Dharma Life (text-only version) April-May, 2002 A Publication of the Missouri Zen Center 220 Spring Avenue Webster Groves, MO 63119 (314) 961-6138 Visit us on the web at www.MissouriZenCenter.org Daylight Savings Time Begins April 7 Please note that Daylight Savings Time begins on April 7. YouÕll need to set your clocks ahead by one hour the previous evening. Otherwise you may find yourself at the Zen Center door on April 7, wondering why we are inside doing something you were not expecting we would be doing at that time. Please Join Us For Sunday Morning Sittings Those of us who sit more or less regularly on Sunday mornings have noticed that attendance for the last sitting and the Dharma talk, samu period, and tea and discussion has declined over the last several months. Rosan has expressed his desire for the sangha to gather together on Sunday. We hope that this notice may encourage more of our members and friends to sit on Sunday and to stay through tea and discussion. While many of us find the early sittings on Sunday very pleasant, we understand that members and friends short on sleep may not be prepared to come for the first sitting or two. If that is the case for you, please consider entering during kinhin, between 8 and 8:10 am, and sit from 8:10 to 8:30 am. Then please stay for the Dharma talk, a short samu (work period) and tea and discussion. We usually end the discussion between 10 and 10:30 am. Rosan gives the Dharma talk when he is in town. It is his best opportunity to teach us, and we hope as many people as possible are present to learn directly from him. It is a privilege to have him as our teacher and to hear his wonderfully poetic way of teaching the Dharma. When Rosan is out of town, the doan gives the Dharma talk. We have enjoyed many fine Dharma talks from sangha members and find it is an excellent way to get to know each other better. One of the best ways to put our practice into action is to observe a day of rest each week. Our Sunday service is an excellent way to begin a day of rest. Please attend and find this out for yourself! Board Meetings And Actions The next Zen Center Board meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 19 following sitting. All Board meetings are open to all members and friends of the Zen Center. Please come if you have suggestions or just want to find out how the Board works to keep the Zen Center going. The Board did not schedule any sesshins or Sitting 101 classes at its March meeting. We encourage newcomers to the Zen Center to attend the Monday evening sittings, which are designed especially for people new to our practice. Come at 6:30 pm for instructions on how to sit. Sitting is from 7 to 7:20 pm, followed by a discussion led by a guest doan. Mitsu sends information on each guest doan to the listserv a day or two earlier. Area Buddhists Celebrate BuddhaÕs Birthday For St. Louis-area Buddhists and others interested in learning more about Buddhism, Vesak Day offers an opportunity to celebrate the birth, awakening, and death of the Buddha and to learn more about how the teachings of the Buddha can help us to awaken and live meaningful lives. Vesak Day occurs each year on the Sunday closest to the first full moon in May. This yearÕs Vesak Day celebration will be held on Sunday, May 26, from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm at the Mid-America Buddhist Association (MABA) near Augusta, Missouri. The event is free and open to the public. The Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis, the organizers of Vesak Day, expect this yearÕs slate of activities and smorgasbord of ethnic foods to attract a record crowd. The guest speaker this year is Venerable Thubten Chodron, a renowned American Tibetan nun who is well known for her clear, humorous, and practical teachings. She will give the Dharma Talk and host a Q & A session afterward. Activities of interest to children include Joe the JugglerÕs juggling show and Dr. Thiet T. NguyenÕs magic show. Music will be provided by John Goldstein and Mitsu Saito. The Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis consists of 10 local Buddhist groups that meet monthly to discuss secular and spiritual issues and to organize activities. The Council is comprised of MABA, Missouri Zen Center, St. Louis Insight Meditation Group, Sri Lankan Buddhist Group, Thai Buddhist Temple, Vietnamese Buddhist Association of St. Louis, Vipassana Buddhist Church, and three Tibetan Buddhist groups. Missouri Zen Center has agreed to be in charge of a quiet meditation tent by the lake so that attendees may go