june 2008

I have been slowly working my way through Reb Anderson's book, "Being Upright". For some reason, clear to me when I began, murky now, I am reading the chapters in reverse order. I have been finding it spot on in its relevance to what's going on in my life, and in that sense, both awesomely difficult and enormously helpful to read.

Yesterday, I attended Jordan's lecture on Prajna Paramita. A somewhat smaller crowd than usual for a Saturday morning lecture, or maybe not so much smaller but more subdued. Most of those attending were in the middle of a three day sesshin, and there was an intense, quiet, energy about. Jordan relayed several old Zen teacher stories and an old story regarding Suzuki Roshi and a new-ish student. Very touching, all of it, reminding me of favourite lines from Phil Whalen's poem "Walking beside the Kamogawa, Remembering Nansen and Fudo and Gary's poem":

Suzuki Roshi said, "If I die, it's all right. If I should
live, it's all right. Sun-face Buddha, Moon-face Buddha."
Why do I always fall for that old line?

We don't treat each other any better. When will I
Stop writing it down.

Ah....why do I always fall for that old line?

And nothing? This by way of catching up with various things I could have written about in the months since last November.

Currently I am butting my head against the brick wall of practice. Or another way to put it is that I am butting my brick head against the wall of practice. But walls have doors...perhaps walls are doors. I am certain to write more about this, as soon as I find the words.

This past December, I sat Rohatsu sesshin at City Center. It seemed a much different experience than the first sesshin I sat, earlier in the year. For one thing, it was almost a nonstarter for me, as the very afternoon that I was slated to leave for Zen Center, our fiscal server went down. I left the appropriate notes and made the appropriate emails, left anyway, but had to followup via a few phone calls to make sure that everything got back on track. Thankfully, it did. Thinking back on it, I don't think I made the best use of my opportunity of sitting that week. I think I fell into a pattern of getting through the seven days, rather than engaging moment by moment. That's a bit of retrospective analysis, not necessarily reliable, although it is all too relevant to my current psychological theme involving head banging.

In January, I went back over to City Center, staying for the week long Genzo-e Retreat led by Shohaku Okumura. This was an amazing experience for me, involving six or seven periods of sitting per day and three hours of lecture by Okumura sensei on a particular faciscle of Dogen Zenji's, "Dignified Conduct of Practice Buddha". I was struck by the the way he spoke, with heart and mind in synch. I was moved by his discussion of his teacher, the late Uchiyama Roshi, and also by the way he spoke about Dogen's phrase, "Shoshaku jushaku", which means something like mistake after mistake, one continous mistake, when he added, "maybe this (what I am doing) is a mistake". Very moving...like heart in the throat moving.

I also had a wonderful time volunteering in the kitchen on the Saturday of the big Tassajara Alumni reunion. I washed a lot of pots, crumbled cheese, helped with salad prep, worked alongside some wonderful folks, and generally felt useful. A good feeling.

I attended lecture today, given by Blanche Hartman, which was appropriately enough on the subject of prajna paramita, the six paramitas being the theme of the just-about-to-end practice period. During this six week period, I've been attending Jordan Thorn's class on the paramitas, which has led me to reading Robert Aitken's book, "The Practice of Prefection" and Reb Anderson's book, "Being Upright". Both the class and the readings have been very helpful in deepening my understanding and engagement with practice.

I should not miss mentioning the second class I've been attending at City Center. Rosalie Curtis has been offering a Monday night class on forms and ceremonies, which has been a warm and rewarding spot on my weekly calendar. Darn it! I missed the next-to-last meeting last week because of a work obligation. Tomorrow night's the last class. I plan to be there.