Online Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center      -      515 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61821                Sept. 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

Everything in life is to be appreciated

- Joko Beck
_________________________________

Varieties of Practice
The Fall Tuesday Night Class (Sept. 14 to December 14) will combine the study and experience of various different Buddhist practices. Participants are asked to attend regularly and commit to working with various practices in the week between classes. Texts will include Satipatthana Sutra, Shurangama Sutra, Tang and Sung Ch’an Texts, Dogen Zenji.’s work and other Japanese Zen texts. Further information and applications are available at the Center and on-line.
 

Visiting Teacher
Sulak Sivaraksa will be talking on October 22 on "Buddhism, Law and Social Activism" at the University of Illinois College of Law. Sulak is a champion of Socially Engaged Buddhism from Thailand, and a prominent social critic there.
More details will be on the PZC website and at the Zen Center in early October or contact Tom Ginsburg at tginsbur@law.uiuc.edu.

Reminder
There will be no phone hours on the following days:
Thurs, Sept. 30th;   Mon, Oct. 4th;
Thurs, Dec 2nd;   Mon, Dec. 6th
 

Website Articles

For your information, our website has Dharma talks and other material not included in newsletters. Please visit at your leisure.

Just This
edited Dharma talk, 6/17/04
Elihu Genmyo Smith

Because so much of life is caught up in self-centered dreams of thoughts, feelings, emotions, we believe it is whom we are. Even practice can become a form of self-centeredness. Shakyamuni Buddha’s, “How wonderful! How wonderful! All beings are the wisdom and compassion of the Tathagatha” addresses this self-centered misunderstanding. Life is being this wisdom and compassion that we are. But because of delusion and attachment – we don’t see it, don’t live it. So practice is seeing and working with body-mind. Not to fix it or change it, but so that the self-centered delusion and attachment of body-mind do not blind us to who we are, do not keep us from being who we are, from functioning as our life.

Master Tongshan (Tozan Ryokai in Japanese) practiced with the question “Who can hear the non-sentient preach the Dharma?” When he asked his teacher this question, Master Yunyan (Ungan Donjo in Japanese) lifted his whisk. Tongshan “had an awakening;” he said, “Wonderful! Wonderful! The preaching of the Dharma by the non-sentient is inconceivable. If you try to hear it with your ears, it’s hard to understand. When you listen with your eye, you know it.” (Poems are one traditional way of expressing understanding, clarifying understanding.)

Tongshan stayed with Yunyan, saying, “I still have some habits that are not yet exhausted.” All of us know about habits that are not yet exhausted, habits that arise. Eventually Tongshan decided it was time to leave. He asked Yunyan, “After you die, if someone asks, ‘What was your teacher’s truth,’ what should I say?” Yunyan paused, and then said, “Just this, just this.” After a while Yunyan continued, “You must be extremely careful and thorough in realizing this.” This is ongoing practice, careful and thorough. While crossing a stream and seeing his reflection, Tongshan had a great awakening.

“Why seek mind somewhere else?
Solitary now am I, and independent.
I meet him everywhere.”
[Or to explain it more, “I meet my true nature everywhere.”]
“He now is surely me, but I am not him.”
[another translation, “Though I am all dharmas, I cannot become it, for it is already me”]
“Understanding it this way,
I can be as I am.”

Why seek mind somewhere else? Why seek any thing somewhere else? “Wandering freely, I meet my true nature everywhere.” Be free! Meet it everywhere! Cold, meet it cold. Hot, meet it hot. People revile you, meet it here, being reviled. See, what is “just this?” As soon as we make it into some “thing,” it is something extra. Holding onto it, it is a dualistic idea. “Just this”, right-here-now is so straightforward, immediate, most intimate, and yet if we limit it to conceptual understanding, physical understanding, we miss; not because it is somewhere else, or something else, but because conceptual understanding, emotionality, reaction functioning, is not adequate, blinds us, is not the whole of who we are. It is not the whole of the reality we encounter. And yet there is nowhere else, nothing else. Not some thing, nor other than. Always, this is our practice. Giving self to self, being as we are. Nevertheless, hearing this we want to understand and make sense of this. “Just this” is simple, straightforward, and yet most difficult. Not one millimeter, nanometer, separates us. And yet, mountains and rivers separate.

Dogen Zenji (in Mujo Seppo, Shobogenzo) says, “In general, hearing the Dharma is not confined to the spheres of ear as a sense organ, or auditory consciousness. We hear Dharma with our whole energy, whole mind, whole body, whole truth. From before the time our parents were born and before the time of majestic voice, until the limitless future, the Dharma is heard prior to body and after mind. There is benefit in each case of hearing the Dharma. Never say that there is no benefit hearing the Dharma without the involvement of mind and consciousness. Those whose mind has ceased and whose bodies are spent are able to benefit from hearing the Dharma. The Dharma is the truth, the reality, and those who are without mind, without body, are able to benefit. How can common intellect be fully aware of the influence of the Dharma connecting with body-mind. It is impossible for us to fully clarify the limits of body-mind.”

