Sangha News for October

10/15/2024

Monthly Commentaries

Dogen's Chinese Poems (82)
Feeding sixteen-foot grasses to the water buffalo
Commentary by Shohaku Okumura

326. Dharma Hall Discourse for the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month Celebration [1249]

The fifth day of the fifth month is the Festival of the Center of Heaven,
when Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī appear as worldly people,
and pick a sixteen-foot stalk of grass
to nurture the water buffalo of Guishan.

In the second line, 遍吉 (Ch. Bianji, Jp. Henkitsu) refers to Samantabhadra, and 文殊 (Ch. Wenshu,Jp. Monju) refers to Mañjuśrī. Samantabhadra bodhisattva sitting on an elephant is the symbol of great practice and Mañjuśrī bodhisattva sitting on a lion is the symbol of wisdom. These bodhisattvas are often enshrined as the attendants of Shakyamuni Buddha. On this day, the great bodhisattvas such as Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī follow the worldly custom and collect medicinal plants. Probably Dōgen refers to the monks at Eiheiji, who practice following Samantabhadra and study true dharma following Mañjuśrī, and who also collect medicinal plants to celebrate the festival on the fifth day of the fifth month. They might put in the bath a bundle of calamus (Japanese iris, or sword lily) which has sword-shaped leaves and a strong fragrance, as common people in lay society do.

However, the grass they pick is not a common medicinal plant. “And pick a sixteen-foot stalk of grass” is a translation of 拈來一茎丈六草 (nenrai ikkyō jōroku sō). 拈來 (nenrai) is “to pick or hold and come.” The rest of the line is made up of two words一茎草 (ikkyōsō) meaning one stalk of grass, and 丈六 (jōroku), sixteen-foot. Jōroku is an abbreviation of丈六金身 (jōroku konjin), meaning sixteen-foot golden body [of the Buddha]. The name of this grass is a combination of “one stalk of grass” and “sixteen-foot golden-body [of the Buddha].” READ MORE

I Vow With All Beings:
Palace rooms
Commentary by Hoko Karnegis

If I'm in palace rooms,
I vow with all beings
to enter the sanctified state,
forever rid of defiled craving.

This gāthā asks us to consider what sacred space is, and to look carefully at the distinction between purity and defilement. Is an opulent palace always a place of delusion, filled with glittering objects of attachment? Is a zendo or Buddha Hall always a place of sanctity?

[A palace] would seem to be the very opposite of a Buddhist space, but North American practitioners are sometimes surprised by the ornateness of Zen temples in Japan, expecting austere rooms with little color. Instead, they usually find very large altars covered in shiny and colorful brocade hangings, gold trim, and multiple kinds of offerings and fixtures. The temples may own and display important and valuable works of art, manuscripts, artifacts and robes. How is this different from palace rooms? READ MORE

In this issue:

Commentaries: Feeding sixteen-foot tall grasses to the water buffalo; Palace rooms
Fall fund appeal: Practicing Today, Building Our Future Together
New on the web: 108 Gates; Sunday talks on Youtube
Practice recap: Six Points discussion #4; Sangha Stewardship workshop; Work practice; Hoko completes talk series; Okumura Roshi's talk for Silent Thunder Order retreat
Coming up: Virtual dharma study intensive (Nov 1 - 10); Six points discussion #5; Ryaku fusatsu; Rohatsu sesshin
Sanshin Network: News from Japan, Colombia, and Austria

New on the web

108 Gates: Hoko's written commentaries on gate statements 38 - 42 of the 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination (Ippyakuhachi Homyomon) are now available, together with study/discussion questions for groups or individuals. New commentaries are posted to our 108 Gates page each Monday.

Sunday talks on Youtube:

Fall Fund Appeal: Practicing Today, Building Our Future Together

This is the time of year when Sanshin Zen Community gathers together offerings of financial support and looks to what's ahead. 

Funds raised so far: $3090*

*As of Oct 13th. For each thousand dollars we raise together in support of the dharma and our practice, we'll color in a square in Indra's Net. Thank you for your participation and practice.

