When in Brooklyn

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

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

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

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

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.

Eido Frances Carney copyright 2010

The Genuine in Us

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

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.