to this tent at any time during the day to meditate or to experience a moment of peace and quiet. We need enough volunteers to staff the tent throughout the day. Duties include teaching newcomers how to meditate and ensuring that the tent area remains quiet and conducive to meditation. Nearer to Vesak Day, we will post a sign-up sheet so that volunteers may sign up for an hour or two. We hope that as many Zen Center members and friends as possible take this opportunity to celebrate Vesak Day with our many Buddhist friends from other area sanghas. Those who have attended in past years have enjoyed it very much. Please join us this year! Directions: From St. Louis, take I-64/Hwy. 40 approximately 1 mile past the Missouri River bridge to Hwy. 94. Take Hwy. 94 west approximately 25 miles to Schindler Rd. on the outskirts of Augusta. Look for and follow the signs to MABA. Vesak Day Schedule of Events 9:30 am Opening ceremony, Puja with Horn: Lama Lobsang Palden and Jack Sisk 9:50 am Short orientation regarding locations of different activities 10:00 am Bathing Buddha Rite 10:30 am Sitting meditation led by Venerable Santikaro Bhikkhu 10:30 am Dr. Thiet Nguyen, the Magician 11:30 am Lunch 11:30 am John Goldstein and Mitsu Saito perform music; Joe the Juggler juggles 1:30 pm Dharma Talk and conversation with Venerable Thubten Chodron Need Volunteer to Transcribe RosanÕs Talks We have an excellent volunteer opportunity available for someone who can transcribe RosanÕs Dharma talks and submit them to Dharma Life for publication. This can be done in the comfort of your own home, at whatever time you like. All you need is the disk upon which weÕve recorded his talks and the player which records and plays them back. If you donÕt have your own player, youÕll be able to borrow the Zen CenterÕs player during the time you are transcribing. Two or more people may share this position, as long as they can work together to ensure that the requirements are met. Requirements for this position include: ¥ several hours of free time every two months to transcribe one or more talks; ¥ care to record the talks just as Rosan gives them; ¥ commitment to e-mail transcriptions to the newsletter co-editors at the necessary times. The co-editors will require the transcriptions by the 20th of the months of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Anyone or any group of people who feels that they fulfill the requirements, please e-mail the Zen Center at info@missourizencenter.org Hosta Sale, May 11 The Zen CenterÕs annual Hosta Sale fundraiser will be held at the Center on Saturday, May 11 from 8 am until noon. There are lots of different ways to help the Zen Center from now through the close of the sale. They include: digging up and potting hostas for the sale; working before, during, and after the sale; publicizing the sale to family, friends, and co-workers; and buying hostas and other plants at the sale to enhance your own garden and add beauty to the world. Every Saturday during the month of April, join us for sitting followed by digging up and potting hostas. The usual Saturday morning sitting from 8 to 8:40 am will be followed. Then weÕll start work in our gardens, digging up all those hostas we bought last fall and nestling them into their own pots for the sale. Please be sure to wear clothes you can get dirty, wet, or muddy. Bring garden gloves if you have and want them; most other tools, such as trowels and spades, the Zen Center can supply. WeÕll work till about 11:30 am and then eat lunch together, cooked by one or more of the excellent cooks in our sangha. (Or if none of them can cook that day, weÕll visit one of Webster GrovesÕ fine dining establishments.) Maybe weÕll have a veggie burger BBQ, perhaps a stir-fry Ð who knows except that dayÕs cook and the volunteers who get to eat the lunch? If you are unable to sit in the morning but can help with digging, plan to arrive around 9 am or so. Enjoy feeling the warm sun, or delicate raindrops, or whatever surprise April weather may bring to us. Listen to birds chirp. Watch for the resident rabbits. Marvel at the diversity of hosta colors, shapes, and sizes. Suppose you want to help dig hostas but canÕt do so on Saturday? We are likely to need an additional work period or two during weekday evenings in late April or early May to dig hostas or pot-up other plants at either or both of the Zen Center or at KalenÕs house. Watch the listserv and postings at the Zen Center for work periods called for last minute preparations. We need lots of volunteers to help us on the day of the sale, so