Online Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center      -      515 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61820                Jan 2007

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: 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
  Class begins at 8:00
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.

There will be no phone hours on Jan. 22nd, Feb. 1st or Mar. 19th, 20th and 22nd.

Phone - (217)355-8835
 E-Mail -  pzc@prairiezen.org

Upcoming Events
• There will be an all day sitting from 9am to 5pm on Sat. Feb. 17th and a board meeting at 4pm that day.
• On Sunday, Feb. 18, there be a service and Dharma Talk for Parinirvana Day of Shakyamuni Buddha.
• The next sesshin will begin the evening of March 29th (Thur) and continue to midday of April 1st (Sun).
• The Service and Dharma Talk on Sunday, April 8th, will celebrate Buddha's Birthday.
• The Memorial Day Weekend sesshin will be from Wednesday, May 23rd to Monday the 28th.

Visiting Teacher
On Sunday, April 15, Ven. Zuiko Redding, resident teacher of the Cedar Rapids Zen Center, will give a Dharma Talk at PZC as part of our Sunday schedule. Please join us in welcoming her.

Tuesday Night Class
The Spring session of the Tuesday Night Class is titled “Zen and Poetry” It will begin Tuesday, January 23 at 8 pm (following 7:30 zazen). The schedule and contents will be worked out the first evening. This class will include presentation by participants.

China Pilgramage
The Northern Zen tour (June 20 - July 2, 2007) is filling up. If you are interested, please check www.prairiezen.org, and follow the instructions to register. Or contact Elihu at the Zen Center or through the website.

Light
A Dharma Talk by
Elihu Genmyo Smith

Our life is revealed moment by moment. This life right now is manifesting who and what we are. This very life is exactly what we need - to see, to learn, to function.

“Objects” change, “others” change, the conditions of this mind, this body, change. In the midst of changing circumstances, body-mind habits and reactions to conditions may result in fear and anger, pain and suffering. Zazen is inhabiting this moment, is manifesting this very life we are, clarifying this ongoing practice life. Being so, this moment we are not blinded by self-centered beliefs, attachments, and reactions to changes - we are not trapped by the form of life. Inhabiting this impermanence that is the form of our life, ongoing practice exertion in the midst of conditions supports this very life. Thus, we live freely as this - not because we get some idea about emptiness but by being this very life, this emptiness that is exactly this life. Each form as form is exactly this life that we are, and is the opportunity to manifest this. This morning, examining Ancestral words, we can clarify this life - and how and where we might be blinded - so as to function as we truly are. Let us illuminate this moment, this functioning life.

Yunmen states “Everyone has light. When you look for it you don’t see it, it is dark. What is the light?” He answered on behalf of the assembled, “the kitchen pantry and the main gate.” He later said, “a good thing is not as good as nothing.” (Case 86, Blue Cliff Record.)

Everyone is in the midst of light. This is our life, always this brightness. Everyone is light. Unfortunately, looking for it as something separate limits us; in trying to understand and interpret this life brightness we don’t see it. This life functioning is always our opportunity and yet, what we do and our ideas about what we are doing may dualistically cut up this life.

In the introduction to this case, Yuanwu comments about Yunmen, “he holds the world fast without the slightest leak, he holds the myriad flows without keeping a drop.” Myriad ways of manifesting this, myriad ways of expressing this - yet not keeping a drop, not sticking to even a drop. Usually we hold onto all sorts of things in beliefs and habits of body mind, we hold onto to various flows, and in holding miss this. “My way is right, her way is wrong, inadequate, this should not happen, that is unfair,” etc. Tenkei Denson comments: “Simply not eating with your nose is everyone’s light.” Isn’t that a nice phrase? “Not eating with your nose is everyone’s light” We all are so! This is not something special or extra; yet so often we miss this very life we are. What Yunmen is saying is very straightforward. This is what Shakyamuni Buddha said, “All beings are the wisdom and the perfection of the Buddha.” “Everyone is brightness,” every one of us. Not because we are doing something special like sitting, practicing. This is not limited to persons; this is each moment. But when you look for it, make it one thing and not another thing, then you are in trouble. Then you miss what can not be missed. Our practice, this ongoing exertion, is being this functioning, responding to conditions. To paraphrase Dogen - because practice is in the midst of realization, our ongoing practice effort is exactly this realization; in accord with circumstances we see this clearly.

