Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center

Current Schedule
All sittings are at 515 S. Prospect, Champaign (NW corner of Green and Prospect).
Weekdays: (Monday-Friday): 6:00 to 6:50 a.m.
Tuesdays: 7:30 to 8:45 p.m.
Class at 8:00 p.m.
Thursdays: 7:30 to 8:45 p.m.
Dokusan available
Saturdays: 8:00 to 9:00 a.m.
Unstructured, sit or do slow kinhin as you wish
Sunday Mornings: (dokusan available)
8:45. Samu (cleaning/set up)
9:00 Service (note new time)
9:20-11:00 Zazen (sitting) and walking meditation
10:00 Introduction for newcomers
11:00 Dharma talk

You are welcome to join Sundays sittings at the beginning of any sitting period. An introduction to Zen practice is available during the 10:00 a.m. sitting period. This schedule is approximate; please arrive early. Please wait until the beginning of walking meditation and enter the zendo at that time. During sesshin, the regular schedule is suspended.

Phone Schedule

(depending on Elihu’s schedule, this may change during summer)
Out-of-towners can reach Elihu at these times:
Mondays: 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Tuesdays: 7:20 to 7:55 p.m.
Thursdays: 7:20 to 8:00 p.m.

The Center is closed the day before and the day after sesshin, all phone interviews are also canceled on those days.

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Schedule of Upcoming Events
November 22 - PZC Board Meeting. 9:00am

December 6 - All-day Sitting. 9:00am-5:00pm

December 6 - Bodhi Day Potluck, 6:30pm

December 7 - Bodhi Day Service, 9:00am

January 14-19 - Sesshin

February 15 - Nirvana Day Service, 9:00am

February 21 - All-day Sitting, 9:00am-4:00pm

Februray 21 - PZC Board Meeting, 4:00pm

March 18-21 Sesshin

The Building and the Grounds Support the Dharma and Give Peace

As the seasons change, the weather makes clear that our building needs capital improvements: repairing and replacing gutters and spouts, improving and expanding the entrance area to accommodate winter coats and boots, and closing up areas where moisture and cold penetrate the building and cause long-term damage. Please donate to the PZC Building Improvement Fund if you can to support these and other major capital improvements. Please indicate that a specific donation is for the Building Fund. If you wish to specify specific projects, please do so, though any project will depend upon sufficient funds to cover the costs of these major undertakings.

Thank you for your practice effort and support.

Phone and WEB

(217)355-8835

email: pzc@prairiezen.org

http://www.prairiezen.org

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“The ideal of how we should be is the most poisonous thing in the whole world.”

“The thing that erodes self-centeredness - the mischief in our life - is the open experiencing of our life at the moment.”

“The intelligent suffering of experiencing seems horrible from the usual self-centered point of view of most people.”

“Practice is not thinking about our life; it is bodily feeling the totality of life.”

“A good practice is absolutely simple.”

Charlotte Joko Beck / Elihu Genmyo Smith

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NOT-SITTING

Larry Crossett

     “Meditation is an expression of our enlightened being.”
     I’m not sure where I heard this exact quote, but I like the sound of it. I respect it. It points to our intrinsic Buddha nature, and suggests some higher purpose to my hours on the cushion.
     I hope one day to look at meditation in this way.
     What brought me here, though, and the reason I sit on a daily basis, is more pedestrian.
     Meditation keeps me sane.
     Really, it does. Going upstairs to sit each evening before I crawl into bed stills the echoes of dead conversations and unfinished business. It brings me back to the present and lets me see where I am, so that I can sleep peacefully and get up without dreading the day. It frees my eyes and ears to function without the great distraction of a howling mind.
     It isn’t a particularly skillful meditation that I practice. I am away more than I am present, at least for a while. I tend to fidget. And if there is a “heightened state of awareness” to be had, it must lie on the other side of the point at which I find myself nodding off repeatedly, and finally give in and go to bed.
     I do it because it feels good.
     So sitting, for me, is a selfish act. Not so different from popping open a beer and turning on a baseball game, I suppose. And I have wondered if I am missing the spirit of Buddhism altogether.
     Where is the “dissolution of self,” that the readings told me to look for? How is any of this freeing me from attachment? Where is my “enlightenment?”
     Maybe it is up ahead…
     Lately I have noticed that I am a little more flexible in the evening. Seven thirty comes; my wife is in the kitchen studying, and our daughter Kate is watching television. I kiss the family and hurry upstairs to sit, just like always, anxious for that period of calm.
     But as I settle down on the cushion, maybe I am aware that Kate has not had a moment of my attention today, and would love a tickle fight. Or Amy is particularly stressed, and would benefit if I could sit with her and let her vent. Details that might have escaped me before “mindfulness” became my watchword.
     And I discover that it is okay if I don’t meditate this night--that I have enough calmness and stability in store that I can let it go for once, and see to needs that aren‘t necessarily my own.
     If I make this choice in the right spirit; if I get up without feeling put upon, and I go back downstairs with a certain equanimity--then it is a joy, not a burden. And I find that the rest--the calmness and the stilling of my mind that I value--takes care of itself.
     I call this the practice of not-sitting.
     It is an expression of my enlightened being.
     Thank you.