopped at a gallery run by a friend of theirs that you ought not miss if you are in that area. It's the Ren Brown Collection, a gallery that specializes in contemporary Japanese art. Well worth a visit even on the web to see the work of such fine working artists. http://www.renbrown.com

We also drove through the town of Bodega Bay and went past the famous Victorian house where the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds" was staged. It's a private home now and I didn't like photographing it. Who can forget the scene of the children running up the hill to the house with the flock of birds biting their necks. It seems rather mild now against the actual scary things that can potentially change our lives.

I had a lovely visit with the Sangha on Sunday morning and gave a Dharma talk there on Ryokan. It was good to get out to the country for a short while, to be in the company of brilliant women with rich conversation, and to experience the flavor of the Sonoma County environment. Nevertheless, the undercurrent was focused on Japan and the rising situation of nuclear meltdown. This matter punctuated our conversation regularly.

It's all so heartbreaking. It's more immense than the mind can grasp. More towns are being investigated and we find more and more destruction as the reporters are able to make their way north. Constant chanting, keeping Avalokiteshvara in the mind's core is what we can do at the moment. The urge is to go and help, but we know that's impossible. The Soto Headquarters is accepting donations and surely many helpful funds will be sent to assist. I've been emailing and phoning and I'm sure they appreciate knowing how concerned we are for their welfare. Please keep the prayer rolling in. When I return to Olympia we'll have a healing ceremony. I don't yet know the date. We'll talk and come up with something we can do that will be helpful.

Two weeks from today I'll be on the road. It's all been a dream. Just a dream...and yet...and yet.

Chanting for People of Japan

2011-03-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

I was yet awake last night when a live broadcast from NHK from Japan reported the 8.9 earthquake and showed the tsunami movement along the coast near Sendai in Northern Honshu. Frightening, sad, moving, humbling. It will be many days before we know the full extent of the damage as aftershocks continue and will continue for months.

I immediately emailed and sent my concerned thought for my friends in Japan. My friends are in southern Honshu and emailed back that they did not feel the quake. Of course, the Japanese people all across the country are deeply stunned and are grieving for this heartbreaking situation. It will be a long recovery.

The tsunami has now hit the California coast and midmorning we can feel the power of the ocean although nothing here can possibly compare to what happened in Japan. Still, to feel the water surge back and forth, one is humbled by the power of nature and aware of our fragility in the face of these elements.

Along with the members of Olympia Zen Center, I offer our deepest prayer and chanting for the people of Japan. Namu kie Butsu.

Quiet and commotion

2011-02-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

Don't make a mistake. There's nothing wrong with commotion when it's important to make a commotion. The citizens of Egypt couldn't wait any longer to proclaim their independence. Similar uprisings seem to be happening in many places: Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, and Madison, Wisconsin. No doubt other states in the US will join in soon. Sometimes making a commotion is what is necessary.

So I was juxtaposing this to a place of utter quiet that I visited recently, right near my house, at the entrance to the cemetery on my regular walk. Do forgive me for seeming to often be on the subject of cemeteries, bones, and ashes. It's just part of my current neighborhood. It can't be helped. It's part of life. I'm thinking specifically of the Chapel of Chimes, a massive building that is a columbarium, a structure for holding ashes, cremains.

This California style building was designed by Julia Morgan, the first woman licensed to practice architecture in California. She is the architect of Hearst Castle among the other 400 or so buildings she designed. The crematorium had already existed in 1909 when Morgan was commissioned in 1926 to design an expansion of the existing facility. A week or so ago, I finally entered an open door on my return walk, curious about what the inside of this beautiful building looked like.

As nothing retarded my entrance, no receptionist, no human to question me, I simply walked deeper and deeper into the interior of this remarkable place. If I could imagine going into the pyramids in Egypt, it would be something like this. Or a tiny bit the way I felt entering the megalithic tomb at Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland. I was completely alone on the inside with only light and the sound of my own movements and occasional water features in garden rooms. Granted, none of the ashes are as old as the Iron Age, but the atmosphere was as sacred and held the stories of our past.

It was like entering an ancient library, with stacks and stacks of ashes placed in thick book-like containers behind glass cases as high as 15 or 20 feet. From the Gregorian cloister entry, I had taken a small staircase that led into various rooms and alcoves, cloisters, small chapels, curved recesses, niches and hallways with moulded doorways. Then there were three levels that held the other mysterious rooms and passageways. All was beautifully lighted by large skylights that kept a soft illumination over all the areas.

Numerous artifacts appear there too. There's a display of illuminated parchment manuscripts from the 1500s, a lapis lazuli inlaid table with the Medici Crest circa 1500 and other Italian influenced treasures. The City of Oakland named this Chapel a Distinguished Landmark of the area.

But it was the silence of the place, the space, its careful beauty that struck me; it can't be captured in snapshots. Thousands of stacks of ashes of those who had thrived in the surrounding hills of California, those who had made a commotion in one way or another, who had made a river of life, a library of events and experience, who had shouted out and demonstrated for or against one thing or another, or some who had remained silent. I sensed no ghosts, just a feeling of how life continues in all its aspects. We who acknowledge these shelves of ashes standing in the river of life now, either in the thrumming crowd or solitary, will enter the library at whatever time we do. This is not sad or morbid, it's just how life is and has always been.

In the Dharma world

2011-02-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

While we're at it, I put forward here yet another situation that troubles the Zen Buddhist world: Shambhala Sun Magazine's decision to commission John Tarrant to write a tribute of Aitken Roshi. Maybe some of you saw it and read it. I saw it on the news stand and chose not to read it. The commission was questionable to begin with since Tarrant and Aitken Roshi had been at odds with one another for many years because Tarrant had refused to comply with Aitken Roshi's request that he separate from the Diamond Sangha and/or change his behavior due to Tarrant's alleged professional psychotherapeutic, sexual, and organizational misconduct. The whole story is detailed in an open letter from Nelson Foster, Dharma heir of Aitken Roshi, and Jack Shoemaker who is Roshi's literary executor. This open letter has just been sent out over the wires and I copy it here for your education.

It is indeed a complex world we live it, but it's the one we've got. It's no fun to be saturated with these situations, but if you happened to have read Tarrant's article in The Sun, then it would be well to also read this Open Letter. Aitken Roshi was a friend of mine and I couldn't imagine doing anything to besmirch his reputation. His life was one of pure dedication to the Dharma and he deserves our highest gratitude and regard.

An Open Letter on Journalistic Integrity and the Shambhala Sun

We adopt this means, as a last resort, to air a concern about a gross failure of journalistic ethics on the part of the Shambhala Sun. The world of American Buddhist publishing has been relatively small and honorable to date, so such a failure is conspicuous and, we feel, warrants public notice and remedy. Unfortunately, as we'll report in detail below, our efforts to obtain an appropriate correction directly from the Sun came to naught. Thus our recourse to this posting.

Before proceeding to specifics, we need to make clear that, by its actions, the Sun besmirched the memory of a man we hold very dear, our late teacher, friend, and collaborator, Robert Aitken Roshi. We've pursued the matter in part out of loyalty to him, feeling an obligation to correct the worst errors of fact in the Sun article. But Aitken Roshi's reputation is probably as secure as anything in this 'burning house' can be, and what's at stake here -- integrity in Buddhist journalism -- is both larger and more imminently perishable.

The problem began with the Sun commissioning an article about Aitken Roshi from a writer who had an axe to grind, a long-alienated Dharma successor named John Tarrant. When the article was published last year in its November issue, we expressed our concerns to Sun editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod, who responded, "Of course we were aware that we were treading into dangerous territory in asking John to do this homage, and we did sound out some people to ask whether they felt it would be resented by current students of Aitken Roshi's." We have no idea whom Mr. McLeod and his staff consulted or how seriously they took the process of consultation, but we do know that they didn't speak with the people most likely to be offended and also best positioned to gauge potential negative reactions -- those of us who remained close to Aitken Roshi at the end of his life and who represent the tradition that he and his wife established, the Diamond Sangha.

Despite awareness of the risk involved, the Sun commissioned the article from Dr. Tarrant and published it without any indication of concern and without disclosing the author's estrangement from Aitken Roshi. This is the error that troubles us most. While Mr. McLeod is certainly free to choose who writes for his magazine, journalistic ethics require that periodicals disclose personal history that might compromise their writers' fairness. Lacking such information, unsuspecting readers are ill-equipped to assess the reliability of what they read.

If the Sun maintained these professional standards, it would have needed to acknowledge that Dr. Tarrant's relationship with Aitken Roshi ruptured in the late 1990s and never recovered. Concerned that Dr. Tarrant's approach to Zen had gone seriously awry, for a year Aitken Roshi discreetly pressed him to pull his group out of the Diamond Sangha. This unhappy separation finally took place in 1999 but turned out to be a prelude to an even more painful break: when repeated and persuasive allegations of misconduct on Dr. Tarrant's part -- professional (in his work as a psychotherapist), sexual, and organizational -- came to light, after private efforts to encourage resolution proved unsuccessful, Aitken Roshi and ten other Diamond Sangha teachers issued an open letter, urging their former colleague to mend his ways. Dr. Tarrant reacted angrily. Communication between the two men came to an end.

Dr. Tarrant's desire to gloss over these facts in his article is understandable, but in agreeing to write about Aitken Roshi for the Buddhist public, he forfeited the option of concealing them. Since he chose not to disclose them himself, it was incumbent on the Sun to do so, and the resulting article makes the reason for this apparent. Although the Sun advertised the story on its cover as an "homage" to Aitken Roshi and Dr. Tarrant termed it a "tribute," it bore abundant signs that its author was still hurt and angry and had seized the opportunity to take revenge on his old teacher.

It's certainly peculiar for a tribute to a Zen master to feature the assertion that he "never stopped wondering if he had indeed ever had an enlightenment experience. . . . Sometimes he was quite sure he hadn't." Even more unusual is to couple a disparaging assessment of the master's realization with a triumphant rehearsal of one's own. How could the Sun serve this up as neutral and trustworthy reporting? Dr. Tarrant tells its readers Aitken Roshi "put down other teachers, out of a kind of embarrassed competitiveness," but somehow neither he nor the Sun seems to have noticed that he was trashing his own dead teacher -- not in private conversation but publicly, in print.

Just for the record, Aitken Roshi was appropriately humble about his awakening, but he spoke of it candidly as occasion required and wrote about it openly, too. Rather than relying on Dr. Tarrant's account, we suggest that readers look up "Willy-Nilly Zen," an autobiographical piece that Aitken Roshi prepared at his teacher's behest in 1971 and later published as an appendix to his well-known book Taking the Path of Zen. As his own telling makes clear, it wasn't a big-bang experience of the sort Dr. Tarrant trumpets, but it began a process of widening insight that ultimately made him a wise, compassionate, skillful, and upright teacher. Unfortunately, a big-bang realization doesn't ensure such a result.

The Sun story is as peculiar for what it omits as for its belittlement of Aitken Roshi's awakening. An homage can ordinarily be expected to stress its subject's strengths, but Dr. Tarrant and his editor managed to overlook a characteristic absolutely central to Aitken Roshi's nature and to his teaching and writing: his emphasis on the precepts and on living out the Dharma in all its ethical dimensions. This is the contribution to Western Buddhism for which he surely was best known and will be best remembered. How Dr. Tarrant and the Sun could neglect it we can't fathom.

Altogether, the Sun "homage" bears only intermittent resemblance to the person we knew. When Mr. McLeod received our letter-to-the-editor objecting to the article's inaccuracies and taking the Sun to task for not disclosing Dr. Tarrant's broken relationship with his subject, he promptly engaged us in revising our letter for publication in the Sun. This entailed tempering the "tone" of our comments and finding adequate ways to make our point while respecting the magazine's "pretty strong policy . . . not to get into detailed public discussions of possible misconduct." (Note: the text of our original letter is attached, below.)

We tolerated this extraordinary intrusion in the content of our letter, feeling it would be worthwhile to place even a watered-down critique before Sun subscribers. Accepting as sincere Mr. McLeod's assurance, "I think you're doing the right thing in writing this, and if there's fault it's mine for putting you in this spot," we went back and forth with him by phone and e-mail, working out a text he'd be willing to print. After we acceded to his final suggestion, Mr. McLeod volunteered his satisfaction with both our collaboration and its result, so we were astounded when he wrote again, five days later, declaring that he wouldn't use our letter after all.

Instead, he proposed that we start over, taking a different tack -- "to focus the letter exclusively on how you feel John [Tarrant]'s portrayal of Aitken Roshi was not accurate, and to offer your own view of him." In this fashion, he suggested, the letter could "become a completely positive contribution, in itself an homage to and celebration of Aitken Roshi." Maybe so, but it wouldn't be our letter anymore and, in its complete positivity, would let the Sun off the hook on the point we consider most crucial: its failure to adhere to a basic principle of fairness in journalism.