If I explain, being this moment is taking care of this moment, eating, cleaning, resting. Thinking, analyzing, are also this wonderful functioning. All of being is so, life, death. In this very life we are seemingly bound and in this very life we are seemingly liberated. Getting caught up in analyzing, thinking about, “am I brushing my teeth right?” that much teeth are not being brushed and we are not brushing teeth. When we look to make something of it, even to make it be just light and not darkness, it is dark and dim. Using these wonderful abilities as humans to hold onto some and push away others, “I’m correct” and “he’s mistaken,” “he’s right” and “I’m wrong,” or all sorts of other beliefs - holding to body mind habits of functioning, holding on to explanations - that much we miss this.

Changsha says “The whole universe in the ten directions is the eye of a practitioner. The whole universe …is everyday speech of a practitioner. The whole universe… is the whole body of a practitioner. The whole universe…is the brightness of self. The whole universe…exists within the brightness of self. In the whole universe…there is no one who is not themselves.” This is nice; is it so for you? The phrases are not much good if this is not so for us. Reflect for a moment on conditions and functioning - what do you see that you are sure is not the brightness of self? Are there individuals, circumstances, that you are sure are not this functioning of brightness? Notice what you believe. Is our functioning this brightness of self? What are you believing? In the midst of suffering, we must respond.

So, Yunmen says, everyone, every circumstance, is this brightness of self. Everyone has light. What is this? This is not a matter of words, not a matter of interpretation. What is Yunmen doing? Yes, intrinsically everyone is light, the wisdom of Buddha nature - but these words and explanations, while true, are of little use of them selves. They are of little use the next time you get upset with someone or angry about what is said. This life is in the midst of the many “difficult” conditions. In the midst of suffering, upset, anger and fear, “everyone is light” may not be of much use. After all, this is where the rubber of our practice meets the road - the reactions that get us in trouble. The reactions of greed and hatred that give rise to and support suffering. So Yunmen asks those practicing with him, what is everyone’s life? Hakuin comments, this “case is a crucial pass within the Blue Cliff Record, no explanation is needed.” Practice is really inhabiting our life. What is this life? He wants something that is alive, that we can spit out - our own clarity, our own light - so that it will shine forth, in our speech, in our action, in who and what we are. Yunmen doesn’t want an intellectual answer, he doesn’t want a conceptual answer, but he wants something that is alive, bright.

And that is what is important for our practice - what is alive. Chew on this! What is this light? Trying to see it, you don’t see it, you can’t see it. You can’t see the brightness, only brightness sees brightness! Only light sees light! Being light, it is easy to respond. Or, being darkness. Darkness isn’t “bad,” darkness is light too. Just be this light darkness; this responsive functioning is our practice exertion. Yunmen’s response is “the kitchen pantry and the main gate.” How is that a response to “what is everybody’s light?” Please reflect on this. Yuanwu states that this sentence opens a road for you. But, fearing that people would get stuck here, Yunmen also said, “a good thing is not as good as nothing.” In other words grabbing it away, grabbing away what ever you see in the kitchen pantry, however you understand main gate; otherwise you might make something of it and be stuck in beliefs and ideas – stuck and act based on this stuckness. What is everybody’s light? Your light? Another comment asks, “if you cut off light and darkness, what is it then?”

Our practice is being this light; according to circumstances we awaken to this, to this light that we are. But don’t think this light is something out there or something special or something different from dark. What is your light? This is zazen, sitting, being present. Nothing but the functioning of our life. Our light. Not my light, not your light, this is exactly light. No one else’s. This is the opportunity we have sitting here together, practicing together. The point is simple, but difficult to actualize.

Dogen says “Practicing and experiencing this brightness, we become Buddhas, sit as Buddhas, experience as Buddhas.” He also says, “The brightness of the hundred weeds is already their roots, stem, twigs, leaves, fruit, flowers, light, color; never something added on or taken away.” This is our life, living and dying. In service we dedicate our practice to people who are sick, to some who died, who are dying - like all of us. All of us are dying, the only question is when. And all of us are living. All of us are living dying. Living and dying is the going and coming of this brightness, not more or less. Being the brightness life, whether we “know it” or not, enables us to taste, see and realize this. The more that we do so the more we function as this.

Of course saying it like this may make it seem like a matter of more and less. To paraphrase Dogen, practice and experience are not non-existent, they are the brightness being tainted. This is the whole of our life. Practice is always exactly where you are. It is important to know that exactly where you are is the whole of the brightness, yet this requires practice, requires ongoing exertion – including to see where you are refusing to be brightness. Doing so, right here, in the midst of our ordinary functioning, right here, the brightness reveals itself, reveals our self.

© 2006 Elihu Genmyo Smith