Sangha Life
A Publication of the Missouri Zen Center
August-September, 2003

220 Spring Avenue
Webster Groves, MO 63119
(314) 961-6138

Visit us on the web at www.MissouriZenCenter.org
(pdf and html versions of this newsletter and the calendar are available from the website)

Events for August and September
• August 10
	Welcome back potluck for Rosan
• August 16 
	Potluck dinner and Chandramani's visit
• TBA-August
	Food booth training for Japanese Festival
• August 30-September 1
	Japanese Festival food booth effort
• TBA-September
	Sesshin and lay ordination

See the articles for more information on each of these events. Check the listserv or the closet door at the Zen Center for events scheduled after press time.

Zen Center Lunch Potluck August 10th

Our teacher Rosan is returning to us on August 1 and should be here through mid to late September. We will welcome him back with a lunch potluck on Sunday, August 10th, starting about 11 a.m. Bring your most flavorful dish, your family and your friends, and enjoy the presence of our teacher and our sangha.

Volunteers Needed For Japanese Festival Fund-raiser

The Zen Center needs volunteers to work at its food booth at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Japanese Festival. This fund-raiser, one of a few major fund-raisers put on by the Zen Center each year, enables us to meet Zen Center expenses while keeping dues at an affordable level.
The Japanese Festival is held on Labor Day weekend, which is Saturday, August 30 through Monday, September 1 this year. We will prepare and sell fruit slushies, green tea, vegetable rice, sesame noodles and (new this year) sushi.
We need as many members and friends as possible to work one or two (or more!) four-hour shifts anytime that weekend. It takes many volunteers for our food booth to be successful. People are needed to prepare ingredients; cook the food; transport food from where it’s made to where it’s sold; make slushies and green tea; handle food sales; keep equipment and the booth clean; and answer questions about our practice. We need people to set up the kitchen and the booth each morning and to break them down on Monday evening. We have found that it requires at least 8 to 10 people per shift to prepare and sell enough food for our customers and to keep our booth running safely and efficiently.
The booth offers us a wonderful opportunity to spread the Dharma while we prepare delicious food for festival-goers. Many people hear about us for the first time when they purchase food at our booth. Later they learn about the Awakened Way through taking our classes and sitting with us. 
Work shifts each day are from 8 a.m.-noon; 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; and 3-7 p.m. On Saturday morning, we will need volunteers to arrive at the Zen Center early to help load and transport items to the Botanical Garden.  The final shift on Monday includes time for breaking down the booth.  An added treat for final shift workers on Monday is a group dinner out following the conclusion of cleanup. 
Everyone who works any of the shifts will receive a pass for free admission to the Japanese Festival. This will save you the ten dollar admission fee for the Japanese Festival and allow you to enjoy the many festival activities during the time you are not working at our booth. Your family members and friends who volunteer will also receive this benefit, so let them know about this opportunity. We need all the help we can get, especially on Sunday afternoon and evening which has been the most difficult time to find volunteers to work at our booth. 
If you are able to participate in this fund-raiser, we welcome your help with gratitude!  A sign-up sheet for each shift will be posted at the Zen Center by the first weekend in August.  You may sign up any time you are at the Zen Center.  You may also sign up by phone or e-mail: please include your name(s), phone number(s), and the shift(s) you wish to work. We may announce volunteer training times prior to the festival. Check the listserv and the closet door at the Zen Center for the latest information.
We look forward to working with you at our food booth at the Japanese Festival.