In making a case for this change of direction, Mr. McLeod advanced an argument that we find untenable, to put it mildly: "we have tried not to wash the Buddhist world's dirty laundry in public -- to avoid getting into detail about difficulties and divisions within Buddhist sanghas. This is particularly important in the Sun, with a substantial non-Buddhist or beginning Buddhist audience." To the degree that this policy represents refusal to indulge in back-biting and gossip-mongering, we enthusiastically applaud it; otherwise, it seems to us that it infantilizes readers and may protect them from information that beginners actually need to be attuned to in exploring the profusion of Buddhist paths, organizations, and teachers on offer in North America today. How he applied the policy in the present instance seems utterly indefensible, for while it has shielded his readers from awareness of Dr. Tarrant's misconduct and removal from the Diamond Sangha, it hasn't spared them his biased "tribute" impugning the wisdom and character of a widely respected teacher.

Needless to say, perhaps, we declined Mr. McLeod's request, and we counterproposed that he, as editor-in-chief, publish a statement acknowledging the error of printing Dr. Tarrant's article without divulging the fact and the causes of his bitter, ten-year alienation from Aitken Roshi. Mr. McLeod subsequently negotiated and ran (in the March issue) a letter from the Honolulu Diamond Sangha board of directors that politely laments his choice of author and corrects a few of the piece's numerous misstatements. Nowhere, however, has the Sun publicly acknowledged, and taken responsibility for, the editorial failures outlined above.

We feel that these failures are serious enough to cast doubt on the journalistic integrity of the Sun, and we urge other members of the American Buddhist community to register any concerns they may have on this subject, in the hope that Mr. McLeod and his staff will remember their mishandling of this story and exercise increased care when ethical questions arise in the future. If that were to happen, in the long run this sad incident might actually have beneficial results.

Nelson Foster

Ring of Bone Zendo and East Rock Sangha

Dharma heir of Aitken Roshi

Jack Shoemaker

Editorial director, Counterpoint Press

Literary Executor for Robert Aitken

Original letter, e-mailed to Melvin McLeod on October 20, 2010:

To the Editor:

In publishing John Tarrant's demeaning "tribute" to Robert Aitken Roshi, the Shambhala Sun has done a disservice not only to our late friend and teacher but also to its readers and the author himself. He professes surprise at discovering he had "any strong reaction" to Aitken Roshi's death, but his feelings have a long history, and anyone familiar with that history can understand how his deep-seated hurt and anger might have lingered. Sadly, they also have twisted an ostensibly warm reminiscence of his "Old Man" into a covert or perhaps unconscious score-settling. We wish Sun editors had spared everyone this beautifully crafted but badly distorted account.

Now that it's in print, readers deserve information that enables them to put it in context. Although Dr. Tarrant did enjoy a close and trusting relationship with his teacher for some time, by 1998 his approach to Zen had departed so seriously from that of the Diamond Sangha as a whole that, for the better part of a year, Aitken Roshi pressed him and his group to withdraw. After their withdrawal, in response to convincing reports of misconduct on Dr. Tarrant's part -- professional (as a psychotherapist), sexual, and organizational -- Aitken Roshi and ten other Diamond Sangha teachers issued an open letter calling on him to mend his ways. Communication between the two men ceased at that time, more than a decade ago.

Dr. Tarrant's reluctance to publicize these unhappy facts is understandable, and we take no pleasure in mentioning them, but journalistic ethics require that they be disclosed, if not by the writer himself then by the Sun. It's apparent to us that hard feelings significantly affected his portrait of his former teacher, for it bears a dim resemblance to the man we knew, each of us for longer than Dr. Tarrant did.

While faulting Aitken Roshi for "put[ting] down other teachers, out of a kind of embarrassed competitiveness," Dr. Tarrant has indulged in that vice himself, though seemingly without embarrassment. He manages to combine a glowing account of his own awakening with a disparaging account of his teacher's, even claiming that "Bob never stopped wondering if he had ever had" one. Horsefeathers. Aitken Roshi was appropriately modest about his experience, but he spoke about it publicly when circumstances warranted and wrote about it, too. Any reader who cares to look it up will find his own description of the experience and its subsequent unfolding in "Willy-Nilly Zen," an autobiographical piece he prepared in 1971 and published as an appendix to Taking the Path of Zen. Twenty-four years later, he repeated the tale at the request of a reporter in Bangkok!

We find it galling to see Aitken Roshi's humility and candor turned against him, not only in this matter but also with respect to his early uncertainties as a Zen teacher. These predate Dr. Tarrant's arrival from Australia, so he, like many others, heard about them after the fact, precisely because Aitken Roshi spoke openly about them, expressing profound gratitude for the guidance and encouragement he received from Maezumi Roshi. Anne Aitken used to lament that her husband had "no carapace," no protective covering, a trait that left him vulnerable to misrepresentation and mockery in life, as in death. It also made him approachable and inspiring, however, a man who showed by example how insight and character may mature over decades of practice. Dr. Tarrant's characterization of him as "timid and anxious" will astonish people who saw him teach confidently before large audiences in the 1980s and '90s.

Other errors of fact and interpretation we will set aside here, but we cannot close without noting a curious omission from this remembrance: it leaves utterly unmentioned the contribution to Western Buddhism for which Aitken Roshi is most widely known -- his attention to the ethical implications of practice and realization and his stress on embodying them in the social, economic, political, and environmental conditions of our day. He certainly had his share of failings, but he had greater and more important virtues than this account admits. We hope Sun readers will seek out less jaundiced appraisals of his life and work.

Nelson Foster

Ring of Bone Zendo

Dharma heir of Aitken Roshi

Jack Shoemaker

Editorial director, Counterpoint Press

Literary Executor for Robert Aitken

"The world is too much with us..."

2011-02-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

This is the opening line of a poem by Wordsworth in which he decries materialism and says that we haven't aligned ourselves deeply enough with Nature where the true spirit is to be found. The line comes to me right now, not as Wordsworth intended, but because there are so many things going on in this difficult world, I sometimes feel I can't deal with any more. This is the feeling I get when there are reports concerning the sexual transgressions of Zen priests. Maybe some of you feel this way when you read of yet another disclosure of youths who were abused by Catholic priests. At the same time that we don't want to hear any more, we also feel that the problem has to be completely addressed until we have faced into it, aired it out completely, given the problem its full emptying.

The latest discussion concerns Dennis Genpo Merzel, the founder of the Big Mind workshops and abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City. Merzel's resignation from his teaching duties and from the White Plum Asangha, that is the turning in of his robes and his affiliation within the Maezumi lineage, was published in the latest edition of Tricycle Magazine. He has owned up to years of sexual misconduct, pledged to take up therapy, and full examination of his actions. At the same time, he has decided to continue his teaching of Big Mind which is a copyrighted program, ($50,000 per, I heard) that promises to give people an awakening experience, of some kind, or something like that. Some have suggested that the fee exploitation along with spurious claims as to the enlightenment outcome is what we should be upset about and not the sexual impropriety.

An even larger picture is the sadness that this activity has been permitted over a long period of time while many people have known about it. Merezel's Dharma brothers and sisters have not done enough to require accountability of one another. He is certainly not the only one to have been challenged by his own body and I'm sure he'll not be the last. The problem is how the larger Sangha holds the transgressor accountable because his actions injure, not only particular people, but the integrity of the Three Treasures - The Buddha, The Dharma, The Sangha.

The function of Sangha is to look out for one another and not permit one's Dharma sisters and brothers to make mistakes in Buddhism. But, this is all a messy business. Members of the Kanzeon Sangha in Salt Lake City are calling on the national priests to speak out against Merzel's actions. At the same time, Keido Les Kaye has written a letter to the Kanzeon Sangha demonstrating that an attempt was made years ago to ask Maezumi to withdraw Merzel's teaching authorization, but the request was refused. You can read the letter from Kaye in its entirety on the Sweeping Zen site so you can see for yourself how complicated and messy things can get over sexual misconduct. Letters from other priests speaking out on the issue are also found on this site. All of this, if you care to be bothered with it. At some level it's tiresome business. On another, if you succumb to gossip, it's a juicy read.

http://www,sweepingzen.com/2011/02/15/open-letters-to-kanzeon-zen-center/

I feel tired for us all. I discuss this sad business so we can be fully in the open, unlike the years of subterfuge and deception that has taken place in the Catholic church. The issues of misconduct with Zen priests has, so far, been among adults, but this doesn't lessen the unethical nature of the activity. So far, men have been the "perpetrators" and women the "victims" if we are to use these popular words, but perhaps it's a matter of time before women fall prey to the lure of sexual intrigue in the dokusan room. Frankly, most women Zen teachers I know are too damn old to be interested, and what I think is that women are far too practical for such nonsense. We're not that desperate. Not to make light of it all, bottom line is that people have been injured, not only those who were party to the behavior, but entire Sanghas far and wide have been torn apart. This is abuse of the Three Treasures, the field of Dharma that we all share. In times past, when the Sangha was abused by unethical behavior of a priest, the Buddha ousted them from the monastic community. The same was true of Sangha members. The Buddha removed them from the Sangha for certain offenses. Of course, we have the matter of religious freedom in the US and anyone, even if they have been removed from their religious affiliation, can rise again independently to promote themselves in the marketplace and take advantage of unsuspecting and vulnerable seekers. This is the great privilege of living in America.

You'll all be glad to know that it is raining in the Bay Area today and the pouring down is forecast throughout the week. A right climate for the mood. Happy Valentine's Day!

In its heyday...

2011-02-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

Oakland City Hall

The City of Oakland, south of Berkeley and across the bay from San Francisco, became the gateway to the gold country in 1849 after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. Horses and wagons loaded with supplies would begin from this point, cross through the Sacramento Valley and reach the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in the dry brown hills on the south fork of the American River. It's familiar to me because Coloma was where I went camping in summer when my children were young. Panning for gold was grueling, backbreaking work and few actually found any nuggets to speak of. Those who worked mines and sluices made out better, but those who stood in the water and hoped something would land in their pans eventually gave up, or died trying.

Oakland very quickly became a settlement and incorporated as a city in 1852. Previously, of course, the land had been inhabited by the Ohlone peoples who were displaced by the Spanish in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then Russia began to lay claim to the land moving in from Alaska. Then in 1849, American troops conquered the territory mostly influenced by the discovery of gold. In the late 1860s, the Transcontinental Railroad completed its western journey at Oakland and the city became an important port for the delivery of supplies to the western cities.

Downtown building for offices and condos

It was also a resort area for people fleeing the cold winds of San Francisco. Ferry boats brought people across the Bay to the warmer climate and they built lovely summer homes and estates in the hill country overlooking the water and beyond the fog region that locks San Francisco into its grip in summer. After the big San Francisco earthquake in 1906, many people moved to the East Bay and it further developed.

Numerous immigrants moved to Oakland during World War II and the city became a center for industries supporting the war effort. Consequently, it has a very high ethnic diversity. While the San Andreas earthquake fault line runs through San Francisco, the equally treacherous Hayward fault runs right through Oakland. The surrounding hills make it a gorgeous place. It has a difficult reputation since there is a high level of unemployment, poverty, and crime. Although those social issues are present, it isn't the complete story as the city is also balanced by thriving neighborhoods, excellent public transportation, rich cultural opportunities, museums, music and superb regional parks. In many ways, the reputation is undeserved.

Reflections

I was downtown on Thursday to have lunch with my daughter. Since I went by bus, I could enjoy a look at the magnificent buildings and architecture that grace the downtown region. I can't help feeling this is an up and coming city that will be restored to a deeper safety and will overcome its hardships. Jerry Brown was once mayor of Oakland and is now governor of the state. I have to admit he's one of a kind. The other day he needed to fly from Sacramento to Los Angeles. He demonstrates what a politician should demonstrate. He flew coach on a standard flight and sat with the real people having conversations with everyone listening to what they had to say. I suspect that's how he'll continue to travel throughout the state. He has a soft spot for Oakland and still keeps his condo at Jack London Square. He's my kind of governor.

Celebration in Egypt

2011-02-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

Who could stay dry eyed listening to the exultation and seeing the joy in the hearts of Egyptians as they heard the news that they had succeeded in bringing change to their country and in such a wonderful way! What a relief it was to know that there would not be further bloodshed or violence in their determination to stand firm. Everyone is praying that the transition of government will be done with maturity, balance, and wisdom. What a great historic moment! What a great cosmic moment!

Sunset and the green flash

2011-02-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

Sunset as seen from my apartment

Years ago while I was visiting in San Francisco, my brother and I wandered down to the beach to watch the sunset. We sat on the top of sand dunes at the city beach straight down from the Sunset District, along with many others who had come to see the day close. It was a cool evening but not so very windy; the air was crystal clear. At the very second that the sun fell beneath the horizon, we saw the "green flash" and everyone on the beach gasped and then applauded. This is a rare moment and a rare thing to actually see because the conditions have be right for it to occur. The "green flash" is a phenomenon caused by refraction of light in the atmosphere. The fact that so many saw it together was clear evidence for all of us that we hadn't faked or imagined it. The phenomenon lasts only for about one second.

Angel contemplating the arrival of Spring.

