Online Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center        515 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61821       September  2003


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 9:00 p.m.
Class begins Sept 9
Thursdays: 7:30 to 8:45 p.m.
Daisan available
Saturdays: 8:00 to 9:00 a.m.
Unstructured, sit or do slow kinhin as you wish
Sunday Mornings: (daisan 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 Interview (Daisan) Schedule
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.

 

Phone & Email

(217)355-8835

pzc@prairiezen.org

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Schedule of Upcoming Events
September 13 PZC Board Meeting, 9:00 a.m.
September 13 Fall Picnic
October 18 All-day Sitting, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
November 6-9 S esshin
November 22 PZC Board Meeting, 9:00 a.m.
December 6 All-day Sitting, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
December 6 Bodhi Day Potluck, 6:30 p.m.
December 7 Bodhi Day Service, 9:00 a.m.
January 14-19 Sesshin
 

Tuesday Night Class
The fall session of the Tuesday night class will be September 9 through December 9 from 7:30 to 9:00. This class will explore the Heart Sutra, which is the most widespread and basic text among the various Mahayana Buddhist traditions. The class will be led by Elihu Genmyo Smith and Professor Alexander Mayer. On every other Tuesday, Professor Mayer will lead us in examining the original Chinese ideogram text (no prior knowledge of Chinese characters needed), deepening our appreciation of the Heart Sutra. On alternate Tuesdays, Elihu will lead the class in an exploration of the meaning of this text, the concise presentation of the Awakened Life, and ongoing practice presented and clarified in the text.
Class attendance requires a commitment to maintain a daily sitting practice concurrent with the period of the class, and where appropriate, sit at PZC at least once a week. The suggested donation for this class is $50 for PZC members and $90 for non-members. Please speak to Elihu if financial limitations are a concern, class fees are adjustable with financial needs.

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Use the email address above to request the newsletter electronically. An archive of previous newsletters is available on the web at www.prairiezen.org/news.

If you borrowed cushions, tapes, books or other items from the Zen Center, please return them at your earliest convenience. Thank you.

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Only by uncovering and entering this most dreaded part of ourselves

can we see through the artificial construct of our substitute life and ultimately

connect withawareness of our basic wholeness.
                                                                                  - Charlotte Joko Beck

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The Practice of Tenzo
Rob Dainin Ore


It is amazing to me how a position which is ostensibly one of selfless service to the sangha can excite so many self-centered thoughts and emotions!

I liked being tenzo for many self-centered reasons: I got to be a big shot (in some ways, tenzo is the most important position during sesshin); I didn’t have to sit as much as everybody else, because I got to get up and do kitchen work, particularly during the afternoon unstructured sitting; I always had something interesting to do during kinhin and morning exercise, which are times that I don’t particularly enjoy usually; there was alot to think (obsess) about while sitting, which was a relief when nothing was “happening”; even though I didn’t think I did very well, several people said they were pleased with the food; I felt like I was on a noble mission when I needed to leave the Center to go and buy something; when I did the grocery shopping before sesshin, I felt important when I bought large quantities of tofu or whatever and used our sales-tax exemption at the store; I liked standing in the corner in the kitchen, watching over the buffet line during snack; finally, I often feel awkward at the end of sesshin when the rules about not looking at or talking to people disappear, so I liked getting to go get the buffet ready, thus avoiding or at least postponing that moment.

I didn’t like being tenzo for several other self-centered reasons: I was asked to serve as tenzo on rather short notice, so I didn’t feel that I had enough time to “prepare” (though I don’t think I would have felt prepared no matter how much time I had); I was afraid that my wife thought I was crazy for agreeing to be tenzo, after a previous time I had done the job; I had to direct the kitchen staff; I was responsible for the creation of meals and the general nutrition of the sangha; when things went wrong, it was my fault; when we ran out of soup for the evening snack, I was afraid that people were mad at me; when people needed something to eat or drink that they couldn’t find, they came to me and expected me to produce it; when we ran out of an ingredient, I had to use my break time to shop for it.

But there were also some wonderful things to experience that went beyond self-centeredness: I felt a tremendous intimacy with the kitchen staff; I was sometimes able to forget myself and let the kitchen support me; there was sometimes just functioning—chopping vegetables, washing rice, stirring soup; there was allowing the food to express itself, allowing, as Dogen says, “each lettuce leaf to manifest the body of Buddha”; there was eating with the sangha during oryoki and feeling part of the “seventy-two labors.”

As Dogen Zenji recounts in Tenzo Kyokun (Instructions for the Zen Cook), he once encountered an elderly Chinese tenzo named Lu working alone in the hot sun drying mushrooms for the next day’s meal. When Dogen asked him why his assistants could not be doing this hard work, Lu replied, “They are not me.” “But why must you work now in this heat?” Dogen persisted. Lu answered, “If not now, then when?”

Being tenzo or being our life, we practice right here, right now. No one else can do it for us.

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Everything is the Way, Part 1
(an edited talk given during sesshin, 5/22/03, by Elihu Genmyo Smith)

Our life is completely realized as it is. Always. Complete realization is not dependent upon doing, creating. Nevertheless - in the midst of experiencing, by holding to beliefs, likes and dislikes, in grasping and rejecting, all sorts of reactions arise. So, the simple and straightforward truth of our life seems distant.