if at all possible, please set aside some time on May 11 to work with us! We need people as early as 6 am to help set up the sales tables and move hostas to their sale locations. If that is too early, we will need more people around 7 to 7:30 am as our first customers begin to arrive. There are lots of ways to help: answer questions about the plants; staff the cashierÕs table; cart hostas to customersÕ cars; rearrange the displays as hostas are sold; make tea; do bagel runs; and answer questions about our practice. Please show up as early as you can. Those of us who have worked at past Hosta Sales can tell you how pleasant it is to be outside early on a spring morning (weÕve put in an order for good weather again this year!). But even if you canÕt show up until 9 am or later, please do come then. You can relieve someone who has to leave early. If you feel so inclined, you can bring a snack for the volunteers. Even if you canÕt come till 11 am or later, please still come. After the sale ends, weÕll need people to help move the remaining plants out of the front yard and take down the work stations. WeÕll go out to lunch afterward to celebrate our success. Yet another way to help us is to tell all the gardeners you know about our sale. Anyone who likes hostas will want to check out our sale for its large number of different varieties, including everything from inexpensive large green hostas that will fill an area quickly to many unusual varieties which are not easily found elsewhere in the area. We carry other plants which like the same conditions as hostas (partial to medium shade and average to moist soil) and look nice planted with them. We often carry some sun-loving plants as well. Even the organizers wonÕt know all of what weÕll have till just before the sale, which adds to the fun. Plants make excellent gifts for all the gardeners you know. They provide beauty for years and create no waste if the pots are reused or recycled (you can return pots to the Zen Center for reuse). If you have your own garden, there is one final way you can help the Zen Center: you can buy some plants for yourself. Hostas are easy to care for and live for many years, growing larger and more beautiful each year. They come in sizes, shapes, colors, and prices to fit the needs of almost any garden and gardener. Beautify your garden and strengthen the Zen Center at the same time! Books & Other Items For Sale There are quite a few books for sale at the Zen Center, as well as one CD and various items conducive to our practice. The books fall into a couple different groups. One set of books is RosanÕs publications. These include Limitless Life: DogenÕs World, RosanÕs translations of DogenÕs works Shushogi, Goroku, and Doei. RosanÕs other publication that we have for sale is No Self: A New Systematic Interpretation of Buddhism. This book treats in detail many of the Buddhist concepts Rosan mentions in his Dharma talks. Please make all checks payable to the Missouri Zen Center for these items. We also have incense, T-shirts, notecards, zafus, zabutons, and seiza benches for sale. All profits on these items benefit the Zen Center. Another set of books includes titles published on Buddhism, Zen, and on various practitioners in the West. We also have a book on the shakuhachi flute in this collection. Our latest additions are two books by Howard Zinn, noted historian who writes about the American history we never learned in school: the stories of how ordinary people worked and often struggled to try to gain their freedom from oppression. Some of these books are bought at good discounts, others are bought at list price. In all cases payment for these items is made to Karlene McAllister. She donates all monies over cost to the Zen Center. Here is another way to learn and support the Zen Center at the same time. Finally, we have copies of sangha member Mitsu SaitoÕs latest CD of cello music on sale at the Zen Center. It has received rave reviews from members. Payment for this item is made to Mitsu. E-mail Discussion List To subscribe to the Missouri Zen CenterÕs e-mail discussion list, send an e-mail message to , leave the subject field blank and in the message body type Òsubscribe mzcÓ. You will then receive a confirmation message (including instructions on how to unsubscribe). Please only subscribe the e-mail address of individuals; do not subscribe other mailing lists or forwarders to our list. Also, be responsible for anything you forward to people who have not requested it. The ÒGreat FoolsÓ of Zen: Ryokan by Ando The radical Chinese and Japanese Poets of Chan and Zen became affectionately known as the ÒGreat Fools.