"Whether we give or we receive, we connect ourselves with all beings throughout the world." -- Eihei Dogen Zenji

Throughout this year, Sanshin has kept expenses under budget while offering important opportunities for practice, but we are falling short on our projected annual donations. To address our deficit, we are committed to raising $50,000 together by December 31st so that we can balance our 2024 budget.

In the same way that work practice is not simply volunteer work, offering financial support as a part of the sangha is not simply giving a handout. Both are the practice of being in a dharma community and investigating the nature of giving and receiving. Is there really someone giving and receiving something, or is there simply a call and response that arise together, without separation?

Financial contributions of any amount are appreciated at any time. For further information and to donate, visit our Fall 2024 Fund Appeal webpage.

Practice recap

Six points discussion #4:
Dharma study as a support for zazen

A group of practitioners gathered at Sanshin and virtually from home on September 26th to sit zazen and then discuss the fourth of the six points of practice fundamental to Sanshin's mission and practice vision: dharma study as a support for zazen. A recording of Hoko's opening remarks for the evening is available at right and on our Youtube channel.

As part of our yearlong investigation of lineage & legacy, we'll discuss the fifth point, work practice as an investigation of community, on Thursday, November 14th.

Sangha Stewardship workshop:
Introduction to the role of director

Practitioners explored the theme of dharma center board directorship as bodhisattva practice through a day of study, discussion, and zazen with Hoko on October 5th. This was the second and final Sangha Stewardship workshop of the year at Sanshin, the first being focused on the roles of the tenzo and ino. Recordings and resources based on the teachings explored in these workshops will be made available to sanghas and practitioners in the near future.

Work practice: The sangha gathered for our monthly work day on a warm, early-fall Sunday, October 6th. Practitioners weeded and cleared the moss garden of autumn leaves, continued piling up the "dead hedge" brush-pile fence on our northern boundary, and deep-cleaned our zendo altar cabinets and Okumura Roshi's office.

Throughout the month, practitioners continued to care for the sangha vegetable garden, including recent plantings of cold-hardy crops like kale, arugula, radishes, and turnips. This evening (Oct 15th), we'll harvest sweet potatoes ahead of a likely first frost!

The community garden staff have also encouraged us to harvest flowers from their public plots for offering on our altars.

Hoko completes talk series: Hoko talked on Gate 109 of the 108 Gates of Dharma Illumination (Ippyakuhachi Homyomon) on September 29th, completing her 8+ years-long gate-by-gate series of Sunday dharma talks. The sangha celebrated the occasion with a surprise offering of one of Hoko's oft-referenced dharma gates: cherry pie. Still not finished with this rich text, Hoko continues to convert these dharma talks into written commentaries, which are posted to our 108 Gates webpage each Monday.

Okumura Roshi offers a talk: In coordination with Silent Thunder Order's fall retreat, which itself focused on teachings from the Sawaki-Uchiyama-Okumura lineage, Okumura Roshi offered a Sunday dharma talk for retreat participants via Zoom as well as for regular Sunday practice at Sanshin on Sunday, Oct 13th.

Coming up

Virtual dharma study intensive (Nov 1 - 10): Over the course of ten mornings (10am - noon ET) this November, Okumura Roshi will offer ten lectures on Eihei Dogen Zenji's Gakudo Yojinshu. Dogen wrote and compiled this text in 1234, the year after he founded his first temple, Koshoji. It is thus thought to have been Dogen's first writing for his students as a guide for practice at Koshoji.

The dharma study intensive accommodates virtual participation only. Our intention is to make each lecture recording available to participants before the next day's lecture begins - these recordings will also remain available to registrants for a period of one month after the conclusion of the lecture series. LEARN MORE AND REGISTER (closes Tuesday, October 29th)

Six points discussion #5 (Nov 14):
Work practice as an investigation of community

6:30 - 7 pm (EDT): Zazen
7 - 8 pm: Discussion

We'll discover how work practice is an investigation of community rather than simply being volunteer work at the temple or in the world. This is where we actively practice with the precepts, come to understand beneficial action, and directly experience the sangha as the virtue of peace and harmony. At Sanshin, we are beginning particularly to focus on our relationship with the land and the food we eat. How do we take our practice off the cushion and into our activities with the various communities in our lives?

