Online Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center      -      515 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61820                Nov. 2004

Zendo 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. 14th
Thursdays: 7:30 to 9:00 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
  9:20 Zazen & Kinhin

    (sitting and walking meditiation)
  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 (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.

Phone, Web & E-Mail
Phone - (217)355-8835

Web Site - http://www.prairiezen.org
E-Mail -  pzc@prairiezen.org

“Only habits of mind-body conceal our life. This daily life is the life of the Buddha; with your ongoing practice effort this life is revealed.”
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Tuesday Night Class
The Tuesday Night Class continues, combining the study and experience of various different Buddhist practices. New attendees are welcome. Visit the website for more information.
 

Financial Support
The practice at the Zen Center is supported by the efforts of many, the interdependence of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. At this time, there is an ongoing need for operating expenses as well as funds for the upkeep and needed improvements to our old building, such as repairing major cracks in the cement front porch which leak into the basement, shoring up the collapsing brick wall of the garage and repairing downspouts. Please reflect on this and consider how you can act. Your financial donations sent to the Prairie Zen Center, 515 South Prospect, Champaign, Il 61820-5043, would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Reminder
The Center will be closed Nov. 25th & 26th and Dec. 21st through Jan. 3rd. The regular schedule resumes Jan 4th.
There will be no phone hours on the following days - Nov. 25th, Dec. 2nd, Dec. 6th and Dec. 21st through Jan. 3rd.
 

Bodhi Day Potluck

This year the Bodhi Day Potluck (December 11th at 6:30)will be at Fey Lesht's house, 603 W. Pine Street in Champaign.

Dogen Hides Buddha

Elihu Genmyo Smith
(edited Dharma talk,9/5/04)

Ascending to the Dharma seat, Master Dogen said, “When the dawn star appeared, Shakyamuni Buddha said, ‘I and all sentient beings on Earth simultaneously attain the way.’ Now tell me, what is the way that he attained? If one realizes it, even Shakymuni will have no place to hide his face. Why is it so? Speak quickly! Speak quickly!” (Eihei Koroku by Eihei Dogen, translation by Taizan Maezumi Roshi)

Upon enlightenment, Buddha realized this unconditioned that we all are from the beginning. “I and all beings of the great Earth have simultaneously attained the way.” Now Dogen asks his disciples; Right now, he asks us; what is the way Shakyamuni attained?
Do you realize what Shakyamuni attained? “I and all sentient beings”, includes every one of us, every one that Dogen Zenji was addressing, everyone here, every one we encounter. All beings of the great Earth. If we realize this, even Shakyamuni will have no place to hide his face. How is this? How would he have no place to hide? Reflect on this. What is Buddha’s face? What is it to see Buddha’s face? What is it to hide? How is there no place to hide?

We believe that beings, circumstances, even states of mind, create difficulties for us. We believe that they are not okay, are a problem, are separate. If we do something about those “things,” this “problem,” then all will be okay. Alternatively, we think, “Oh, I have got to do something about myself.” An aspect of sitting is noticing the comments, judgments, beliefs to which we hold. Noticing is not in order to fix them, but the opportunity to be this life that we are. This is sitting, being this, being open bodily awareness. Stated conceptually, experiencing is being this attained way of Shakyamuni. Dogen Zenji is revealing this.

Joko says, “Everything in life is to be appreciated.” This is our practice life. This is “not two”. Appreciating whatever we encounter. Allowing appreciation. Or notice how you are not appreciating. Just to notice, not to fix. This is “not two,” as the Third Ancestor Sengcan states in “On Believing in Mind.” Of course, sometimes we say “be one.” But be careful! Though Sengcan also says “one is no other than all,” we may too easily say, “everything is one.” This can become something conceptual - then it does not penetrate the many ways that we believe judgments, separate self and others, believe duality. Even as “all is one,” when we say that it may become another matter. “One” can become a “transformed self-centeredness.” “Yes, everything is one, but it’s got to be one the way I want it to be.” It can be a trap. So “not two” springs the trap. Not two is not a belief, but a useful pointer. Notice what you believe is two - when you say, “Oh, that’s not me; It’s not okay for him to act so, for this to happen.” Practice is functioning, being this functioning that we are, responding to this circumstance of life. Look, “how do I appreciate this?” When we sit, functioning is sitting, being alive. As a training device, in sesshin we sit from morning till night. But at other times of life, we sit, we work, we speak to people, we do, and yet, nothing other than this “not two,” this functioning attained way. Where can anything hide? Is Buddha hiding? Is Dogen hiding? Are you hiding?

Everything in life is to be appreciated. Maezumi Roshi has a book titled, “Appreciate your life.” He often used this phrase to encourage practice. There are many ways to say this; the words are to support us in being this awareness that we are. Many traditions have nice expression pointing in this way. The sixteenth century Catholic thinker Nicholas of Cusa’s expression was “not other”. Even God is not other. And yet we all get trapped with all sorts of ideas about “other”. There is a Chasidic Tune “Du” (“You” in the most intimate form, like Buber’s I-Thou), “where I stand, du, where I sit, du, where I go, du, …east du, west, du…” These are expressions that we can appreciate to clarify practice, especially if caught up in self-centeredness, reacting to so-called internal or so-called external circumstances.