MO State Prisons Approve Group Buddhist Practice

by Kalen

On July 9th, 2003, seven Buddhists met with the Missouri Department of Corrections Religious Programming Advisory Council to request that Buddhism in Missouri state prisons be raised from level 1 (solitary practice in the cell) to level 2 (group practice with a teacher present). This outcome was the result of a year-long effort with the initial goal of allowing Buddhists to teach at one state prison in Missouri. However, prison regulations required that anything offered in one prison be offered in all 23 state prisons.  So a group was formed to work toward offering group Buddhist teaching and practice in all Missouri state prisons.
After a year of organizing, the group headed for Jefferson City to make their request to raise Buddhist practice to level 2.  The spokespeople included Lama Chuck from the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City, Chaplain Mikel Monet from the Peacemaker Community and Kalen from the Missouri Zen Center.  Supporting their efforts were Ven. Kungshih from MABA and two nuns and a member of the Rime Center in Kansas City.  The group met at Rev. Ho Bang’s temple in Jefferson City (Vipassana Buddhist Church/Center for Buddhist Development).
Twelve members of the Religious Programming Advisory Council  listened to the presentation and asked many questions, most of them concerned with the safety and cost of adding such a program.  Zafus, bells, bowls, sutra books, etc. were shown and their use was explained to the council members.  Two days later the group was notified that the Religious Programming Advisory Council recommended to the determining committee that Buddhism be allowed to practice at level 2.  About 3 days later, it was approved by the determining committee.
All volunteers for the Buddhist prison program will need to attend training sessions for working inside prisons. The program will be initiated later this fall or early next spring. Anyone interested in this effort should contact Kalen at the Zen Center.

Chandramani Visit and Potluck Dinner Aug. 16

Join us on Saturday, August 16th at 6:00 p.m. for a Potluck Dinner to welcome Chandramani.  Following the dinner, Chandramani will show photos of his work in Nepal.
Swami Ramchandra (his title) writes:
“I was born in Lumbini zone where Lord Buddha was born. When I was twelve I left for India in the quest of knowledge and truth. I lived there in many ashrams and many saints learning many things for 20 years.12 years of them I spent in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, South India.
After 20 years, I came back to Nepal and started an Ashram called Sri Aurobindo Yoga Mandir since 1993. I help poor and destitute children and women as well. I started with a child and there are over 50 children and 30 adults and also since last 1 year I have started another branch of the ashram quite close to lumbini.
To run all these activities we make incense, run a cow dairy, yoga centre,and naturopathy clinic and other activities.”

E-mail Discussion List (listserv)

To subscribe to the Missouri Zen Center’s e-mail discussion list, send an e-mail message to <majordomo@joethejuggler.com>, leave the subject field blank and in the message body type “subscribe mzc”. You will then receive a confirmation message (including instructions on how to unsubscribe). Please only subscribe  e-mail addresses of individuals. Also please be responsible for any information you post, including forwards.