Being this moment is who we are. Being the Awakened Life we are, our practice effort is in what blinds us. These blinders are self-centered emotion-thought interwoven in forms, conceptions, sensations. Practice effort may be stated as labeling thoughts and being bodily present, as noticing strategies and experiencing, koan, breathing, or just sitting. If we are unclear, we may think practice is making things better, changing, improving. Though these may occur, it is not the aim of practice. Even in the midst of practice effort we sometimes fail to see that this is exactly experiencing, exactly emptiness. Practice is experiencing. As the Heart Sutra states, form is nothing but emptiness. Even emptiness is another fancy word that we need to throw out. Emptiness exactly form; form exactly form. As Dogen Zenji says, “Practice Realization.”

There are many different ways to practice with our self-centered habits of mind and functioning, to clarify this matter, because there are many ways of muddying up life. Practice is seeing the picking up, holding, rejecting. In believing and holding to emotions-thoughts, even about muddying up, we miss our life in the midst of mud, miss being this very muddy life. Our life is this practice opportunity. If we are not clear in what we are doing, we go off. As a reminder and practice support, let us look at the Blue Cliff Record, 16th case, “Man in the Weeds.”

The introduction to the case begins: “The Way has no by-roads.” Life is clarified. The Way, our life, our practice, has no by-roads. “Nothing is not the way; every thing is exactly the way.” We are always right on the Great Way, always just this. Straightforward and simple, our practice and teachers are right here. No more needed; nothing lacking. As stated in Sandokai (Identity of Relative and Absolute), “When you walk The Way, it is not near, it is not far.” Not elsewhere; our life isn’t anything but The Way. Even saying this is extra. Nevertheless, we become caught up in and believe the story of our self-centered dream, our strategies and reactions. And “if you do not see The Way, you do not see it even as you walk on it.”(Sandokai)

The introduction continues: “Not only that, but one who stands on it is alone and inaccessible.” Not “alone” in the sense of “lonely. “ We must walk the Way, practice, for our self. In fact, we are walking it! A distorted belief that we are alone can be the great fear that we run from through various life strategies and habits. As a young child, after my father’s death, I felt terribly alone and helpless, and the terror of abandonment seemed the truth of life. All sorts of difficulties arose from my believing this and reacting to life based on this underlying fear. Only in turning from core belief each time it arises, noticing and bodily inhabiting this moment, can we be the life we are. Bodily inhabiting this fear, this most painful moment. Recently I met a number of elderly people for whom being alone and abandoned is the underlying theme that they believe pervades all of their life. This makes it difficult for them to function except as a reaction to circumstances based on this core belief, with all sorts of suffering. They are truly cut off from their life. Working with the specific circumstances and needs of each person, clarifying of beliefs and fears occurs as we practice. Inhabiting this body-mind-world allows life to shine forth.

Some of you have heard the gloss that “alone” is really “all one.” Several weeks ago we celebrated Buddha’s birthday. The image of the baby Buddha is one hand pointing up and one down. The phrase attached is “Above the Heavens, below the Earth, I alone am the World-Honored One.” This is “one who stands on it is alone.” Sometimes this is distorted to mean that practice is for me as opposed to others. Such attitudes miss the interconnectedness of life, the fundamental serving of Bodhissatva practice. The vow to liberate numberless beings is a life koan of all who practice the Way. This is the practice of being present. Not to figure out but to embody in our practice effort and intention. This does not mean we need to memorize or even agree with these words. As I have said, what is important is how a reading or talk resonates and clarifies practice. Memorized words do not take care of this matter. As the introduction continues, “The truth is not seeing or hearing. Words and thoughts are far from it.” Words may be useful. But they are not it. As you know very well, you can sit and tell yourself all sorts of words, but that is not sitting, not practice. Sitting is being this - experiencing. Even saying that is extra. Yet one word that resonates can clarify our life, one word koan can open up this matter; that is the point of Dharma talks and readings. Clarified, awakened life is clearly revealed.

“If you can pass through the forest of thorns, untie the bonds of Buddha and Zen teachers, and attain the realm of inner peace, then the guards will have no way to offer flowers and outsiders will find no openings through which to spy.” Put simply, this is working with the strategies and the ways we are caught up in self-centered beliefs, “this forest of thorns.” What are the bonds of Buddha and teachers? Do they tie or do we tie? How to untie what is never tied?

In the Heart Sutra we translate “sunyata” as “emptiness.” Exploring “emptiness” is our ongoing task. Someone recently proposed translating “sunyata” as “boundlessness”. “Boundlessness”, “emptiness”, both fine. They point to the boundaries put on forms, sensation, conception, the boundaries which we then believe are solid. Self-centered strategies maintain these. As we practice, in sitting, we discover and clarify how holding to self-centered thoughts makes seeming solid boundaries of this boundless emptiness. Not by thinking but in our body-mind functioning, our specific and appropriate efforts to work with our clouds. Practice, working with what clouds this unexcelled jewel, reveals the Way we always are, this boundless joy. As the Case 16 introduction continues: “If one is clear with this, then you work all day without ever working, talk all day without ever talking.” This Bodhisattva functioning is our life. Who works? What work? Is something added? Practicing together as sesshin is the experiencing we always are. In the midst of complete realization we practice; in noticing self-centered holding. Being present is the opportunity to be “clear with this.” Yes, practice is working with ignorance based reactions of fear, greed and anger. Nevertheless, we are clarifying in the midst of clarity. Always our effort is exactly this Bodhisattva functioning that is our life, being just this. Please enjoy this life.



( to be continued)
© 2003 Elihu Genmyo Smith