From my apartment I'm seeing great sunsets, predictors of the warm weather to come. Even brilliant California doesn't usually have this kind of nearly summer weather in the middle of winter. It's somewhat disconcerting, but everyone is out celebrating. You just can't help it. But I'm also realizing, as I have for many years, that I haven't regularly seen a sunset for about 15 years. The late afternoon and evening sky is completely blocked by trees at Olympia Zen Center. Even when the light holds on until 10 p.m. there is no wide view of the sky. There may be an occasional reflection of pink, which makes me think, oh, there must be a nice sunset, but I don't actually see it. Times when I've been to the ocean, it has clouded over or rained.

My mother always thought sunset was the saddest point of the day. She felt lonely when the light began to leave. Perhaps it meant to her that life was moving along quickly and her children were growing up and growing away from her. She was affected by nature and she felt a nostalgia that nature can bring. Although she didn't express it artistically, she certainly appreciated the art that others created having been inspired by nature.
Ryokan would feel nostalgia about the elements:

Dark melancholy
Invades my heart in autumn,
When I sit alone,
Hearing a cold shower pour
Down upon rustling bamboos.

I doubt that many people who witnessed the green flash that night in San Francisco ran home to paint it or write poems about it. But, we all knew we had received something unusual, perhaps a once in a lifetime experience of it that connected us more deeply to natural life, and something larger than we are alone. We all clearly celebrated the phenomenon. I know I will never forget it, but then, I tend to feel that nature is a part of my whole being and I'm thoroughly noticing and enjoying the sunsets here. As with many, I too feel the importance of natural things such as noticing the sky, the way light falls on trees, the activity of squirrels in the garden, how trees bend and sing in the wind, and how on a gorgeous morning it moves us to say hello with a smile when we pass on the sidewalk. Ryokan writes:

On the autumn moor,
Glowing with the setting sun,
Amid late flowers
Let me stay with butterflies,
Rapt in a dream of one night.

..of one sort or another

2011-02-04T13:04:00.000-08:00

Birds Begging at the Wharf

There is a great deal of volatile tension in the world, and much need everywhere. Even here where there is an abundance of comfort, intellect, goods, habitats, beauty, still there is the intermingling of obvious need. Riding the bus its easy to see people who are struggling. If public transportation doesn't serve to save the environment, it should serve to teach us about one another and to stay in touch with humanity.

One striking aspect of THE ODYSSEY, a reading assignment for the course I'm taking, is Homer's attention to the care of beggars. There are numerous times when Athena turns Odysseus into the guise of a beggar and he goes about the community asking for help. In ancient Greek hospitality, beggars are not denied their fair share of the banquet, and they are not turned away. The beggar may represent homelessness, powerlessness, some kind of need within that is begging for attention. When we see a beggar and are repulsed, we might be turning away from some truth about ourselves, not wanting to admit we feel we are lacking something within.

It reminds of a story of one student who was scornful of my having taken visiting students to a discount shopping store for their food rather than to one of the upscale places. It said a lot about the nature of class, money and snobbery which is also about the nature of lack. If we have money, we can easily avoid mingling with beggars and needy people. We can shop at high level stores. We can stay in our cars and not use public transportation. We can avoid mixing with minorities. But, as Zen students, and particularly as students of Ryokan, we should be able to go anywhere and not notice anything other than humanity and how to be hospitable to everyone. This includes noticing in ourselves whether we are harboring a sense of lack or something begging for attention. If we are, we can turn it into spiritual activity by seeing it for what it is and recognizing there are times when we are all beggars of one sort or another.

Steinbeck Country

2011-02-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

Rolling hills along the way

John Steinbeck was born in the Salinas Valley and this area, the San Joaquin and the Monterey Bay area are all referred to as "Steinbeck Country." I can't go there without recalling the literature that Steinbeck produced which has enriched my experience: Tortilla Flat; The Grapes of Wrath; Of Mice and Men; Cannery Row; East of Eden; Log From the Sea of Cortez, etc. Just being in Monterey for the day on Tuesday to see some friends, makes me want to reread Steinbeck, maybe not all, but some of the works that influenced me, the kind of books one never forgets.

First glimpse of ocean from the car

Restaurant at Monterey Wharf

You don't see cactus growing outside
like this in the Pacific Northwest

Because the terrain is unique, you feel truly rooted in a sense of place which Steinbeck brought to his work. The hot, dry farmland of the Salinas Valley brings out a nostalgia in me since I was reading Steinbeck when I first moved to California and was changed by its beauty and strength. Steinbeck's subjects are often the problems of migrant workers, immigrants, the
Dust Bowl, plots set in the Great Depression. During summer and fall if you drive through the Salinas Valley and you see farm workers bent over rows and rows of crops in hot sun, you feel the echoes of Steinbeck and the workers become people who touch you with whole lives who feel and sweat and cry and sing. Because they do that backbreaking, stinging work, we can eat.

Fishermen at Monterey Bay

The route from Oakland to Monterey also follows the Mission Trail and passes by San Jose de Guadelupe, Santa Clara de Asis, and San Juan Bautista all beautiful places however much they remind of a difficult history. I didn't take the time to stop on this journey, only that I remembered where they were and recall the many times I stopped to experience the surroundings.

A little traveling music...

2011-01-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

My daughter had gotten us tickets at Yoshi's for the 70th birthday concert of Bobby Hutcherson, the famous jazz vibe musician. Yoshi's is a restaurant and a jazz club at Jack London Square in Oakland in two separate rooms. The restaurant offers an excellent nouveau Japanese/California cuisine in a lively atmosphere with impeccable service. It's family style service in a high class way. The food presentation is highly artistic but not unapproachable. It's as a much a delight as is the taste of the food. We were hungry and found ourselves eating perhaps a bit too quickly, but the food was so delicious, we couldn't see a reason to dawdle.

Here's how it works. You order tickets for the concert, probably on line and you state whether you'll dine first and you get a dinner reservation too. When you show up, you get your concert tickets at the will-call counter and then take them over to the restaurant entry counter where they give you a reserved seat for the concert. So you are shown in to your place in the restaurant. It's a huge place and crowded, full of life but not overbearingly loud. After you order, the service becomes invisible. Even with such a crowded place, not one thing was forgotten nor were we rushed, nor do the wait staff appear to be rushed. They move quietly and invisibly, always our next dish appearing with exquisite timing.

When it's time for the concert, you make your way to the entry to the jazz club, get your hand stamped so you can go back and forth to the restroom. You have already been given a small map of the room with your number on it so you simply weave your way through the crowd to your seat. The room is set up like a night club with small tables and chairs closest to the stage. The next semi circle is a row of booths, the most sought after seating, then the next two row areas are more table and chairs and then bar stool chairs at the very back. Truly there are no bad seats in the whole house, just some of them more comfortable.

We lucked out and were seated in a booth next to Bobby Hutcherson's in-group. Also, we shared our booth with the bass player's dentist. When the musicians came on stage it was obvious that Hutcherson was using oxygen, suffering from long-standing emphysema. He didn't stand very often to perform and when he did it was for short periods and then he seemed relieved to sit down again. Don't think that he wasn't wonderful nevertheless. His touch on the vibes is sweet and his timing gorgeous. He had a guest guitarist, Anthony Wilson, who has to e the best guitarist I've ever heard. He was really the star of the night with Bobby Hutcherson overtones, but there was nothing lacking at all. With Joe Gilman on piano, Glenn Richman on bass, and Eddie Marshall on drums, you couldn't go wrong. If you want to catch all five on an album, WISE ONE is the album to get.

Aside from wanting to hear jazz, I wanted to go there because the place is owned (at least in part) by Akiba Roshi's wife. Akiba Roshi is the former Bishop of the North American Soto Zen Education and International Center. The important thing to me about this is that it makes the people who live Zen life a bit more real, living in a world of activity, doing interesting things. Akiba Roshi certainly believes deeply in monastic training, but his wife is not a monastic. Nevertheless, he lives beside her in this endeavor and together they go forward in the world. He obviously has no restrictions on what women can or can't do in the public sphere.

I had such a great time and felt my world expanded in such a vibrant atmosphere.

Sacred Ground

2011-01-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

View from the city of Walnut Creek

Mt. Diablo is a peak in the Diablo Mountain Range that is visible from most points in the Bay Area. The vistas from Mt. Diablo happen early on the lower part of the drive as the terrain is mostly chaparral with windswept scrub oak trees scattered here and there. There are no big tree forests standing in the way of the view. As you climb, you feel you are looking down on a fairyland with mountain ranges lined up in the distance.

Mt. Diablo is made of rock that came from the ocean floor as the tectonic plates built the mountain over a 180 million year cycle. Areas of marine fossil rock, wind caves formed out of 50 million-year-old sandstone are to be found. A major earthquake fault line runs through the area that helped push the older rock up and over younger rock. There are many areas of chert on the mountain, which are formed from the skeletons of tiny marine animals.

Chert along the trail

At the top the view is spectacular at a height of around 3400 feet. Even on this somewhat misty day, we could see the tops of the snow-clad Sierra Nevada.

I was interested in who lived there and what the mountain meant to Native peoples. The original people were the Miwok Indians. Recent research has categorized the various locales of Miwok, and the Mt. Diablo Tribal group was designated the Bay Miwok to distinguish their particular language and populations. They were hunter-gatherers who believed that the origin of life began on Mt. Diablo following a flood. Mt. Diablo is still considered Sacred Ground and in my own experience in going up there today, I feel there are very strong spirits that reside there.

View from the top of Mt. Diablo

On a trail close to the summit, we were visited and spoken to by a raven which then settled itself on a bare tree limb and watched us until we completed our walk. Two hawks flew alongside the car on our descent and we received a brief song from a frog as we reached the bottom. There are numerous habitats all along the mountain that hold their own spirits. I was feeling that it was disrespectful to go all the way to the top where the creator gods reside. Various ceremonies were celebrated on the mountain, and probably still are, but happen in places on the mountain that don’t flaunt the nature of conquering, the desire to have to stand on the top and be taller than and above the mountain itself.

I don’t know the original name of the mountain. As the Miwok were incorporated into the mission system and their populations were decimated, Mexican influence in the area changed the geographical names and the entire mountain range was called The Diablos. Devil Mountain would be the last name I would apply to this area, despite the wind, in the soft peace of the fossil rock, scrub oak and bay laurel.

Remembering Shuun Metsuzen Lou Hartman

2011-01-20T22:29:00.000-08:00

Shuun Metsuzen Lou Hartman

Shuun Metsuzen Lou Hartman died at his home at San Francisco Zen Center in mid afternoon on Thursday, January 20, 2011, with Zenkei Blanche, his wife, and his family at his side. Immediately afterward, members of SFZC chanted the Bodhisattva Ceremony.

Lou was one of Suzuki Roshi's original students and he spent his life thereafter serving at San Francisco Zen Center continuing to model practice for younger students. Before that, Lou had been a journalist and radio commentator in the San Francisco scene. In 2008, Lou and Blanche traveled by train to Olympia and stayed with us in residence for several days, visiting friends in the area and also giving a talk for us on Wednesday evening and Saturday morning. During that visit, Lou was quite taken with a line from the Ryokan san film in which Ryokan says, "Try as I may, after all these years, I cannot bring an end to suffering in the world."

We at Olympia Zen Center will continue to remember him in Morning Ceremony and to recall with deep gratitude the poetry reading he gave for us on that visit.

If you would like to listen to a Dharma Talk he gave in 2007 at SFZC please click on this link
Lou Hartman's Dharma Talk

iPad and the Classics

2011-01-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

UC Berkeley campus

So I took the bus up to campus looking for the collection of bookstores that might have the Neruda I wanted. Yes, I could order it on Amazon, but I wanted to go hunting. I didn’t find what I wanted, but I did get the Hubert Dreyfus/ Sean Kelly book, All Things Shining, Reading The Western Classics To Find Meaning In A Secular World.

This book I mentioned earlier and also mentioned the course Professor Dreyfus was giving for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UC Berkeley. The course is called “The Promise of Polytheism – from the Odyssey to Moby Dick.” As I sat on the bus on the way home browsing through the book, I determined that I had to sign up for the course. It seems to be in great demand and they’ve moved it to another venue to accommodate a larger audience.

Professor Dreyfus is an acclaimed lecturer in the philosophy department at Berkeley. He specializes in existentialism and refers often to Merleau-Ponty (The Phenomenology of Perception) whose area is “embodiment.” It’s all quite heady, but actually Dreyfus and Kelly are plain speakers and write in the most accessible and engaging way.

The texts will include Dreyfus’ book, plus The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, and Moby Dick. Thank goodness I’ve read these texts as I wouldn’t want to have to stuff them into my head in the six week period of the course. Nevertheless, I’ll reread and the happy thing for me is that I can access these texts on my iPad free as they are available on the Free Books application in the public domain. It was great to realize that I could carry my texts around in one thin volume. What a relief that I didn’t have to go hunting through libraries or book stores. Within two minutes they will be at hand. It’s incredibly amazing. I’m so grateful.

Still no Neruda in hand. Only the dead man who may be floating around somewhere writing in space.

Neruda online?

