Online Newsletter of the Prairie Zen Center      -      515 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61820                May 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: & Thursdays:
 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.
  Open sitting. Dokusan available as Elihu's
   schedule allows
Saturdays: 8:00 to 9:00 a.m.
  Open sitting, zazen or slow kinhin
Sunday Mornings: (dokusan available)
  8:45. Samu  (cleaning/set up)
  9:00 Service
  9:20 Zazen & Kinhin

  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

Jun. 19 thru July 4th or Aug. 13th thru 18th

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

PZC Sesshin Registration Policy
To register, please submit your application and payment three weeks prior to the beginning of sesshin. Late registration requires an additional $10 per day of attendance. A full refund is available for cancellation up to one week prior to sesshin.

Blank Slate
 (edited Dharma Talk of 3/31/07)
by Elihu Genmyo Smith

If we see practice and various skillful supports from the point of view of ordinary functioning, self-centered functioning, this often creates difficulties rather than nurturing practice, nurturing our life. I remember hearing encouraging words like “be a blank slate” or “be like a blank piece of paper,” “ a perfectly clean slate”. And I thought, "I’ve got to have a certain state of mind, maybe stop my thoughts, or stop something….” Reading “sitting is doing nothing,” we might think, “okay, how am I going to do nothing?” So we try to do nothing. Of course, we have "I’m doing" and the "nothing" that I’m trying to do. So piled on top of the usual habits we add more ideas such as "blank" or "nothing."

Sitting zazen, we see thoughts, emotions, which are arising and disappearing. We may become caught up in them, following along and building upon them. Sitting, practicing, we notice what occurs, notice self-centered thinking. We sense the times and ways that "my doing" comes forth in the midst of functioning; we sense bodily "doing." In sitting still, we may discover “doing” something with tongue or mouth, with eyes, not to speak of other bodily tensing and movement. Sitting enables and forces us to discover all the ways "I’m" "doing the universe," or “I’m” believing thoughts about the universe. All the ways that thinking and feeling is interfering, getting in the way of, this blank slate that we always are -right now - this original face functioning, responding, manifesting morning to night. Because I believe thought, feeling, emotion, this original face seems not at all this life. Holding on to body-mind habits, we miss this that we are from the beginning, just this.

Sometimes it takes bumping into reality over and over for us to see what is occurring - the believed thoughts bumping into the reality of what is, this actual manifesting - and the stress and suffering that is multiplied by believing emotion thought, by holding and building on it. “It’s not supposed to be this way!” Oh! And it is this way. “It’s not supposed to be this way!” And it is still this way. No matter how many times we think how it is supposed to be, it is as is. Sitting is being this moment that you are. To quote Dogen, (Shoaku Makusa, “non-doing evil") “One must practice through good and evil, causes and effects. This is not, as commonly said, a case of altering causes and effects, nor a case of creating them. Causes and effects on occasion cause us to practice. This occurs because the original face of causes and effects is already clearly discerned: It is non-doing, it is uncreated, it is impermanent, it is not obscuring, it is not falling, it is sloughing off (dropping away).”

This original face of cause and effect, original face of our life. See, we are each of us exactly cause and effect manifesting. Can’t be anything else. Just ordinary. You don’t have to take or make anything special or fancy. As we are, we are so - this condition right now is cause and effect. The causes manifest right now; call it genetic, biological, psychological, environmental, and so forth - this body-mind circumstance. This is not limited or determined by how we think and feel it is; in fact thinking and feeling are cause and effect. This is the whole of the original face, this non-doing is our life.

What is this non-doing? To say it another way, this clean slate is who and what we are. That is why we can have an instruction, “be a clean slate”; because this is who and what we are. And yet because we so strongly hold to body mind habits and beliefs, attach to emotion-thought, we are encouraged to be who and what we are. Our practice is, if I use crude words, being bodily present, opening up to being this very moment that we are. So the instruction is to be: not what we think and believe, not cut our life off in holding to believed emotion-thought, but be this that we are. This, this that we are, is the original face right here coming forth.

And yet if we don’t see it for our self, it is of no use. So over and over, our practice is - whatever the specific form of our practice is, whether breathing, being present, shikantaza, being listening, looking "who" is thinking, or a koan such as mu, sound of one hand - it is being altogether this moment. Of course, as soon as we believe our thoughts about any practice, about this listening, we miss this listening that we are. We miss this non-doing, this cause and effect listening right here. This clean slate is no longer the clean slate this is.

This practice intent and effort is what all teachers are encouraging. Doesn’t make a difference the particular form. Particular forms are particular forms, each of us for various reasons, for various cause and effect reasons, resonate with particular skillful means, are encouraged to use particular skillful means. But the point is always to enable us to be who we are, because who we are from the beginning is non-doing. As we sit, as we practice, we discover this – to the extent we do. Or we may discover the doing in the midst of zazen, whether our bodily habits doing or being caught up in thoughts, emotions. In the midst of being listening - and right here we believe "Too much traffic," "too little traffic," "Ah, it’s good traffic now." "Those birds aren’t doing it right." "Ah, it’s so wonderful this morning." The believing thought, “I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to sit correctly.” See, cause and effect enables us to practice. Cause and effect is the condition each of us are, exactly as we are; there is not a thing lacking for any of us. It is the ability to respond. And what is this ability to respond? This is Buddha ability.

Ch’an master Caoshan (Sozan) says, “The Buddha’s true Dharma body resembles empty space, responding to creatures it appears in physical form like the moon reflected in water.” It’s not some Buddha out there, it is the Buddha sitting on your cushion. Responding as the listening <chirp, chirp>. So Dogen says, “Because there is the non-doing of responding to creatures, there is the non-doing of appearing in physical form.”

Moon reflected in water - this is our functioning. So, “be an empty slate,” is not to squash your mind, to force yourself to be something else. That is a misunderstanding - we may be adding mud to the mud that already confuses us. There is nothing lacking. Right this moment, your functioning is the functioning of this non-doing. And that is why each of us can and has to testify to this. We testify to the original face that is our life. Testify means manifest what is so. In “testimony” in court, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is testifying to what is so. Practice is to testify to what is so, not because we have figured it out, or because we know it as some sort of knowledge, but because this is our life. We testify by being who we are, manifesting the original face we are. This is what bows, who bows, who sits. Right now, this is who is listening. Of course, it is useless to merely tell someone this. That is just repeating words. We need to testify as life. Our practice is doing so, over and over, moment by moment, being exactly who and what we are. Being exactly this non-doing. This is not about abstractions, about some added knowledge or even insight. To quote Dogen, “One’s own self is neither existent nor non-existent. It is non-doing.”

© 2007 Elihu Genmyo Smith