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Zendo Schedule
All sittings are at 515 S. Prospect, Champaign (NW corner of Green and
Prospect).
Weekdays:
(Mon.-Fri.): 6:00 to 6:50 a.m.
Tuesdays: & Thursdays: 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
Dokusan available
per Elihu's schedule
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.
Note: There will be no phone hours on July 31st, August 1st, August
14th or August 15th
Phone - (217)355-8835
E-Mail - pzc@prairiezen.org
Members on the Web
If you are a member of the Prairie Zen Center and have personal
information, announcements, web links, etc that you would like posted on
the PZC web page, send an email to pzc@prairiezen.org. |
"The very person of the Way, who is dependent upon nothing, comes forth
availing himself of every state."
- Linji
Upcoming Events
• There will be an all-day sitting on August 19th from 9:00am
to 5:00pm.
• The next sesshin begins on Wednesday, August 30th and ends Monday,
September 4th (Labor Day).
• The November sesshin begins on the 9th and ends the 12th.
Elihu’s Travel Schedule
- On Monday, July 31st Elihu will visit the Evanston
Zen Group in Evanston, Illinois. For information contact Sue Sommers at
847-869-1969 or Tornsue@aol.com. This group is an affiliate of the Prairie
Zen Center.
- Elihu will be among the resident teachers for the
Great Sky Sesshin at Hokyoji Monastery in Eitzen, Minnesota August 12th to
19th. Information and registration forms are available by contacting the
Milwaukee Zen Center at 414-963-0526 or by visiting their web site at
http://www.milwaukeezencenter.org/greatsky/
Audio Talks on the Web Site
Dharma talks in audio (MP3) format are available on the PZC
website. They can be accessed by going to the “Articles and Dharma Talks”
page via the “Readings” menu of the web site. No donation is required to
access the audio page, although contributions are welcome.
Tuesday Night Class
The Fall/Winter Tuesday night class will begin on Sept. 12th. This session
will focus on two texts; the Linji Lu (Record of Linji) of Chinese Chan
Master Linji (Rinzai) and Bendowa (The Wholehearted Way) by Japanese Zen
Master Dogen. An application will be available at the Center and on the
website later this summer.
* * *
On June 24th, there was a memorial celebration for Jeff Grund who died on
June 5th. Jeff was a member of the Evanston Sangha. His loss is deeply
felt by all who knew him. |
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Simple Awareness
Elihu Genmyo Smith
Awareness is not a particular state - awareness is; not gaining with
increased skill and not less for the lack of ability. This is not a thing,
there is no “awareness” - this is exactly who you are - simple and
straightforward, right now, as you are. The particular things said about
awareness are not awareness. I is not awareness, “being awareness” is not
quite accurate. This needs to be clarified because we often connect
awareness with particular mental or physical states and conditions.
Provisionally, as skillful means, we say aware or awake, even enlightened
or realized. However, if we believe a description of “components of being
awake” without seeing this as a skillful expression, then we miss “being
awake.” If we forget that skillful means are skillful means, then they
cease being skillful.
It may seem that with practice there is progress, decreasing
self-centeredness. Nevertheless, wonderful as this is, this is not really
so, there is no progress. Yes, there is appropriate practice effort;
ongoing practice is our life. Nevertheless, being awake, awareness, is not
dependent upon any skill, knowledge or particular ability. It is not that
there is no practice effort, to paraphrase Dogen, but that from the very
beginning practice effort is in the midst of awareness. In the midst of
awareness, just this moment practice effort. In this multiplicity of
states, not two - this moment as is, not anything else. Because this is
who we are, we practice.
To propose I-as-awareness as some thing one approaches as one becomes
skilled is to make a thing of awareness, a goal. It makes a thing of this
untouchable unknowable that is our life, reifying this which is our
functioning all 24 hours. More significantly, this approach separates the
skilled from the unskilled, those practicing from those not practicing or
unskilled. It values a particular style, and devalues other styles. While
we may say, right now, “I-as-awareness,” if it becomes an “I” that we
cling to, this kills life in the midst of “I-as-awareness.” There is no
ongoing awareness, no ongoing self! The moon illumines clear water.
Likewise, the moon illumines muddy water; in this arising, changing sea we
are, do not miss this!