Living the Global Ethic: Sustainability and Voluntary Simplicity

Part 2: Calculating Your Ecological Footprint

by Kuryo
In the June-July 2003 issue of Sangha Life, I reported on the concept of the Ecological Footprint as a means to document humanity’s demands on nature. Briefly, the amounts of all the different resources we use in a year can be converted into the equivalent amount of land needed to supply those resources, expressed in acres, and then compared to the biologically productive space available to us each year on our planet. The average Ecological Footprint used by a U.S. resident is 24 acres. Compare this to the biologically productive space available per person on Earth in 1999, assuming all the productive capacity on Earth is dedicated to human beings, which is 4.7 acres. It appears that the average U.S. resident is using an unfair share of the Earth’s resources. But this tells us nothing about our own Ecological Footprint, nor does it give any indication of what we might change in order to reduce it. For that we need other tools available on the Redefining Progress website (home page www.rprogress.org).
The first of these is the Ecological Footprint Quiz. It can be accessed from www.rprogress.org/programs/sustainability/ef/ by going to And how does it compare to the rest of the world? (about 2/3 down on the page) and clicking the link Calculate your footprint. From here you will be taken to a page where you click on Follow this link to take the new quiz. The new quiz is a joint project of Earthday Network and Redefining Progress. Follow directions on the quiz page and in a few minutes you will have a rough idea of your personal Ecological Footprint. Be prepared ... your footprint is likely to be larger than you expect. My footprint according to this quiz is 18 acres. But using the more accurate spreadsheet method it is considerably less.
The major advantage of the quiz method for calculating your Ecological Footprint is the very short time required to get a rough measurement. If you have more time and are willing to keep track of what you consume in foods, fossil fuel, car mileage, and so forth, you can download an Excel spreadsheet that will allow you to obtain a more accurate estimate of your Ecological Footprint. To do this, go to www.rprogress.org/programs/sustainability/ef/ and click on this Excel spreadsheet (near the top of the text). To use the spreadsheet, start by entering the number of people in your household. Under the categories of Food, Housing, Transportation, Goods, Services, and Waste, enter either an amount used per month (in the first column) or per year (in the second column) for each item given. By holding the cursor on each item in the category, you can find out more about that item which may help you to enter an accurate value for it. If you cannot provide a value for any item, hold your cursor in the amount per month box and a dialog box will come up with the average per capita value for the U.S., which you can enter as a first approximation. After you have entered values for all relevant items, following the Waste category you will find a box with your Ecological Footprint Assessment. The value is per person in your household. For Meiku and I, our footprint from the spreadsheet is 9.8 global acres each. This is less than the quiz value of 18, but still much larger than the amount of biologically productive space available per person.
You can also use the spreadsheet to estimate the effects of changes you are considering to lower your footprint. For instance, see how driving half as far, or using half as much electricity, or cutting down on meat consumption changes your footprint. Try entering both changes you are likely to make, and drastic changes, like not driving at all, to see the effect these have. You may notice, as I have, that very drastic changes are required to obtain a footprint close to the amount of biologically productive space available per person.
Next issue we will continue contemplating the Ecological Footprint and what it can tell us about our lives and the changes we need to make to live our precepts.

Live Truthful Life!

Rosan Daido
Gotama was awakened to the truth or law of Dependent Origination, the Dharma (Norm) of all dharmas (forms). This Dharma-eye is the right view of all phenomena, whose three dharma-seals or marks (truths) are impermanence, suffering (duk-kha=going against grain, greed), and no-self. Against this, onventional truths conceptualize permanence, pleasure and self. These, especially the self-idea (I / mine), are the starting points of the Three Poisons of nescience, attachment and aversion, causing all problems and sufferings. 
One knows nothing without knowing Dependent Origination. As the Buddha attained awakening in deep meditation, one can awaken to the ultimate truth of the selfless, fearless, deathless state (unconditioned peace, nirvana), beyond the conventional truth based on perception and conception, consciousness-world, etc. all dependently originated, all related and relative. One awakens from the nightmare of nescience (conceptual conventional truths, faulty fruitless contrivances). In the truth of Dependent Origination, truth, goodness, beauty, holiness are one. Only truth frees all in equality, peace and love, all (five blisses) in one. Genuine, limitless life, light, liberation, love, etc. lie here and now!

Regular Zendo Schedule

Sunday
     6:20-7:00 am Zazen
     7:00-7:20 am Service (sutras)
     7:20-8:00 am Zazen
     8:00-8:10 am Kinhin
     8:10-8:30 am Zazen
     8:30 am  Talk/discussion, work period, tea

You are welcome to come throughout the morning, but please do not enter the zendo during zazen. Enter quietly at other times.

Monday
     6:00-6:40 am Zazen
     6:30-7:00 pm Instruction
     7:00-7:20 pm Zazen
     7:20-9:00 pm Discussion/questions

Tuesday
     6:00-6:40 am Zazen
     7:00-7:40 pm Zazen
     7:40-9:00 pm Tea/discussion

Wednesday
     6:00-6:40 am Zazen
     7:00-7:40 pm Zazen
     7:40 pm  Writing Practice

Thursday
     6:00-6:40 am Zazen
     7:00-7:40 pm Zazen

Friday
     6:00-6:40 am Zazen
     7:00-7:40 pm Zazen
     After sitting:  Dinner out

Saturday
     8:00-8:40 am Zazen
     8:40-9:30 am Discussion

Work periods may be scheduled following zazen.
Any changes to this schedule: please contact the Zen Center.