How do we welcome life? Appreciating is welcoming, being present. Do you believe there is a special way to be present? Do you hold to thoughts, reacting from them, and miss this aliveness, body-mind presence? Sitting is the opportunity of being this body-mind. Being this, body-mind drops away. Body-mind drops away, all encounters are revealed as this, the attained way.

At times we want to parse the word “appreciating.” Being this, as life is, is appreciating. This is zazen. A useful image of being caught up in self-centered emotion-thought is as if you are stuck on and attentive only to the surface of a vast ocean. Living on the surface, on a small piece of the surface, feeling, believing, reacting to the ever-changing surface conditions, to likes and dislikes, you suffer, harm and are harmed. Practice is noticing holding of self-centeredness. This is to lift up for a moment and see the surface and ocean as it is, the self-centered dream of emotion thought that is holding. Zazen, practice, is diving in right in here. Open awareness is zazen, being the ocean we are. Being so the self-centered perspective is not solid, not the truth of our life. Being the ocean is being this particular moment, this surface that is the whole of the ocean. Being so enables us to enjoy the seemingly pleasant which is the whole ocean right now, to embrace the seemingly unpleasant and even painful which is the whole ocean right now. Beware! Do not get stuck in an analogy - there is no ocean, no surface, no diving! It is right where you are, as you are, being body-mind presence. This is bodily sensory experiencing, appreciating, embracing life. Being so, we respond to circumstances as needed, fix, change, put up an umbrella, or what ever is appropriate.

Day by day in sesshin sitting is richer. As self-centeredness becomes transparent, self-forgotten, the richness of this is appreciated. Everything in life is to be appreciated, the original face of your Shakyamuni. So where is there to hide?

Yet we find lots of places where the universe doesn’t suit us, so we hide from our self. Therefore practice is noticing how and when we believe life is two, three, four. How do we believe that? How is it manifested physically, bodily, as reaction, emotional feelings spinning off? Simply noticing is the opportunity to appreciate our life. Even to appreciate that we do not want to appreciate. “Everything in life? Come on, there are lots of things I don’t like to appreciate.” Okay, fine. Then notice that you do not want to appreciate, experience this. You do not have to believe any of these words. Anything here that resonates, fine; if you don’t find it useful for your practice, throw it away. You don’t need anything extra, just exactly as you are. Anything extra, throw it away like a used up piece of toilet paper. All is revealed as it is. Please appreciate this wonderful life.

Thank you.

© 2004 Elihu Genmyo Smith

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Here It Is

Larry Crossett

Staying mindful. In everyday life it is difficult, even with the support of an ongoing sitting practice. Work and family obligations keep us scrambling. Every time we look at a newspaper or see a bit of television news, we catch glimpses of an unstable world and become disquieted. Great blocks of our own experience slips by unnoticed while we dwell on these distractions. Not only distractions, but outright threats. What we perceive as threats.
Much of this maelstrom is nothing more than the roilings of our own mind. We know that. But as the days go by and the dramas unfold, they take on more and more solidity. We forget that we have trained ourselves to see through them.
We are caught again.
So, as a palliative, on occasion we retreat from the world. We leave the cell phones behind, let the newspapers stack up unread, drop our familiar routines and step into an environment especially geared toward the nurturing of attention. We go to a special place, where we can just be with what is, without the commotion stirred up by what was, or what might be.
Disney World, for example.
The family vacation as Zen practice. At first glance it seems absurd. Vacations are meant as an escape, and escape isn’t what we are about at all. But by causing us to step out of our ruts, don’t these occasional adventures facilitate mindfulness?
Four a.m., standing in line at airport security with my wife and two hyper kids. Watching the time, keeping track of the bags--now where did I stick the boarding passes? Then Whooosshh! we’re off. The kids fight over the window seat with such ferocity that a stranger volunteers to get up and move--what is my reaction to such a thing? I can’t daydream through this experience. The routines that foster inattentiveness have been stripped away.
Most of our time is spent at the theme parks. I experience many “present moments,“ like this one: In an elevator, near the thirteenth floor. Suddenly the cable breaks and the car plummets. Free fall, and I don’t know where it will end.
Of course it’s one of the attractions, but my body doesn‘t know this. Look at the automated snapshots taken during the ride; I was frightened out of my wits. Body and mind did not drop away, they were torn loose and could not keep up.
The kids are laughing at me.
A quiet morning, up early and alone. I take advantage of the opportunity to remember my practice by sitting in quiet meditation near the hotel pool. Everything is so different here--surreal, even. I am in the company of a twenty foot tall Mr. Potato Head. Even more surreal--I just paid four dollars for a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Breathe in, breathe out…
Okay, there is silliness in this article. Still, a point: The present moment has many faces, and it is everywhere. We drive to work; here it is. We mourn a loved one; here it is. We travel to Disney; here it is.
This week we sit sesshin. No hidden Mickeys; no balloons. Time to drop all that. Time to drop whatever may be clinging in our minds and acknowledge this moment.
Here it is.