2011-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Upper cemetery in morning mist

Berkeley Campanile from the Marina

Winter mist covered the hills early and burned off by afternoon. I'd been up to the cemetery in the morning and then down to the Berkeley Marina in the afternoon. Needed my heavy jacket with the breeze at the water, but inland it seemed as if spring were on the horizon.

The city was full of people out exploring Piedmont, Berkeley, and Rockridge on MLK Holiday. Sidewalk cafes were a flurry of action. Numerous activities celebrating Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. were held around the area. Mostly, people were out enjoying themselves on such a glorious day.

Guardian Spirit by the Bay

While driving home, I was stopped at a light behind a car with the bumper sticker which read, "Don't wait - Meditate." Was I to rush right home and meditate? Or hurry to a place where I could learn to meditate? Or did it mean that I should meditate right at that moment instead of feeling that I was doing nothing but "waiting" for the light to change? I suppose all of those at once or whatever resonated with the reader. It was a nice moment, and obviously an effective bumper sticker. I couldn't read the fine print to know which enterprise had produced the message.

My poet of choice right now is Pablo Neruda. It has been my practice for many years to select a poet and spend some time with her or him to see what I could learn and to intimately listen to their voice and music. As I have no Neruda with me, but only books I've used while in the library of which I have not become a member, I'm headed to the bookstores in Berkeley soon to see if I can land a copy of a particular translation that I have my eye on. Meantime, out of desperation when I wanted to find a particular poem, I found Neruda online. Amazing to see how many people have posted notes to him in response to his online poems, saying how great they thought he was, and they wanted to meet him, encouraging him to keep writing such wonderful poems. Who knows? Maybe they know something we don't. Maybe there are dimensions to the web that we haven't realized. Maybe Neruda is still around. Maybe he still writes.

Remembering Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2011-01-17T18:02:00.000-08:00

Remembering
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In: Letter from Birmingham Jail, written April 16, 1963

"I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

Walking in Silence

2011-01-14T21:37:00.000-08:00

Aisle of crypts

I've already mentioned that I've walked in the cemetery just 10 minutes up the street. It's going to be my hangout. It's full of a chorus of silence of a river of lives. Today I had my camera and took an array of snaps. Being there influences the creative mind as a million stories enter the imagination. Mercifully, the sun came out again today and I had to peel off some layers to keep from melting and by the time I returned home I was soaking wet.

Crypt with abandoned chair

Earlier today I'd had brunch with Linda, Rob Weinberg's widow. I hadn't seen her since the funeral and I was glad to see that she looks well and is moving along in her life, studying music and making frequent visits to her family in Paso Robles. Linda is a gifted classical pianist and is interested in making a transition to jazz, an amazing venture since jazz is no easy deal as it requires a deep understanding of music theory and structure in order to be spontaneous.

This leads me to mention a lecture that I heard on UC Berkeley's iTunesU. It was delivered by Hubert Dreyfus, author of ALL THINGS SHINING: READING THE WESTERN CLASSICS TO FIND MEANING IN A SECULAR AGE, a new work just hot off the press and not yet delivered to the book stores. I saw that Professor Dreyfus was teaching a course in a continuing education program and thought I'd try to take it, but it ultimately wasn't going to work out. So, I found him on iTunesU. In this talk he was speaking about communications and he came to a discussion of the five stages of skills development.

Tomb door

He mentioned that the first stage is to learn the rules, followed by the learning of features and facts about the skill, followed by learning to apply the rules, followed by learning meaningful aspects that apply to performance, and the last stage is to act spontaneously. He points out that this last stage comes through lots of practice and experience in practice and the learning of relevance, an important aspect of a skill.

For instance, if we are learning to drive a car, we'd learn the rules, facts and features of driving, how to apply the rules, what aspects are important to safety, and ultimately we'd drive without having to think about what we are doing. We'd just drive, applying the gas according to the flow of traffic. But "relevance" is of great importance as without it, we might apply the rules inappropriately. When all of this comes into play and we have mastered all of these stages, we can say we are expert at a given skill. It takes 10 years at 4 hours a day of practice.

But, Professor Dreyfus points out that there is a stage beyond expert. This is the stage we reach that for the good of the practice we keep learning. He says we "become something like a Zen person," one who continues to pursue learning because it is a domain that one loves. We can't be at this level without having carefully mastered the skill through the earlier stages of learning. If we leave out some part of the learning, we cannot consider ourselves expert. Imagine for instance that we learned to drive, but we never learned to work with the car in reverse. We would always be insecure and incomplete. So, to "become something like a Zen person" we undertake our learning with the joy of a beginner, being completely thorough and direct in our focus, not leaving out any aspect of our exploration and training.

2011-01-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Garden reflection

On Monday, I went with Hozan Alan Senauke to Marin to attend the evidentiary hearings for Jarvis Masters which are taking place for three weeks. Jarvis received a death sentence having been convicted of sharpening a tool that was used by another to kill a prison official. Jarvis has been on death row for twenty years. The California Supreme Court ordered the hearings in response to a habeus corpus brief filed by Jarvis and his legal team. If the current judge finds in Jarvis' favor, she can recommend to the Supreme Court that he receive a new trial. The Supreme Court will take this under advisement and consider granting the trial, or not. If yes, and there is a trial and he is found innocent, then he will be freed from prison. If the conviction stands, then he will await execution.

There is quite a bit of tension in the court room as, on the day that I was there, three people gave testimony: one, an attorney who had decided not to represent Jarvis. I didn't understand the legal reasons for his testimony. The second was a former P.I. who was shown to be an expert witness in the behavior of gangs in prison. Because the murder of the prison official involved the Black Guerilla Family, gang behavior is fundamental to the case. The third person giving testimony on behalf of Jarvis was a former inmate with Jarvis at San Quentin and a member of the BGF who is serving a life sentence and is now at another prison. Both prisoners appear shackled and in their bright orange prison jumpsuits and they are each guarded by four or five officers. Then there are four or five attorneys representing Jarvis. There are two attorneys representing the State of CA. The gallery is full of Jarvis supporters, maybe 20 in number.

We are now in the middle week of the hearings. You can read on Alan's blog a good synopsis and description of the people who gave testimony. Alan also describes more background of the case. I plan to attend one more day next week. Here is the address for Alan's blog: clearviewblog.org. You can also read more about Jarvis on freejarvis.org.

===========

I had lunch today at a sidewalk cafe in Rockridge, and it turned so warm I had to move into the shade. You can't imagine how good it felt to capture some vitamin D in the old fashioned way. Later I worked in the library which is comfortable with areas set aside for quiet study. Various professional people and students work with varieties of manuscripts and books, pounding away at their computers, as you'd expect in a library. I'm quite in league with others and find that being at the library is helpful to focus and attend to my work even though there is no one in the apartment to intrude. Still, I jump into gear in the library and as well I can enjoy a poetry or art book here and there that I wouldn't otherwise pick up. What more could a body ask for - sunshine, delicious food, writing, good health, quietude, and the California hills rising into the blue, blue sky.

Cemetery Blues

2011-01-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Mt. View Cemetery and St. Mary's Cemetery are at the top of Piedmont Avenue. This is the place where people in the neighborhood go to stroll, take their daily constitution, go for a jog. Several times now I've forgotten my camera so this is a view of the highest monuments taken from my window. Some of the grassy areas above are also part of the cemetery. You can see the homes of the Oakland Hills rising high above. And just above the wires in the center, the narrow dome is the tomb of Mr. Charles Crockett, one of the big four investors in the transcontinental railroad. To the right, obscured by the tree, is the tomb of Dr. Samuel Merritt, a philanthropist, former mayor of Oakland, and posthumous founder of Merritt Hospital, and Samuel Merritt University, a health sciences institution in Oakland. I thought first from my window I was looking at a church, but when I went there I realized these were rather impressive tombs.

So I walked in the cemetery and read stones as I went. Couldn't help it. (I'll take snapshots pretty soon.) So many born in Scotland and Ireland around 1850 and emigrated to New York then California. What brought them? Perhaps the promise of gold, the wild frontier, something better than what they could find at "home" in the coal mines and foundries. These would be women and men who were born at the time of the potato famine in Ireland and perhaps into poverty in the cities of Scotland. They sailed over, made their way west, and landed in the golden sun. Some of them did all right.

The flow of lives fed through me as I walked. A long river of life being lived and turning again into the earth. Not so many spirits still awake, but something murmuring in the deep settledness, a collective aura of peace in the certainty of our eventual outcome. We'll all arrive, do our best, then Rest in Peace and let others take over to be awake for their turn in consciousness in the 'flowing now'. Carpe diem, my dear ones. Carpe Diem!

Neighborhood Markers

2011-01-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

St. Leo the Great Catholic Church in Piedmont now 100 years old

Churches played an important archi-tectural role in the develop-ment of American towns and cities. Oftentimes, the church steeple was the highest tower reminding us of the sacred, with lower buildings paying deference to the sacred marker and the meaning of religion in daily life. But then the 20th century changed things and skyscrapers became the symbol of success and power with architectural designs reaching into the heavens identifying industry as the new religion. The old churches seemed minute as they were walled in by gargantuan growth.

In the neighborhood where I’m staying, the church of St. Leo the Great is celebrating 100 years of service. I pass it each day on my walks. The doors are locked so I haven’t been able to step inside, nor have I been tempted to venture in on Sunday when I do know it will be open. Still, there is something comforting about its presence. It speaks to spiritual values in everyday life. It has an aura of quietude. Its presence reminds that there is another dimension other than the to and fro hauling of purchases up and down the street. It reminds of what it is to live in a ‘neighborhood’ with marks of identity that give a settled quality to a community. It gives the feeling that everything is all right where we are and that there are people around who care about and support one another.

This is the feeling of this neighborhood, and it’s good to feel, good to experience.

Evidentiary Hearing for Jarvis Masters

2011-01-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

I wanted to alert you to Rev. Hozan Alan Senauke's blog <http://clearviewblog.org>
which, from now and through the next few weeks, is covering the evidentiary hearing for San Quentin death row inmate Jarvis Masters who is seeking a retrial. Alan has been Jarvis' spiritual adviser and friend for fifteen years. Jarvis is a well known Buddhist and published writer who was sentenced to death in 1990 for allegedly having sharpened a knife that was used to kill a San Quentin official. Two other men received life sentences: one ordered the killing, the other carried it out. Jarvis was accused of sharpening the knife (which was never found) by two other prison inmates and received the death sentence.

Alan is in court each day with Jarvis and is giving updates. The blog is compelling and I thought you might be interested as some of you may have come across Jarvis Masters' writing and be concerned about his plight. In any case, do keep good thought for Jarvis during these coming weeks as his life depends upon a fair outcome.

Many of you remember that Rev. Hozan Alan Senauke was one of our Ryokan san Lecturers who spoke on "The Teachings of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr." He is Assistant Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, director of the Clear View Project, and former director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

The Selective Eye

2011-01-04T17:14:00.000-08:00

Piedmont Street, late afternoon.

Even when we live in the nondis-criminatory mind, still the eye sees what it sees and the artist in us selects images all day long. Actually, artist or not, we all do it. We are especially aware of it if we are taking a photograph, painting a picture, writing a poem, or any art that must select in order to speak. We select faces, things, bits of trees, bushes, flowers, shadows, signs, movements. This also happens without our even knowing we are doing it.

Some images resonate to tell us about ourselves, stick within for awhile, then translate into expression. We must pay attention at every moment because something is always speaking to us. And these are the stories we bring home to supper to reflect on if we are alone, or to tell others if we are in company.

So I was down on Piedmont Street, the village area two blocks away. The sidewalk was crowded with people and the burnt umber face of an old man sitting outside a used furniture shop caught my eye. He was rubbing the reed of his clarinet while watching people go by, but no one was noticing him. Then our eyes met, but one of his eyes pointed to the side and I couldn’t tell if our eyes had really met or whether the good eye had looked the other way. I wondered if he inhabited a double world, if he could see both ways. Or, did he see like a man-bird who knows his language is music, and knows he can fly off when the street gets rough.

As I went past, he put the clarient to his mouth and began to play, not to show off, not as performance, but because it was the next thing he quite naturally was about to do. This happened several days ago yet the image of him is tucked into a soft place in me, perhaps because he was so utterly authentic in his presence, and for a split second we really did meet.

New Year Begins

2011-01-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

Fruit trees in the Central Valley, California

I didn’t especially choose Piedmont as my place of respite. Rather, it was somewhat known, a place well located, and it was excellent to be in relationship to my daughter for this while. It was startling on the drive down, once I’d entered California, how emotions that I’d forgotten came sweeping over me in the space of the wide landscape - emotions necessary to the artist in order to dream, to connect to myths, to understand vision and translate it into expression. I felt I’d hindered some genuine articulation by living away from a topography that speaks to my soul.

It isn’t that I think I’ll do something great with art. I simply want to remember how to contemplate in the natural way that I do. As a teacher and leader, there is no choice but to put one’s own needs aside and care for what has to be done. There is no room to grieve, no room to “simply be” even though that is what we teach. People’s projections weigh heavily on our public leaders, teachers, ministers. Can we imagine the weight of expectation and demand that we place on President Obama, and on other public people? My heart aches for what the President, the human-being-man must carry. Our Zen teachers are simple human beings, but still we weigh them down with who and what we want and think they should be, what we think “Zen” is.