Virtual and in-person participation is welcome. Learn more on our lineage & legacy webpage.

Ryaku fusatsu ceremony (Nov 18): Our next ryaku fusatsu ceremony will be carried out on Monday, Nov 18th, at 7 pm ET. Ryaku fusatsu is our monthly ceremony of renewing our aspiration to practice with the sixteen bodhisattva precepts. All are welcome, in-person and virtually, whether or not you've formally received precepts. If attending in person, please show up by 6:50 pm, to allow enough time for offering incense and purifying rakusu or okesa (if you have one) before the ceremony.

Rohatsu sesshin: Registration for our 8-day Rohatsu sesshin is now open. Rohatsu sesshin is carried out each year across the Buddhist world in recognition of Shakyamuni's awakening under the bodhi tree. Sesshin at Sanshin is an opportunity to practice zazen without distraction. We set aside the usual activities -- or entertainments -- of temple life, like work periods, meetings with teachers and dharma talks, and focus completely on zazen. Learn more and register here.

For complete information about our regular practice schedule and upcoming activities, visit our Schedules and Calendars webpage.

Sanshin Network

Sanshin clergy in Japan: Two ordained students of Okumura Roshi, Doju Layton and Jikei Kido, will soon begin practicing in residence for several months at Kotaiji in Nagasaki prefecture, Japan, as part of their clergy credentialing processes with Sotoshu and their own ongoing practice and development as dharma leaders. There will be some overlap in their stays at Kotaiji, and for Jikei, it will be her second three-month period of practice at this training temple.

Zen open house in Vienna: Shinko Hagn, an ordained student of Hoko in Vienna, Austria, recently opened a new place of practice called 1000 Hands House for his sangha and the wider community.

Shinko reports: On October 5th, we held our first open house at the 1000 Hands House. The 1000 Hands House is the institutional umbrella that unites all our activities: Daijihi –the Soto-Zen sangha, 1000 Hands –our social project, and Shinkoko.at –the teashop. There was an introduction to Soto Zen, a Qigong trial lesson, a tea tasting in ritualized form, and an introduction to our social project. We had a lot of fun with the many visitors.

Why 1000 hands? Our Sangha is called Daijihi, which is the Japanese translation of “boundless compassion." Todo-san translated this term for me many years ago when we founded our sangha. Kannon (Avalokithesvara in Sanskrit) is the manifestation of this. The 1000-armed Avalokithesvara, called Senju Kannon, is one of the six classical representations of Kannon in Japan. We have taken her as a symbolic figure for our actions because these 1000 hands emphasize the possibility of being able to help anyone at any time, and give them a hand. Thus, boundless compassion is particularly emphasized, and we can learn to go far beyond our small self. In October 2023, we took a walk through the center of Vienna with our dharma friend Rev. Aigo Castro from Spain. In the shop window of an antiques dealer, a 1000-armed Kannon suddenly appeared, more precisely a Guan Yin made of Dehua porcelain. A few days later, we discovered our new house and visited it for the first time. A few weeks later we acquired the Kannon statue and now she stands in the main room of our center as a protective deity. Aigo will do the eye-opening ceremony for her in mid-November.

Dogen study in Colombia: Densho Quintero, a dharma heir of Okumura Roshi, recently gave a presentation on his new book Introduccion al Zen de Dogen, itself based on his study with Okumura Roshi. The event was held at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia and introduced by José Luis Mesa PhD, professor of the university's Faculty of Theology. More than eighty people were in attendance.

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LEARN MORE about our intention to raise $50,000 before the end of the year in support of our shared practice. Thank you for your participation and practice.

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