This is our practice, whether we “know it” or “do not know it”. Be practice, be zazen. “Knowing it”, “not knowing it,” is extra to practice. No need to limit practice since in truth practice is not limited. To be the functioning that you are is beyond the limits of the words, beyond what you know. Being right here now, just this, no need to understand or add goals. Each of us is this way.

How does one hear the preaching of the non-sentient? How do non-sentient preach the Dharma? What is non-sentient? Non-sentient isn’t something opposed to sentient. Insentient and sentient are just categories. Non-sentient is not so. This is our practice, to see clearly, to be, this non-dual life that we are. Non-dual is this non-sentient. What is it? Just this! Many ancestors say it in different ways as skillful means. Particular expressions enable us to hear even though it does not quite fit what we have in mind, what we understand. “Not-knowing is most intimate.” It allows us to be beyond what and who we think we are, which is exactly who we are. It supports us to be right-here-now, just this.

“All phenomena are awakened sages who have put down their burden by realizing that no burdens were ever put upon them in the first place.” (Prajna Paramita Sutra of Eight Thousand Lines.) See, if we truly realize that there is no burdens in the first place, no limits, no knowing, no not-knowing, then we hear all phenomena, all dharmas proclaim this Dharma truth, this non-duality, this Prajna wisdom that is our life.

Keizan Zenji says, “By revealing everything and being revealed by everything including the croaking of the frogs and the sound of earthworms, this Dharma preaches keenly and ceaselessly. It makes one raise eyebrows and blink. It makes one walk, stand, sit, lie down.” See, exactly our life, nothing but this functioning of non-sentient Dharma preaching. Not something else. Each of us is this. Not two. What else could it be? It is not something out there, not some special feeling in here. It is not other than exactly who you are. Just this! Just this! So, always, practice is in realization. From the beginning, practice is being this that you are right now. Doesn’t matter if we call it, Rinzai, Soto, Buddhist, non-Buddhist. Experiencing. This is exactly what we encounter from morning to night. This is Linji’s, “True person, no-rank, listening right here now.” Coming and going on this lump of red flesh, this bag of bones this is our functioning. Not something other than here; not limited to any idea of here. Very simple and straightforward, being this realization, this realized truth, this non-sentient Dharma preaching that we are from the beginning.

© 2004 Elihu Genmyo Smith

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  WHOLEHEARTEDLY
Larry Crossett

Recently I arrived at the church where our Springfield Zen group sits on Saturday mornings to find none of our members present. There was a group of volunteers cleaning in the building, but neither Ed nor Al had come in, as was their custom, to set up the alter and cushions in the sanctuary.
As late as it was, and as small as our group is, it occurred to me that very likely no one was coming today. I knew how to set up the room, but the idea of laying everything out and sitting there alone made me very self-conscious, especially in light of the other people in the building. I decided to wait and see if anyone came. If not, I would duck out and forget the whole thing.
Well, someone else did come. A newcomer with no prior experience. Caught in the headlights, I tried my best to explain what we did on a regular basis--or would be doing if anyone was there. I was at a loss.
Bret, one of the regulars, arrived next. He’d had a sleepless night and was not at his best. We set up a couple of cushions and settled on a single sitting and an abbreviated service. I served as timekeeper without finding the instruction sheet. Two other group members showed up at the last minute.
That sitting was instructive for me. Painful, as I couldn’t help but reflect on the awkwardness of the morning, but instructive.
A memory occurred to me. One morning about a year earlier I had arrived at group to find Al Kamnick the only person present. I had injured my back that morning, and could hardly stand up. I told him I couldn’t bow and I couldn’t help set up, so if he wanted to just lock the building and go home, that was fine with me.
So what did Al do that morning?
He set up the zendo--completely. He lit the candle and incense. He led the two of us through the entire session, bells and chants included.
Sitting in the midst of my uncomfortable Saturday morning in the timekeeper’s seat I recalled how honored and validated I had felt that he did that.
Every week Ed, or perhaps Al, comes into the church very early, converts the sanctuary into a proper zendo, and then sits in meditation until other group members arrive. They have no way of knowing if anyone will join them.
I don’t feel bad that I stumbled through the service that morning; that I couldn’t remember how many times to ring the bell, or all the words to the gathas. But I do feel bad that I didn’t recognize the practice opportunity I was faced with when I got there: the opportunity to accept responsibility for the service and act on that wholeheartedly instead of holding back.
We don‘t always find ourselves put on the spot at service. In a larger Sangha like Prairie Zen Center, we may have no job to do at all on a given day. Still, our very presence is a contribution. We affect those around us by how we conduct ourselves. When you line your cushion up properly and be sure to brush it off, that is an offering to me; when I remember to bow on entering the zendo, this is an offering to you. By acting wholeheartedly--which means nothing other than remaining fully present and engaged--we support each other and the Sangha as a whole.
This commitment to wholeheartedness is not restricted to the zendo. In everything we do, from the little chores at home to the work we turn in to our employers, we are faced with the same choice, the same knowledge that our actions have consequences. There are no insignificant moments.