I’ve come to deeply sympathize with the poet-priest Basho who also became abbot of a temple. Numerous times in his life, he left the demands of the temple behind and went off for years at a time to find himself, to be in the world as a free agent, to be away from pastoral care and listen to the sound of the wide world, to walk where no one knew him, to recover the heart of compassion, to live in a natural way. Because of this we have his great travel poems and we have an example of the priest-artist who must live his art in order to survive.

So, for better or worse, here I am for the next three months. This is where I hang my hat.

Arrived in Piedmont

2010-12-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

At a rest stop along the way. Couldn't help noticing sunshine and blue sky.

The amount of water on the freeway was stunning. White knuckles all the way with a two lane highway with trucks on the right throwing up water and cars going northbound throwing water up over the median barrier. The wipers couldn't flick fast enough. But, my timing was excellent for snow: no chains, no snow on the road and just ahead of a major blizzard in the Siskiyous and Shasta.

My first night in California I stayed at the Comfort Inn in Redding. Very nice, comfortable, spacious, hospitable. Still the rain pummeled the city, but by morning the sky was California blue and the sun California golden. On the open road for the remainder of the drive, wide, wide fields opened out to faraway mountains. This went on for several hours and brought out flashes of memories of wandering in meadows in this landscape. It’s where I feel at home. It's dangerous to weep while driving.

Today is December 30^th. I have a few things to iron out to fully settle in, but it’s a good place to sleep with an excellent bed. Nearly as quiet at night as it is at Olympia Zen Center. It’s a corner apartment and the way the building is arranged, I have no walled neighbors, only someone downstairs who is very quiet. So, I have tremendous privacy. No need for shades or curtains since I don’t look into anyone’s windows. There are good views from every window. It’s a very homey place with livable paintings, some quite nice and many done by the fellow who lives here who is going to Asia for three months.

View from the kitchen window.

The location is excellent with a busy village two blocks away. My daughter says the area should be called Piedmont and not Oakland, but the post office calls it Oakland. A huge and interesting cemetery is just up the street and it provides good walking trails. At the top there is a grand view of the whole of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge. It’s a fine day here, just the tail end of a wind storm that hit central and southern California. I’m off to explore.

What it takes...

2010-12-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

December 8th is the day we celebrate the Buddha's Awakening, so some people call it Enlightenment Day, or Bodhi Day. It has a good feel to it. It feels high spirited and special the way a birthday feels. So last night in the Zendo, someone asked an interesting question. He said if the Buddha had this great enlightenment and became this influential person with a way to overcome suffering, how did he know what to do to get there?

I explained that I felt very strongly that the Buddha didn't know what to do or how to get there. He had struggled for many years and explored various avenues to try to find an answer to the dilemma of suffering, but his steadfast confidence took him through the difficulties that brought him to the great insight of the Four Noble Truths. In Buddhism the word "steadfast" really means "faith" so the Buddha had faith in his own Self, faith in the ongoing activity of compassion which propelled him to resolve the problem of suffering. He had confidence that through effort in the search, he would find an answer.

We have the same ability in our own lives, in our own dilemmas, to find the answer and gain insight into any life problem. Steadfast confidence in the (big) Self will steer us in the right direction. Of course, we have to be willing to put immense effort into right focus, right concentration, in order to place ourselves in the yeast that will give rise to insight. We can't expect that we will just be handed an answer simply because we want one. Sincere and steadfast effort is called for. Practicing with steadfast confidence brings us happiness. Please don't take my word for it. This is what the Buddhas says. The Buddha also says, if you want to know about steadfast confidence, please find out for yourself.

In this way, the Buddha was very practical and logical. All that he learned and experienced is also available to us through our practice. He clearly taught that we too can experience happiness.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

With blessings to one and all on Thanksgiving Day and throughout the holiday season.
This is a view of Gogo-an earlier this week when we received our first snowfall of the winter. Frigid temperatures followed and the landscape remains wintry and picturesque.

On Wednesday evenings, we always chant the Heart Sutra, and following this we offer a dedication of our practice. On this Thanksgiving Day, I'm including here, in brief, those expressions of gratitude as they have deep meaning and intention for us all.

For Our Many Benefactors

We celebrate the teachings of the Buddha Dharma which bring light and hope to the many realms of suffering, and lead to ease and joy. These teachings are offered here at Ryoko-an because of the goodness and generosity of all our many benefactors.

We offer the merit of this chant to all those who aid and support our temple through myriad expressions of generosity. May all our benefactors gain wisdom and compassion from all they meet and may our sincere vows to practice together be realized in the Enlightened Way.

For the Welfare of Families and Children

We celebrate the teachings of the Buddha Dharma which bring light and hope to the many realms of suffering, and lead to ease and joy. These teachings are offered here at Ryoko-an in recognition of the many families who support our practice.

We offer the merit of this chant to all families and particularly to the health and welfare of children. May all families receive the protection of the Dharma and be shielded from misfortune and disaster. May we in our sincere vows to practice together, exemplify the teachings of Buddha and realize the Enlightened Way.

For Those Courageous Enough to Lead Us in Governments Throughout the World

We offer the merit of this chant that those who take leadership positions may be led by wisdom and truth. May our nations learn to live in peace. May we in our compassionate practice keep the mind of hope and dignity alive in support of justice and equality and may our sincere vows to practice together be realized in the Enlightened Way.

Poem for Veterans' Day

2010-11-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

Each year at Veterans's Day or on Memorial Day I post a poem by my brother John Carney who is a Vietnam Veteran. He writes poems about military patriotism and poems that question war.

WHO UNDERSTANDS

John Carney 5/29/2010

Who fully understands

The meaning of this day?

The parents, spouses, sons and daughters

Who waved them on their way?

Is it the comrades in their midst

Who saw them where they lay?

Many do not comprehend

And some may not even care

That the sacrifice that was made

Is a bond that others share.

And this is not a matter

It is not the important thing

As they laid down their lives

That only some then felt the sting.

What is important for us all to know

and to realize in some way

Is that the meaning of this time

Though passion only some display,

Is we are a country, we are a people

And this liberty we hold so dear

Is kept alive by our willingness

To respond when threats appear.

It may be arguable or seem wrong

And with that make some outcry

Against the leaders and their acts

Have them explain their reasons why.

But do not let this day go by

Without some pause for thought

For the fallen and their loved ones

And their comrades who also fought.

As as a nation, as a people

And our actions in this world

We should recognize and honor

Today when the flag's unfurled.

It's one time we should all realize

It doesn't matter if you fully understand

But take some time to respect such cost!

They died in service of our great land!

Priest in Need of a Car

2010-11-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

A priest in Washington on a very low income is in need of a car since her car died of old age.

If you have a car you were thinking of selling and would consider donating to a great cause, please notify us through the website

olympiazencenter.org "contact us" page

or telephone
360-357-2835

Zen Translation Forum

2010-11-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend, San Francisco Zen Center will present The Zen Translation Forum, a program celebrating the publication of SHOBOGENZO, edited by Kaz Tanahashi and including a host of translators and scholars.

The program will be held at three venues in San Francisco: City Center, Fort Mason, and Green Gulch. The afternoon programs will be on Live Stream and you may tune in and enjoy the panel discussions and presentations from wherever you are.

I will be presenting on Sunday afternoon at Green Gulch. My subject is Dogen's View of Women and I'll speak about that, of course, and also present the book project that Soto Zen women priests are working on.

The Live Stream will be broadcast from 2 to 5 p.m. on November 6 and 7, 2010.

To access the SF Zen Center channel page for the live stream, please visit:
SF Zen Center at LiveStream

You may also find information on Facebook

Freedom of Speech

2010-10-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

A woman holding a placard in opposition to a candidate for political office, was thrown to the ground and her head stomped on although she was not badly injured. Her attackers were refusing to allow her to hold her view in the public arena because it didn't agree with theirs. Naturally, both candidates have spoken out against violence at any political gathering. It is clear though, that the election is heating up and people are feeling passionate about their positions on issues and candidates for office.

Last week I gave a Dharma talk about the use of speech and our practice to understand the nature of motivation and intention. Motivation we said was related to reason (a reason to make a point in speech) while intention is related to action (wanting something to happen as a result of our speech). We were also enjoined to consider in what ways our speech was a manifestation of greed, anger and ignorance, the three poisons that Shakyamuni Buddha teaches are at the heart of suffering. Right speech is one of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha's prescription for getting beyond suffering. Right speech is also connected to several of the Precepts: to refrain from false speech; not to slander; to not praise self at the expense of others. The Buddha's teachings essentially say that if we don't do these things, we'll be much better off, much happier.

Of all the Precepts, perhaps right speech is the most difficult because there is such a short distance between the reasoning brain and the acting mouth. Speech is a creative activity. We invent language all day long in all our interactions. That is, we don't sit and think up every word. We simply speak and "words come spilling out of our mouths when our lips move." If we have been harboring ill will toward someone, if we have unacknowledged anger or resentment, speech is the most immediate way to let loose and inflict harm in retaliation. If we have a handy listener, it's an obvious way to attempt to get others on our side.

False speech can also make us appear to be something we are not, something we want to be but haven't achieved. The precept, not praising self at the expense of others includes not painting ourselves to others in a way that makes us look good in order to achieve some kind of gain, inferring that we have a competence in something when we do not. This is obviously related to greed.

We can see these shortfalls in the campaigns of the people running for office slinging hurtful, outright lies, and dispensing meanness all in pursuit of gaining a place in public office. It really makes us wary. If this is how one would be in the campaign, how will the person be in office? It's not a happy situation that causes us to trust our candidates. It behooves us, nevertheless, to understand our own use of right speech and to examine the ways in which we use speech to our own ends.

Ryokan san had a very strong practice around right speech and he articulated his own understanding of the precept. Just as the Buddha taught, Ryokan san listed these as cautions and prohibitions that if we refrained from these activities, we could find a greater happiness within ourselves and in our relations. Almost anyone, of any tradition could find these helpful, but not at all easy. They have to be practiced with mindfulness of the wagging tongue and awareness of all around us. If we take on a strong practice of this, then what we hear via the heated election, will not upset us, it will instead, teach us what not to do. We will express even greater gratitude for the environment of the Dharma. We will come to truly understand Freedom of Speech.

And, in view of Ryokan san's cautions about not being long-winded, I cut to the chase. Be well out there.

Ryokan’s Precepts of Right Speech

TAKE CARE NOT TO:

Talk too much

Talk too fast

Talk without being asked to

Talk gratuitously

Talk with your hands

Talk about worldly affairs

Talk back rudely

Argue

Smile condescendingly at others’ words

Use elegant expressions

Boast

Avoid speaking directly

Speak with a knowing air

Jump from topic to topic

Use fancy words

Speak of past events that cannot be changed

Speak like a pedant

Avoid direct questions

Speak ill of others

Speak grandly of enlightenment

Carry on while drunk

Speak in an obnoxious manner

Yell at children

Make up fantastic stories

Speak while angry

Name-drop

Ignore the people to whom you are speaking

Speak sanctimoniously of gods and buddhas

Use sugary speech

Use flattering speech

Speak of things of which you have no knowledge

Monopolize conversations

Talk about others behind their backs

Speak with conceit

Bad-mouth others

Chant prayers ostentatiously

Complain about the amount of alms

Give long-winded sermons

Speak affectedly like a tea master

Long Time Away

2010-09-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

It is a month since I've written here. The summer was full of expected and unexpected travel and it seemed that as soon as I arrived home it was time to depart again. Travel isn't over quite yet either. I've still a few trips to make before the end of the year. The days filled up with one thing and another and some days were only about the rain falling. We had a wet, wet September. Now the tress are turning color in various pockets of habitats here and there and leaves are sailing through air like huge orange globs of snow. We can't deny that it's autumn even without having had much summer.

I wanted to mention a most interesting blog
sweetcakeenso.blogspot.com
It is a blog that is focusing on the Zen circle, the enso, as an art endeavor but also includes teaching and commentary along with it. Various artists will be showing their work there and discussing the meaning behind their art. I do recommend it for artists and Zen practitioners, or for any folk interested in Asian art and art history.

I've agreed to edit a book of essays by Soto Zen women priests on Dogen's writings in SHOBOGENZO. There are very few examples of women's teaching in print today. Yes, we have our websites and blogs, and we get around and do workshops, but written down published teachings are hard to find by Soto Zen women. We have some brilliant teachers in our American Soto Zen Sangha and to think of their voices coming together in one essay collection is rather exciting. We are at the moment in search of a publisher and I have high hopes that we can find one to help us give tribute to Dogen Zenji whose teachings allowed women to come forward to stand in fully equality in the monastic sphere.