Every one we encounter is this mystery here now called awareness. Being
so, in their own way they are also struggling with how this is not so for
them – whether they have ever heard of something like practice or not,
much less whether they are actively practicing. Attempting to raise a
practice style above other skillful and provisional means because the
other forms can lead to misunderstanding and even ongoing dead ends is to
fail to see the value of the other means as they are and, more
significantly, to fail to see the dead-end of our particular, favored
style. Our life is this arising circumstance – despite the habits of body
mind which function as if this is an ongoing “self.” We often assert,
directly or implicitly, an ongoing self in actions and reactions. Though
not being asleep, we sleep and dream. The sense of continuous self in the
arising habits of right now, in the clinging and reacting, becomes the
harm and suffering we encounter. Despite this, in the very midst of this,
as we are is this mystery shining forth, simple and ordinary. Though I
often might have no conscious sense of this, at various times and
circumstances this can be tasted, can be seen – by me, by others - this
right here now.
Concentration is a natural functioning of life. It is important in
developing skills, abilities and in exploring human functioning. Isolating
this, and at times elevating concentration as an approach to formal
practice, can be useful and nurturing. Unfortunately, even as we think
that practice is deepening, this concentration method can also become
obsessive concentration. Failing to see the obsessive or neurotic aspect,
we are blinded. Blind clinging manifests in distortions, and even in
suffering and harm. Then, instead of concentration being skillful, making
transparent deluding habits of body mind, it further magnifies and
distorts the arising body mind habit. Concentration effort may even become
a strategy and an overarching metahabit – despite calling it practice.
There is concentration which cuts off the rest of life, the rest of the
world, and there is concentration which brings along and opens to this
very moment the whole of life. The forms of absorption and concentration
which cut off the rest of life often also bring along the I-me-mine. Even
absorbed in activity, I-me-mine may be “standing by” - enjoying,
evaluating and as a commenting self-centeredness. The second type of
concentration is absorption as this moment in the midst of life, without
cutting off any thing. Many years ago I compared these by writing that
“instead of a narrow focused concentration, broad awareness is our
concentration.”
Though we could provisionally say that “being aware” is a continuum with
different consequences at different points of awareness, and even say that
“the point is to become more awake…,” it is important to see that all
points of the continuum are aware, not better or worse. This is not a
continuum that “I” progress along, that “I have advanced” or “changed.” If
we emphasize progress and change, we perpetuate this self-centered dream
in the midst of our seeming progress. Arising right now, this moment as is
– aware - at whatever point of this so-called continuum, is the
opportunity of functioning, responding. At this moment there is practice
effort opportunity, manifesting awareness. And in the midst of “being
aware,” there is no one who is awake, no one who is asleep.
We appreciate the concentration and flow of a musician or tennis player,
and maybe also that of the checkout clerk; there are many modes of
functioning. We sense this interbeing functioning in the midst of sharing
a Beethoven piano concerto, whether playing or listening. Music certainly
allows this appreciation. Afterwards, if the pianist self-centeredly
blows-up in the dressing room, this blowup does not negate the music
playing. Life is this ongoing flow of change and flux of foreground and
background awareness, a vast spaciousness, a narrow sharp focus. If we
stick to one or the other, that much we are trapped and miss our life. The
sense of connectedness which arises in music or other forms is sensing
this that is always our life, this interbeing. Sensing this, being this,
our actions naturally manifest compassion, which is not something extra or
special; this compassion is manifesting connectedness that is our life.
Though Zen ancestors say “forget the self,” it is possible to make
“forgetting the self” into a self – and thereby to miss the forgetting of
right now. The significant myth is not the belief that the self needs to
be forgotten; the myth is that there is a fixed, permanent, separate self
to forget. When this self myth does not arise, then whatever sense of self
arises is just arising, is just passing. Forgotten, there is no forgetting
the self; life shines forth right here. Otherwise, in remembering
“forgetting” even a wonderful “forgetting” blinds this eye. To make
forgetting a goal takes us farther and farther from the life we are; even
though we really can not get away, we somehow manage to. Holding to the
fiction that there is an ongoing self-thing to forget underhandedly brings
in this very forgotten self. Nevertheless, life practice is ongoing
forgetting, ongoing awakening.
To make much of an “opening” is to drive a wedge into an empty sky and
hang from it – when the “opening” is called “enlightenment” you have
painted a noose and called it a garland. It is another tether of
self-centered habits to which we bind our self in the midst of the vast
wide world. Then, when the nourishment within the reach of the tethered
rope is exhausted, we bleat in vain despite the nurturing life all about
us. In spite of having said this, an “opening” or “enlightenment
experience” can allow the field of life to be sensed, seen and tasted. So,
because there is no opening or closing, we say opening. Habits unfold as
entanglement after entanglement in the midst of ongoing practice. Being
so, even hanging in the empty sky is paradise right now. “Every pine and
bamboo, pure wind blowing.” (Soen Nakagawa)
© 2006 Elihu Genmyo Smith
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