Ó Fool in this context is not derogatory, rather it implies a disinterest in the material and social issues of ego that are at the heart of delusion. One of these poets was the Japanese monk, Taigu Ryokan. One of JapanÕs most beloved poets, Ryokan was born in 1758 in Echigo Province on the west coast of Japan. At the age of nineteen, he decided to become a Buddhist monk and entered the Zen temple of Kosho-ji. He took the name of Ryokan, which means ÒGood Heart.Ó Ryokan spent twelve years in Zen training, then travelled the Japanese countryside on a series of pilgramages which lasted five years. At the conclusion of the these travels, he returned to his native village and occupied an abandoned hermitage nearby. He spent the rest of his life there, meditating, writing, and becoming active in village life. Good Heart is an apt name for this simple monk. He is greatly loved by the Japanese people for his compassionate, unconditional love for all beings, human, animal, and plant. Always smiling, Ryokan bowed to everyone, respected all, and spent hours playing with the children, or drinking sake with the farmers, sometimes forgetting to do his ritual begging. His seemingly simple, direct poetry, mostly about his daily life, conceal insights into the depths of existence which are familiar to us who practice the Soto Way of Dogen Zenji. The writings and poetry of Dogen Zenji, along with the ÒCold MountainÓ poetry of the Chinese poet Han Shan, were RyokanÕs favorite literature. Han ShanÕs influence can be seen in the haiku of Ryokan. One morning, after a thief had stolen the few, simple items that Ryokan kept in his hermitage, he wrote this haiku, my personal favorite: The thief left it there, There in the window frame, The shining moon.* Reflecting on the Òfinger pointing at the moonÓ theme of Zen, in the second stanza of ÒReply to a FriendÓ he wrote: Your finger points to the moon, but the finger is blind until the moon appears. What connection has moon and finger? Are they separate objects or bound? This is a question for beginners wrapped in seas of ignorance. Yet one who looks beyond metaphor knows there is no finger; there is no moon.* The last stanza of ÒAt Master DoÕs Country HouseÓ is a simple statement of the Zen Way: Too confused to ever earn a living I've learned to let things have their way. With only three handfuls of rice in my bag and a few branches by my fireside I pursue neither right or wrong and forget worldly fortune and fame. This damp night under a grassy roof I stretch out my legs without regrets.* The life of compassion and service and the poetry of Ryokan are excellent examples for those of us who would practice the Awakened Way and live the Limitless Life. Please come sit with us. *translations by Mei Hui Huang and Larry Smith Help plant trees on April 20 As part of Earth Day festivities, the Interfaith Partnership will be engaging in another large scale tree planting effort. Missouri Zen Center has been a part of this effort from the beginning. This is the fourth large scale planting that we are participating in. Please come enjoy yourself in what might be the most pleasant form of work there is. Below youÕll find all the info, as sent to us by the Interfaith Partnership. Please note that the Partnership would like everyone who plans to attend to notify them by phone, fax, e-mail or by filling out and sending in the notice at the end. PLANTING TREES AS A RELIGIOUS ACT Tree-PlantingÑRain or Shine! Help restore the earth! Earth Day, April 21, 2002 @ 2:00 PM Near Steinberg Rink at Forest Park IDEAL FOR FAMILIES & INDIVIDUALS Bring: A big smile! 1 shovel for each family unit, bottled water, & work gloves Supplied: Holes will have been dug prior to our arrival 800 trees to be planted, water for trees, and mulch An Environmental Project of Interfaith Partnership of Metropolitan St. Louis Please contact Interfaith Partnership at (314) 821-3808, Fax at (314) 821-6361, EMAIL: ipstlouis@mindspring.com to let us know that you plan to attend and how many will be in your party or send in the form below. TREE PLANTING SIGN UP FORM Deadline: Friday Noon, April 19, 2002 Additional information will be mailed when you register or you may visit our website: http://home.mindspring.com/~ipstlouis.com/ Name of Participating Faith Community: Name(s): ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Address: City: State: Zip: Day Phone: Evening Phone: Number in Party: WE NEED YOU! Mail to: Interfaith Partnership, 418 East Adams Avenue, Kirkwood, MO 63122