Meantime, several of us continue to meet on Sunday afternoons for creative work. It will likely be poetry from here on out as the rains make it impossible to do plein air. Nevertheless, there's watercolors and sumi to set up which are not so impossible inside. We'd been complaining about the lack of color (except for green) and the preponderance of trees and brush that don't allow for a distant view. Allyson came across a book by a painter in the PNW and commented that there were the colors we seem to face: grey, black, brown, with a bit of dark blue. We seem to have to reach deep into the soul to find inspiration in this landscape. Painters of the Pacific Northwest are notoriously dark in color. But we press on, longing to find a way to make that solid wall of salal and brush interesting.

Hoping to work my way into this blog voice in the coming weeks with a bit more conversation.

Another Kansas Poem

2010-08-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

Stories of pioneer women amaze me. I look at the luxury of heat and light I live with today and feel I don't know what it is to sacrifice. I can't imagine what they went through in the journey west. We have people living today in brutal situations because of natural disasters, and it will be a long hard time before they recover. Their stories too are compelling and instructive because they show us how we are destroying ourselves, physically and spiritually, through the endless need for comfort.

By popular request, another poem about a Kansas woman pioneer.

Mary Roberts

Spring Creek

August 1, 1874

The summer was going well. You came of age, sewed the green gingham bonnet you wore in the hazy sun that first August day. You walked hand in hand with young Jeff in the wheat and oat fields the straw color of your hair swaying with pasture grass, cattle idle and fat beside the low slung barn.

When you noticed the cloud, you both ran home, not believing the white, glistening

approach of grasshoppers that filled the horizon like a massive sudden snow coating fields five inches deep with green hunger.

Your father already at the plums with your sisters and brother grabbed the still hard fruit

to save what you could. You rushed the buckets into the house listening to the thud of insects land like stinging hail destroying your crops.

The watermelon field disappeared, twigs eaten, the merest sprout devoured. A branch of the cottonwood snapped from their weight.

Your mother rushed bed sheets to cover vegetables near the house, but green clouds landed and ate through the cloth, leaves vanishing in minutes. Only pits left hanging on the peach tree like stranded red bumps - onion skins left as paper shells gobbled from the inside - house curtains shredded, handles of hoes and rakes, harnesses and furniture eaten through.

Your little sister Betsy screamed in fear when insects invaded her hair and climbed into her clothing along her back. When you went to help they landed on your hat and ate through before you could get inside.

For two days your family fought them off and slowly they left when they’d finished the land.

Water in the pond, every fence post, gully and crevice oozed with green excrement.

Chickens, turkeys and hogs swelled from eating grasshoppers off their backs in the hopeless battle, their meat made inedible from the stench. Every bit of food gone for the year.

You stuck fast to the soil and hoed, the family gathering into itself, weathering that long, bleak winter, your young heart releasing and holding to what might come of your life, and your love in that wind swept land.

The following spring on a quiet morning, the loamy earth began to tremble with a pale imperceptible white, as eggs from the summer before, emerged and hatched, opening into daylight and sky, a green lakeof hind legs instinctively jumping.

Again, again, before your dispirited hearts,

the creatures swallowed with elemental vigor

the whole of God’s terrain and your

family’s backbreaking toil.

At Palolo Zen Center, Honolulu Diamond Sangha, Hawaii

2010-08-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

I offer brief thoughts on the Memorial Service for Aitken Roshi last Sunday at Honolulu Palolo Diamond Sangha. Hundreds of people came from all over the world to bear witness to Aitken Roshi’s life and teachings. The Zendo and all the surrounding rooms were shoulder to shoulder with people in the soft Hawaiian breeze that filtered through as the service proceeded. The service included Zazen, music by Beethoven, a Dharma talk by Michael Kieran, Aitken Roshi’s successor, chanting, offerings of words speaking directly to Roshi, and offerings of flowers by his grandchildren, special friends, and representative of the Hawaiian nation. It was a deeply moving experience to be present for this taking leave.

Lunch was served afterward. Awhile later, about 60 people gathered for several hours in a circle in the Zendo to share their special stories and memories of Aitken Roshi. The stories were deeply personal, sometimes very funny, and always demonstrated Roshi’s love of Dharma and his ways of teaching.

A tribute to Aitken Roshi will take place in the Bay Area, California on October 30. Time and place are yet to be determined due to the potential large numbers who would attend on the mainland.

Aloha Aitken Roshi out there on the moon. Aloha everyone. I leave the Island tonight. With farewell to this grand blue/green ocean that heals and caresses the body, the sun blazing with healing rays. Gratitude to the Hawaiian people for their beautiful hospitality and allowing the waves of people to share in the bounty of light. Mahalo.

When in Brooklyn

2010-08-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

I was in New York when word of Aitken Roshi's death came. For many years I'd considered myself a friend to him, corresponding occasionally, sending post cards from my travels, receiving much comfort and growth from his teachings. He was 93 when he died. Lucky he was to have lived a long life and to have so many years to influence the world with wisdom and insight. I'll go to his Memorial Service on August 22nd and be away for about five days. This time I'll bring my computer and write a report to the blog from there.

New York was a personal trip, a journey to find out where I came from and to see where I've been in the meantime. I had a wonderful time.

(The photos compress differently from the draft to the published version. They are parts of my neighborhood and I can't tell the order : the old Savoy movie theatre; Bedford Avenue with the original Loehmann's at the center in the distance; the street leading to St. Teresa's church towers; my high school, Bishop McDonnell Memorial.

The first four days I spent alone, staying at the Herald Square Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The plan was to visit my old neighborhood in Brooklyn and go to places I'd been in my youth. I simply wanted to experience the streets where I'd been as a child and to see how it looked. Traveling in New York is really easy. Public transportation is exceptional and one can get around the city and go from one borough to another quite easily with a Metro Card, a train/bus ticket which you slide through a slot which reads the metered amount. The subway stops are stifling hot, but once you board the train, they are all air conditioned. It's quite pleasant.

My neighborhood, which I hadn't seen in 50 years, looks the same except that the cultural mix has changed. In my day it was a mix of Irish, Italian, Jewish, African American. Today it is all African American and Haitian. I was an anomaly in the neighborhood, the only white person walking deep into an area where I appeared strange and perhaps threatening to some. Clearly, I was on alert, but I was not frightened. It amazed me to see the buildings all the same and some improved with the stone and brick having been washed clean. There was no graffiti to be found. The streets were swept. The shops had all changed with different owners and different wares and interests. My school and the church remained although the stucco was peeling from the church building. The convent stood exactly the same. It was ghostly to see it without the life in it that I had remembered. Friends apartments were intact, my own apartment a bit changed because a gate had been built around the entry. On Google Earth, the apartment had been an evangelical church, but that too has gone. It's simply an apartment building. The walls where we played ball were still there. All of it there. It was remarkable. But, I could not take photos in that area as I was truly an outsider and it would have been threatening to go around taking photos. But, no matter. It was my own mind and memory that I wanted to experience and no photo can really do the job of first hand witnessing. I may go back again another time to see it to tell me more about my life and where I've been. That is the real thing, I think. That sometimes we have to go back in order to find out where we've traveled, where we've been, what road we took and why.

Next: more events in Brooklyn and Manhattan

Back Home

2010-08-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't written here since traveling to San Francisco and New York. On both trips I had not brought along my computer and thus it made it very difficult to write any sustained words onto this blog. My iPad is wonderful for incoming information, but it's very difficult to do any meaningful writing.

There were two reasons to go to San Francisco. One was to attend a meeting of the Association of Soto Zen Buddhists at Sokoji in Japantown, and the second was to visit my grandchildren who were visiting from Zurich. The family rented a house in the Castro district since they were staying for three weeks. The house was a grand and spacious Victorian with a lovely back patio for dining or sunning. Yes, the sun did come out although the temperature was quite chilly most of the time. I was glad of the sweater and scarf I'd brought. Summer can be bitter in San Francisco and this year it is downright disheartening.

I went out and about with the kids, through the Castro and up and over Dolores Park with a fabulous view of the skyline downtown. The kids are troopers, sophisticated in their acceptance of the varieties of peoples found on the streets of San Francisco. This is quite different from what they experience in Zurich where the people are generally far more conservative in dress and demeanor. The grandkids seem to flourish in the freedom of expression they find here and felt they didn't want to leave when it came time to go home. They were both born in San Francisco and remember living there before they moved to Europe. Still, as children, they have more freedom of movement in Zurich. They can go out alone to the playground in Zurich. Julian walks Esther to her ballet lesson. When out shopping, the kids can wander alone in other departments or stores. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen today in the U.S.

The day the folks were leaving for Switzerland, I went on to my hotel for the ASZB meeting. It had been difficult to find a room in Japantown, thus I got a budget hotel within walking distance but right at the edge of the Tenderloin at Geary and Polk. Holy moly. I live in sweet little Olympia and although I'm from Bed-Sty in Brooklyn, I haven't seen such sad life in a long time. I went out to find a snack shop after dark and walked along Polk street for two blocks to a convenience store. The pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers were all out. The streets are narrow in that area so you can't avoid close contact. To let you know they are available, as you walk by they simply say, "Hey" in a quiet tone. I'm certainly not frightened by any of this, just I'm so out of place in my looks, I must have seemed very comical to them. I wonder what they thought when they saw me. Did they think I was innocent and foolish? Do they wish they had another life? I know that when I see their lifestyle, I am intensely grateful for what I have. Any of us could wind up on the streets for a variety of reasons. Any of us could be born into dreadful poverty and hopelessness. For them, this is how they know to make a living. This is how they survive.

The meeting itself went well and I enjoyed the company of my peers. We're all getting older and we wonder how the next generation will flourish in the Dharma. We wonder how the tradition will go forward and how it will be changed in and by the American culture. We have many concerns and these are discussed in our interactions at such meetings. It is tremendously helpful to feel supported by one another and to feel the depth and strength of other teachers.

So, a report on my New York trip is the next blog before I pack and get ready to go to Honolulu to Aitken Roshi's Memorial Service which will be held on August 22.

Tribute to Robert Gyoun Aitken Roshi

2010-08-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Robert Gyoun Aitken Roshi, beloved teacher and founder of the Diamond Sangha and teacher to a vast number of students and teachers worldwide, died on August 5, 2010, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was 93 years old. In his final years, despite numerous health challenges and bound to a wheel chair, Roshi remained active in his writing and teaching, and in his presence in practice at Palolo Zen Sangha.

A complete biography of Aitken Roshi can be found at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha website: www.diamondsangha.org

After he retired, Roshi continued to publish, each book seeming to be his last. Several years ago, Roshi declared he was writing his final book, a personal one-copy book to his grandchild. Four books were to follow. His fourteenth book with the working title, RIVER OF HEAVEN, was underway when he died.

Roshi died peacefully not long after entering the hospital with the condition of pneumonia. His Memorial Service will be held at Honolulu Diamond Sangha, Palolo Zen Center, on August 22nd.

A memorial service expressing gratitude for Aitken Roshi's life and his teachings which have influenced and sustained us in many ways, will be held at Olympia Zen Center on Wednesday evening, August 18th, beginning with Zazen at 7:00 p.m.

After the Full Moon

2010-07-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

The Full Moon Sesshin was full of wonderful spirit with the moon never so bright and clear. We had a wide range of ages and experience with several people sitting a Zen retreat for the first time. We were all encouraged by the openness of everyone and the willingness to adventure into participation without hesitation.

The gardens are beginning to be tamed after so much spring rain. The weeds went wild and the bushes seemed to double in size. But persistence of the Sangha in taking time in the garden is beginning to see results. We are getting a handle on the garden areas and the grounds are extraordinarily beautiful. Our bald eagle continues residence on the lake and surveys the waters regularly. Song birds this year are still in full throat. However, August is coming and they will soon be quiet. There is never anything so strange as to sit meditation in August when the birds quit singing in order to save up energy and fat for the migration. We call that the time when "Buddha is Sleeping."

During Full Moon retreat we do something rather extraordinary. We go to sleep at 9:00 p.m. then get up at midnight and do t'ai chi in the moonlight. Last night we were out dancing in this mysterious movement in the shadows of trees and coyotes began howling in the distance. Then in the opposite distance the dogs began to bark. Here we were between them moving silently. I can't imagine what someone would think happening upon us in the darkness.

5:00 a.m. comes rather early then after being up at midnight for half an hour. The sleep is delicious going back to bed, but the wake up at dawn isn't easy. Nevertheless, we do it and discover ourselves again in the silence of meditation listening to the birds wake up. The changing light is already noticeable. Nothing stays the same. The Full Moon will quickly enough fall into darkness.

"My meditation under the moon lasts till the ripest night.

The stream has hushed its cry, dew lies thick everywhere.

Who among the moon viewers tonight will have the prize?

Who will reflect the clearest moon in the lake of his mind?"

Priest Ryokan

Translation by Nobuyuki Yuasa

Life Lessons in the Garden

2010-07-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

Much we can learn about ourselves and life can be found in garden work. It’s hard to think of a more profound, straightforward teacher. I was inspired to venture into some heavy work that I hadn’t taken on for awhile. There are always excuses: oh, my aching back, so much work inside, the awful rainy weather. The inspiration came from reading about my pioneer sisters and what they endured in the settlements on the Kansas frontier.

Last year I read about the incredible challenges of pioneer women and began a series of poems about their experiences. Then I put the poems aside and let them be. Last evening I returned to the reading and was inspired today to undertake some muscle work in the garden just because it was there to do and it was empowering to do it. Usually I would wait for help with taking down some large, thick bushes, but today, taking my time and working slowly, I accomplished the task. The physical work gave me inspiration to finish writing the series of poems in tribute to the lives of pioneer women.

Because I was alone in the garden and having to move wisely, after all I’m not as strong as I once was and it takes longer to do things, I could be aware of the lessons that gardening brings. Pull too hard and you can injure yourself and risk pulling a plant apart from its roots. Push too hard and you injure the plants. Easy to notice symbiosis among plants and insects and realize how easy it is to overtake a habitat of helpful insects. Leave a path of ground bare and you invite predatory weeds. Pull some weeds the wrong way and you risk spitting seeds out to 25 feet. A variety of weeds balances the pH in the soil. Pull out all the weeds and you turn the soil alkaline. Moss will grow abundantly. Carelessness with tools can destroy them, can cause injury to oneself. All of these situations and hundreds more in the garden are metaphors for life lessons.

I thought of the women working the grasslands in Kansas, a windblown, unmerciful place mostly without trees. A house made of sod dug into the edge of a mound, the floor turning to mud when it rained. How they managed in the long absences of their husbands gone for weeks on end in search of supplies, food, and fuel. How they longed for company, hearing only wolves and coyotes in the darkness and listening to the persistent wind while protecting and caring for their babes. In today’s world I can hardly imagine what they sacrificed. What inner strength and wisdom they must have come to, with the land, the soil as their only reliance, the relentless, unremitting teaching of the soil.

Here is one of the poems:

Mrs. Hilton

Kansas Pioneer, 1872

Here you filed your claim and made your home in Norton County

in the dugout of a nameless hill where Indians and unwelcome travelers would

not find you.

You and Mr. Hilton plowed treeless land mesmerizing the eye as far north

as Dakota Badlands.

When winds came to the prairie nights you huddled in dense blackness

with your few pieces of Pennsylvania wood beginning to rot

in the damp sod.

In rains, you hauled buckets of water from inside your dugout,

poured it into the gulley that fed the little stream beside sprouting

corn and beans.

With fires, locusts and raids, you held your ground, never giving in to

desolate winters that wrapped the landscape in white sorrow when

nothing happened or moved.

Here, for years you stayed, month after month with silence, alone at times

when Mr. Hilton went into town for supplies, and you listened to the song

of the cricket, wind curled patterns on prairie grass above that dark

settlement. You caught fallen bull snakes on the hoe and scuttled them

out to the grass.

You went into Little River for wood, no longer able to stay away, both of

you climbing into the wagon and driving east for three days.

At the edge of town on the north fork of the Cheyenne, for the first time in

two years you saw a tree.

Climbing off the wagon, you stretched your arms around the firm trunk

of a cottonwood, pressing your forehead against the bark, crying for hours

into the wood, your own tears feeding the roots with agony and release.

Mr. Hilton helpless to know what to do found two women from the hotel

who came to the river, pried you loose and held you in the soft pink and

yellow of their taffeta skirts.

The Genuine in Us

2010-06-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Since back from Switzerland I've been scurrying to catch up, get myself past that difficult bout of virus, and settle in for the beginning of summer. The grounds require so much care these days because the rain has caused extraordinary growth. There are billions of weeds and tree seedlings. We'd be overgrown in half a year if we didn't continually keep the gardens combed.

Last Wednesday evening I gave a talk on a subject I'd been thinking about: being genuine. Earlier in the day, I had opened a book I refer to for my writing or daily thought which had been recommended by Jeanne Lohmann. The book is a compilation of daily quotes that encourage deep thought and encourage the spiritual heart. The quote was on the subject of "the genuine" and I naturally read the quote at the talk.

The book is, AN ALMANAC FOR THE SOUL - Anthology of Hope by Marv and Nancy Hiles which is only available from Iona Center, PO Box 1528, Healdsburg, CA 95448. (707) 431 7426. ionacenter@comcast.net.

I offer the quote for June 23 here with hopes I won't get in trouble since I've given a recommendation here.

"Listen to the sound of the genuine within you. Small, Einstein said, is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own heart. How to be one of them? The black theologian Howard Thurman said that there is something in each one of us that waits and listens for the sound of genuine in ourselves, and it is the only true guide you'll ever have. If you cannot hear it, you will all of your lives spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls. You will find that when you leave here there are so many noises and competing demands in your lives that many of you will never find out who you are. So I hope you will learn to keep quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourselves so that you can hear it in other people too."

"The Well-Lived Life Is A Search for Substance" by Marion Wright Edelman

Wind & Wolken Sangha, Northern Germany

2010-06-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

I arrived on Tuesday in Hamburg and Harald picked me up at the airport. We passed through the rolling hills on a 1.5 to 2 hour drive north to Lindau where Wind und Wolken Sangha meets in the Zendo beside the house where Friederike and Harald live. The back windows overlook large grain fields. There is a dairy down the street and we can occasionally hear cows chatting together. The day I arrived the sun came out and it has been lovely ever since.

We sat Zazen on Thursday evening, I gave a brief Dharma talk, and I was happy to see so many members continuing their practice in this sweet Zendo and very joyful Sangha. Two members will receive Jukai on Sunday after a Sangha day of practice on Saturday and early morning practice on Sunday. Following this we'll have a banquet celebration, which should technically be called a potluck lunch, but as the German cooks/bakers are so good, it really turns into a feast. There will be much chatting and laughter, such a good humored group they are.

Yesterday, we strolled along the inlet at Eckernforde where it meets the Baltic Sea. The blue, deep sky made the water an unusually beautiful grey/blue. Fishermen had just come in with their catches and were selling fish from their boats pulled alongside the dock. We had lunch at a little fish stand and sat happily in the sun for a nice hour enjoying the conversation and sights.

Later in the afternoon two visitors came to the house. Rev. Doko Waskoneg, the only woman Soto Zen priest in Germany. She has her Zendo and Sangha in

Hanover. I visited her for the first time last year with Friederike while on our way to Nurnberg. The second woman was Ritsunen Gabriele Linneback who is the first woman translator of SHOBOGENZO, rendered in German and only recently published in four volumes. It took her 20 years to complete. She is a student of Nishijima Roshi. Rev Doko will also publish her first book in July. It is a commentary on several fascicles by Dogen Zenji. Rev. Doko is a Dharma heir of Nishijima Roshi.

(In the photo left to right: Eido, Gabriele, Friederike, Doko, Harald)

It was a great honor to be with these women, not to also mention the company of Friederike and Harald. We had a jolly time discussing the tribulations of translating into German and the great difficulty of it compared to English. Gabriele had the opportunity to live in Japan during some of the work and she had access to Nishijima Roshi which was of great assistance.

We also visited Volker, a Sangha member who received Jukai last year, and held a memorial service for Volker's wife who died three years ago. Today we visited Dieter and Jytte who will receive Jukai on Sunday.

Everywhere we've gone it has been most wonderful to be so welcomed.

At Felsentor

2010-05-31T05:52:00.000-07:00

I went by train, boat, and cable car from Zurich to Felsentor which sits on a shelf high above Lake Luzern. Since all the connections are timed, there is no waiting from one conveyance to the other, simply a reasonable time to go from one to the other and then it departs, almost always on time. Only something extraordinary would keep the trains behind schedule. It's Switzerland!

Lake Luzern has mountains than come straight down into the lake and in a fog they are mysterious and exotic with stone walls that shine with dampness and are alive with small waterfalls. The day I arrived the weather was fine, but afterward we dealt with either rain or fog and thunderstorms at varying times throughout the day and night. As it is quite slippery on the trails when it rains, at one point a rescue helicopter hovered about 30 feet from my room, looking down the ravine to see if there was someone who needed assistance. Many people need rescue at this still wet time of year.

The word "Felsentor" means stone gate and it comes from a Franciscan monk who lived on the mountain a few hundred years ago. When the hunters came in search of animals, the monk called the animals into the protection of the stones and away from the hunters. Legend has it that the stone developed into the shape of a monk. Indeed, it clearly looks like a monk and it is the gateway to the piece of land that sits out on the shelf where the residence is and where the Zendo is. The priest who developed the present place of practice is Vanya Palmers, a Transmitted priest of Kobun Chino Roshi. Vanya has also developed an animal shelter to save animals from the slaughterhouse.

There are seven residents who live full-time and work to maintain the facility for retreats. Two are administrators, one is a cook, one is full-time with the animals, and the others are works who garden, keep up with repairs and the myriad duties that are needed to keep such a place going. Access to Felsentor is either by a 15 minute hike from the cable train, or by the old vehicle that is used to transport food and supplies from the cable train. It's a rugged drive and not for the feint of heart.

I spent a quiet weekend sitting Zazen with the residents in the mornings and evenings, reading, sketching, taking photos, and just looking out at the mountains. My workshop had been cancelled and although it was difficult on Felsentor, I was thrilled to have the time to myself. I'd not been feeling so well and it was a chance to take the mountain air and just quiet down. I also enjoyed wonderful vegetarian food which we ate in the dining room that looks out onto the great vista. Even in cloud, it's breathtaking.

The Zendo was built in San Francisco and then transported to Switzerland. The only way to get it up the mountain was by helicopter where it was delivered piece by piece and then reassembled. Pricey, eh? I can't think of what it would take, but we might build our Olympia Zen Center several times over. But, it's a gem and a treasure on the Rigi Mountain and hikers stop to admire the beautiful Japanese architecture.

More later. I must get ready to take Esther, my granddaughter to her ballet lesson next door to the Opera House.

Memorial Day Poem 2010

2010-05-31T05:38:00.001-07:00

The Cathedral in Bern

Every year on Memorial Day I post a poem

written by my brother, John Carney,

a Vietnam Vet.

Here is a new poem for this year.

WHO UNDERSTANDS

(Memorial Day)

John Carney 5/29/2010

Who fully understands

The meaning of this day?

The parents, spouses, sons and daughters

Who waved them on their way?

Is it the comrades in their midst

Who saw them where they lay?

Many do not comprehend

And some may not even care

That the sacrifice that was made

Is a bond that others share.

And this is not a matter

It is not the important thing

As they laid down their lives

That only some then felt the sting.

What is important for us all to know

and to realize in some way

Is that the meaning of this time

Though passion only some display,

Is we are a country, we are a people

And this liberty we hold dear

Is kept alive by our willingness

To respond when threats appear.

It may be arguable or seem wrong

And with that make some outcry

Against the leaders and their acts

Have them explain their reasons why.

But do not let this day go by

Without some pause for thought

For the fallen and their loved ones

And their comrades who also fought.

As as a nation, as a people

And our actions in this world

We should recognize and honor

Today when the flag's unfurled.

It's one time we should all realize

It doesn't matter if you fully understand

But take some time to respect such cost!

They died in service of our great land!

Toronto Airport, Zurich and Bern

2010-05-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

A few hours layover at the Toronto Airport and I run into a Richard Serra sculpture smack in the middle of the international section of the airport. It’s almost the same sculpture I saw with Rebecca at the Los Angeles County Museum a few years ago. It’s a miracle for parents because the kids waiting for flights can run off some steam as they race through the passageways making crazy sounds that echo off the panels. It’s a wonder the structure of such height can stand and not fall over. Thrilling to see in the midst of an airport.

But the trip was long although uneventful. When I arrived in Zurich it was late morning and the sun was brilliant and warm. What a relief to see weather leaning toward summer. Everyone was out, the city abuzz on a holiday weekend: Pentecost. The Swiss close down their shops for religious holidays as well as other secular holidays. So everything is closed Sunday and Monday. No food shopping, no other shopping. It's annoying if you've forgotten to buy things you'll need, but really nice to feel the city quieted and unhurried. I went out with the kids to the park the day I arrived and fought through to evening before giving in to sleep. I hadn't slept at all on the plane except for a few hours of lucid dreaming. I finally gave in after dinner and slept through to morning.

Sunday was another brilliant day. I went out with the grandkids, Julian and Esther in the morning to see how many trams we could ride in one hour and then be back to get ready to go to Bern, the Swiss capital, for the afternoon. We only managed four trams as the ice cream shop we'd planned to go to was closed so we had to substitute for an ice pop at the main tram station and then we walked along the lake a ways. When we arrived back home, Nicolas and the kids and I got ready for the train ride to Bern, one hour from Zurich.

The Swiss trains have family cars with playground equipment in the middle of the car. Parents sit on either end of the play area and relax while kids get their exercise. Quite pleasant. We ate a picnic lunch on the train and arrived happily in Bern to meet Nicolas' sister Franzisca who is Esther's godmother. The plan was to leave Esther with the godparents for a special godparent outing. Esther's godfather, Martin a Swiss national who lives in Santa Monica was visiting and they all planned to meet at the Zoo. All very complicated.

Meantime, Nicolas, Julian and I went to the cathedral

and climbed high into the bell tower with a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. The Alps were still a bit misty and I couldn't capture the view with my camera. Nevertheless, the rooftops gave a fine view and we could see the Eiger and Jungfrau which are fairly close to Bern. Afterward, we took a bus out to the zoo and met the group at a restaurant next to the park. Lovely time together. Then we were back at the station for a 5 p.m. train back to Zurich. In no time at all we were home and having dinner together with the weather still warm and summer like.

So, I'm in Zurich, the kids have no school Monday and the plan is to go to the Zurich zoo with just the kids and I hopping on and off trams along the way. James Joyce's gravesite is up near the zoo so I may drag the kids into the cemetery on the way. Nicolas is going into the office, Ellen is going into her studio to work. She is producing some very gorgeous new photographs which I'll get permission to preview here although she's fussy about letting things out before they are ready. At the moment I'm still in jet lag and up at 4:30 a.m. But I'm not so tired as I slept deeply and long the first night. I'm definitely improved from the mean flu that hit before I left Olympia. Things are looking up. It's a good change to be away.

Containing Contamination

2010-05-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Oil seepage in the Gulf of Mexico is disturbing to say the least. Earth and humanity seem besieged with calamities far larger than we can easily contain. I'm afraid to list them in case I should leave out something so immense because I can't hold them all in my mind. Haiti, Chile, China, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Iceland, New Orleans, the Gulf, Indonesia, India. All these are recent occasions of natural and human influenced disasters.

I've always felt that the earth was a mirror of my own body. The rivers and oceans are the blood stream, the stoney mountains are the skeleton, the trees and bushes are the hairy covering of the skin. When I look across the lake and think, oh that is my body, I also feel like a Lilliputian with a puny brain in relation to the size of my body, the earth. And that, of course, is the case. There's a relatively small brain engineering the human entanglements of steel towers on and off shore however remarkable the designs. We aren't exactly sure of how to solve the problems of contamination when destruction occurs. Whatever we build is destined to collapse and decay, but it's usually not in our scope when we first assemble the ladders and rigs.

Recently I saw a 4 minute YouTube film about the Hubble space telescope and the Ultra Deep Field. (See YouTube.com and "Hubble Ultra Deep Field 3D.) The Hubble, for ten days, was pointed into a tiny dark spot in the sky about the size of a grain of sand. The attempt was to find out if it was only dark space or if anything was out there. The camera revealed an unbelievable world of galaxies about 13 billion light years away. They did it again a few years later in another dark spot near the constellation Orion. This discovery is known as the Ultra Deep Field with yet thousands and thousands more galaxies. There are over 100 billion galaxies in space. This is nearly impossible to comprehend but if we look into the sky and realize the galaxies go on forever, we can see how miniscule we are in relation to the field of phenomenon.

What I'm getting at is to say that we know so little. Nature is ultimately more powerful and yet the contamination is taking its toll. It gets harder and harder for nature to respond in a healthy way. Scotland, for instance, used to be all forest. If we beat down the trees enough, they will disappear, at least for a certain time. Where I live in the State of Washington, we are slowly and surely depleting our canopy. People come from other places for the first time where there have been few trees and they are astounded at the abundance of green. However, Olympia is half what it was 25 years ago. Every day, something conspires to contaminate.

So, all this to ask, if the earth is the mirror of my body (and yours) how am I participating in the contamination? Our arteries are clogged and so are the rivers and oceans. It does begin with my own thinking, and then proceeding with those thoughts in action. The Buddha says we are what we think. Almost anyone would admit there is an awful lot of contamination in the mind. Much of the way of thinking is habitual, just like needing to drive a car. We get set in our patterns and have a heck of a time trying to change, often because it's inconvenient. But, what can we hope for if we cannot have custody of our own habitual patterns that contaminate the space around us. We (in America especially) have got to take charge of this. We have got to come to our senses and wake up.

This tiny, miniscule spot in space where I stand influences all other space. This breath that does not belong to me must enter and then leave with the same pure quality of intention. I must allow this body and mind to be influenced by it. It is Wisdom itself at work in the body of existence, in the expression of the Buddha. Let me contribute to the healing in the Gulf by being responsible for my own correct thinking and action in the world. Let me contain my own contaminating flow. This is what we work on every day, every moment, in every activity. It is called practice, and every morning Zazen is the best way to begin.

"...and what did you make of your life?"

2010-04-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

It's April 28, my birthday. I'm 70. Seventy years ago today, my mother had already been in the hospital for two weeks suffering from exhaustion. In those days, medicine had a different attitude. A little after one o'clock in the morning she had one spontaneous labor pain, and I was born before they could get her to the delivery room. This sudden appearance saved her from the hard work of labor and from any further exhaustion. As was the practice following birth, she stayed in the hospital for another five days.

I wonder sometimes if that burst into life shaped how I am, or was it because I was already that way - sometimes impromptu, vigorous, direct, frank (my father's name) - that I pushed through so rapidly. The old chicken or the egg thing. Asking too many questions for my own good. Now at 70, there is looking back. It does feel like a bigger gate than 50 or 60. It feels like there's a weight of life behind me, a history that I can't quite comprehend because it's too much and too complex to hold, to remember, or imagine. Where have I been? What have I done?

The first bird this morning sang before 5 a.m. I woke wondering if the moon were still out. Last night on the way to sleep it was brilliant and tonight it will be full. It seemed auspicious. We'll celebrate Buddha's birthday tonight along with my own and the Full Moon. But, it remains to be seen whether the light of the moon will reach through the dark clouds.

So, I got up and fixed a coffee and went back to my room which as fung shui goes, is the room where the angels reside. A good sleeping place. I spent time writing before Zazen and fell into life questions. The big one that named the Stroud lecture, "...and what did you make of your life?" was at the top of the list. I thought about Zen practice and purpose, about the seriousness of life and the frivolity, lightheartedness and gravity, about life as an experiment, life as meaning, intention, fate, the body, the mind, the spirit. "What did you make of your life?"

How am I living my life? Am I caught by irrelevant matters? Who is standing in my shoes? Can I wholeheartedly take up the tasks I've been given?...the ones that I, myself, invented? Can I begin again for the first time? What endures? Have I the courage to live my life completely? Have I the courage not to fear death? What is there yet to do? Can I stand with who I am and who I've become? Is what I ask of myself too rigid? Can I continue to go to the zendo and sit with my questions? Can I allow the questions to continue? Life is questions and should be questions. This does not mean discontentedness. Cows are contented. Who could be contented in today's world with such suffering and turmoil. How can I turn that concern for suffering to good purpose?

Such roiling at 70! Mind you, I am not unhappy. I love life and love that I have the privilege of having gotten to this age. Lord knows I danced in dangerous pathways many times. When I think of all I've been given I'm overwhelmed by the grace and abundance.

This morning my grandchildren telephoned from Zurich. Esther, nearly 8, spoke first. I asked did she know how old I am? Yes, she said, 70. That's pretty old, I said. Oh, not so very old, she said. Ah, sweet child, sweet thought. Then Julian, nearly 10, came on the line. Happy Birthday he said. Do you know how old I am? Yes, he said, 70. That's pretty old, huh? Yes, he said, compared to my age you're very, very old. Well, I said, that's not what Esther said. Oh, he answered, she was just trying to be nice. !!!

When Julian is my age, I'll be 130. Who knows, I told my daughter when she came on the line, that science may find a way to a longevity that we can't imagine, which is all well and good so long as we don't have to live with 130 year old skin. She reminded me that the older Swiss people hang out at the lake and just let their skin be as old as they are. They bake in the sun and get deep tans and they look carefree. She says, Mom, you need to lie out in the sun and get a little sun on you. Yeah, I say as I look out at the pouring rain, yeah I'll be sure to do that, even when I'm 130.

It's just today. Another day. I've done this date 70 times. There are 6.5 billion people in the world which means that along with me, 17,808,219 other people are also celebrating this birthday. Not bad company. Happy Birthday all you 17,808,219 people all over the globe. May the year go well.

Cremation and Burial

2010-04-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Sangha from Green Gulch Farm, a temple connected to San Francisco Zen Center, with Abbot Steve Stucky and Wendy Johnson performed the most beautiful Cremation Ceremony for Robert Elliot Weinberg. Cremation Ceremonies are often the part that the family doesn’t attend because it is a painful experience to feel the impact of the cremation chamber. The aloneness of it is haunting. The good bye in that way is quite difficult. So, Linda, Rob’s wife and I were steeling ourselves for the impact, but Linda insisted she wanted to be there and when it was done I was glad of her courage and determination because the ceremony helped to sustain us.

Wendy Johnson is the author of GARDENING AT THE DRAGON’S GATE, AT WORK IN THE WILD AND CULTIVATED WORLD, Bantam Dell, 2008. She knew Rob when he lived at Green Gulch and she remembered him well. Rob was one of those persons who never argued or questioned when he was asked to do something. A great Zen student, he would just say “yes” and go forward with the task doing it with complete focus and care. We don’t forget Zen practitioners like this. Wendy had developed the farm and gardens at Green Gulch, she’s the guru or farming and plants and she too is unforgettable as she looks like a blossom that can breathe and talk as a human.

Wendy stayed at Olympia Zen Center when she was on her book tour of the Pacific Northwest just after her book came out. She gave a Wednesday night lecture for us and delivered wise and tender words that seemed to coil like a tendril emerging from the earth.

Abbot Steve arrived with two other priests in training and set up an altar at the foot of the coffin made of soft pine wood with rope handles. Rob loved to sail and he loved ropes. He loved doing sailing knots and deeply appreciated that a knot could be made quite complex and yet could unravel with a single pull at one end. A small Buddha statue almost the same as the one on Rob’s home altar sat against the beauty of the waterfall in the outside garden. In Zen, the waterfall represents Nirvana.

Wendy came with a gigantic basket full of herbs which she had gathered in the morning dew at Green Gulch. Small bunches of various herbs were tied in bouquets. It began to rain and Linda said that this was God weeping and indeed, it felt so.

The six of us stood beside the coffin and chanted The Heart Sutra. Then we said some words of remembrance. I offered the poem of Ryokan, “True all the seasons have moonlit nights...the moon and the earth are one and myself one with them.....my robes soaked in tears.” This is a long Chinese poem that was Rob’s favorite by Ryokan. Others said how they had known Rob. Linda expressed her gratitude for the people and the herbs and flowers.

Then we began to circumambulate the coffin chanting “Enmei Jikku Kannon Gyo.” As we did, we picked bunches of herbs out of the basket and placed them on the coffin. By the time we were finished, the coffin was bedecked, festooned, heaped with fragrant herbs. Then we wheeled the coffin into the crematorium, placed lighted incense sticks in with the herbs and moved the coffin into the cremation chamber. All of it deeply sacred.

The funeral was held the next day in the same room and I officiated at this ceremony. The architecture of Fernwood is Frank Lloyd Wright-ish only with higher ceilings. The floors are dark stone and the art carefully selected. One piece is a large blue saucer incense bowl held up by Giacometti like figures. Another art piece is a three foot sculpture of the Buddha’s hand holding a mudra. Many asked me about the meaning of the mudra which is the thumb touching the fourth finger. All I could answer was that the fourth finger represents grief and the touching the thumb to the grief finger denotes healing.

The ceremony room has a floor to ceiling and wall to wall window with doors on either side opening to a large terrace. The garden at the back of the terrace is a sharp vertical natural planting with a waterfall cascading down its center. When the doors are opened, the room is filled with water music and cool, clean, marine air.

The altar, a high clean-lined rectangular table, held the ceremonial articles: the Buddha, a bowl for stick incense, an incense holder for powdered incense, two candles, a bowl of fruit offerings, a long string of prayer beads made by Rob out of manzanita seeds that appeared after the zendo fire at Tassajara in the 1980s. Also, there was a photograph of Rob with two bouquets of flowers. At the start of the ceremony, his ashes were carried in and placed on the altar by his nephew, accompanied by Linda.

The ceremony included a recitation of the Precepts which Rob renewed on March 21st at his home zendo and given the Buddha name KoYu "Great Cause." And, there was time for people to remember Rob. His older sister Pennie Weinberg spoke of childhood memories, others from his work days at Crissy Field, particularly those who had been his students, and work friends from UC Berkeley remembered Rob’s important contribution to education. Rob’s father, Elliiot Weinberg, had been a friend of Robert Frost, and Rob was named after the poet. I read, “The Road Not Taken” by Frost. The waterfall was the music throughout the ceremony.

A brief reception followed. The family and a few friends had lunch at a restaurant down the hill from the cemetery in Mill Valley. Rob’s ashes will be placed at Tassajara sometime in the future with clergy from Tassajara officiating. It’s still startling to think of Rob gone, but it certainly points toward a reminder of the brevity of life, the need to live well each day, and the importance of caring well for our family, friends and friendships. Rob will be greatly missed by his family and friends. If we each take a lesson from him, something particular that we each learned from him, and we remember to apply it, the qualities he lived will live on in us.

(In the next blog, in a few days, I’ll write about the Joe Stroud event.)