UNSUI – Dharma Cloud Hermitage

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Hanamatsuri

On May 2nd we had an extended sitting that ended with the Buddha’s Birthday celebration, Hanamatsuri. A few non-regulars came, and we had nice attendance. After the ceremony there was an informal vegetarian lunch that was in part provided by some of the participants. Special thanks to Jamie and Ginny for the delicious vegetable stew. Also thanks to Michael, Martha, and the other visitors for joining us on this special day.

Other News

We had a nice crowd of visitors for the Open House on May 5. A group of high school students from Concord Academy made their way to the Zendo to learn a little bit about the practice in which we are involved. The abbreviated formal schedule offered a short Dharma talk by the Abbot, and as usual the evening ended with refreshments, conversation, questions and answer style dialog. The sangha is always glad to welcome visitors and give the opportunity to have a look into what formal Zen practice encompasses.

On April 1, 2010, Joshu Roshi celebrated his 103rd birthday. To commemorate the occasion and Buddha’s birthday a Hanamatsuri Dai-sesshin at the root temple Rinzai-ji in Los Angeles was given. Roshi gave Teisho on Case 1 from the Blue Cliff Record (Hekigan-roku). Shuko and Dokuro were participating in the Dai-sesshin and the Hanamatsuri ceremony, which was on April 8. The following Saturday, April 10, Roshi ordained Kumiko Yasukawa as a Zen nun and gave her the dharma name Myoren. Congratulations!

The Zendo, in conjunction with a personal donation from the abbot and vice-abbess, gave Roshi a 27″   HDTV/Monitor and a five DVD set “Earth” from BBC as a birthday present. Roshi enjoyed watching the entire first presentation, taking in the wonderful visuals from the BBC production. For an hour and a half he was completely absorbed by the images, temporarily forgetting about the sciatica and other pains that come with a 103-year-old body. Roshi is in good health for his age and his mind is still as sharp as ever. We all wish him good health for many more years. The monitor will enable him also to see digital pictures sent to the Inji via email on the large screen.

On Saturday, April 24, Dokuro was invited to lead a retreat for the Harvard Buddhist Community. The retreat drew some nine participants; it was held at the Center for the Study of World Religions on Francis Avenue. Zazen, walking meditation, discussion, and a dharma talk made up the program. Laura Votey, who organized the retreat for the HBC, also helped facilitate a lunch with contributions from other members of the HBC. The overall consensus was that more such retreats should be offered throughout the year.

We are planning on the Hanamatsuri ceremony at the CBA sometime early in May. A separate announcement will be sent out via the email list. If you would like to be on that list please send us a quick note via the contact form on this site.

Our One Day went by pretty fast, while outside the rain kept going and going. We had a good number with 12 participants, some of them part-time. It is always a privilege to be able to spend time together in the Zendo, sit, walk, chant, and eat. Some of the participants came for the first time, and we welcome them into our middle.
The practice at the Dharma Cloud Hermitage and the Cambridge Buddhist Association is always open to everyone who is willing to follow the form and respect the other practitioners.

Many thanks to Shuko, who served as the tenzo and prepared breakfast and lunch for the entire group. A lot of time is spent shopping in the rain), planning, cutting vegetable with Myoki as the shoten. A great Thank You to both bodhisattvas!

We will be planning the next retreat for April and will announce it as soon as a decision has been made.

Please join us for our first day-long retreat that will be held on Sunday, March 14, from 7 am till 5 pm.

The retreat will be a full day of formal practice, including two chanting services, a formal Mt. Baldy style lunch, a Dharma talk, lots of zazen, kinhin, and the opportunity for an informal meeting with a Zen teacher. In the morning there will be an informal, self-serve breakfast for those who participate in the early morning schedule. The early schedule will continue with the general Sunday morning schedule at 10 am for those who want to join later.

In any case, if you are planning to attend, please let us know so we can plan for the appropriate amount of food for the meals. The suggested donation for the full day (including two meals) is $40, for any part of the day including lunch $30, members receive a $5 discount. Nobody will be excluded due to financial reasons. Please see the vice-abbess or contact us to make arrangements if you experience financial hardship.

The full schedule will be announced in detail. Please remember that registration is required. You can use the contact form on this site or send mail to retreats-at-unsui.org.

It is winter, it is cold, and sometimes the weather gets not only nasty but increases the likelihood for accidents.

Zen students like to brave storms, cold, heat, rain, snow. Well, you can do that for yourself if you’d like, but don’t do it on the way to the Zendo. Sometimes it is more prudent to stay home and be safe than putting oneself into harms way. That includes looking ahead: how bad will it be when Zendo closes?

Please use common sense and make your own judgment if Zendo is not officially canceled but conditions are bad. We don’t want you the get hurt on the way here or on the way home. We’d much rather see you in one piece when the weather has cleared.

For tonight, Wednesday, February 10, 2010, we have not canceled as of 4:30 pm. It may be bad later, or after Zendo, so please take care and check before you come (on the phone message 617-491-8857) or this web site if the program has been officially canceled. We trust your judgment to stay home when it is better to do so.

We greeted the New Year with a Joya-no-kane sit on New Year’s eve. There was a good number of friends who came to the CBA to help us celebrate the old and welcome the new. It was nice to be able to share the 108 strikes of the large bell with everyone who came.

The Open House events in January and February were well attended, and some new faces have joined the sittings. It is nice to see that the practice at the CBA draws seekers without having to advertise.

Shinge Roshi gave a teisho at the CBA on January 10, 2010 on the Rinzai Roku. We were very glad to have the opportunity to have her visit the former place of her practice (with Maurine Stuart) and to have a teisho presented. Although there are many different schools and traditions it is very important to keep the wonderful fact in mind that we all are working on investigating the same Great Matter. Many thanks to Shinge Roshi for her generosity.

During the Rinzai-ji Dai-sesshin in January Sasaki Roshi’s Inji called up and told Shuko that Roshi was looking for a particular translation of the Hekigan-shu (Blue Cliff Record) Case 1 and Case 2 by D.T. Suzuki. Roshi remembered that he used to have it, but he could not find the translation. Several scholars were contacted, but none was able to come up with it. Shuko did a little investigation about it on the Internet and found out that the translations were published in a particular periodical out of Otani University in 1968, The Eastern Buddhist. With the help of that knowledge and the OCLC WorldCat (a catalog of holdings of libraries around the world) we were able to find out that Harvard Divinity School should have the 1968 Vol.1 and Vol. 2. Dai-sesshin had already progressed to the second day without translation of the cases. Shuko had the brilliant idea to go and look at the CBA if we had these volumes in the library – and voila! Right there, on the shelf, just what Roshi was looking for. A quick scan, email to Rinzai-ji, and the Dai-sesshin had finally the required translations. Many thanks to Shuko for her investigation and brilliant idea!

At this time we are deciding when to hold our next day-sit. If it does not work out in February, we’d like to have something in March. Please come back to the site and check for news about that, or check the RSS feed that you can susbscribe to at the bottom of this page.

We also wish Taigen a quick recovery from his injury – six screws in his clavicle. We miss him at the Zendo and send him our best.

Shinge Rōshi (Roko Sherry Chayat) will be giving a Guest Teacher Talk on Sunday, January 10, 2010 at the Cambridge Buddhist Association. Shinge Rōshi practiced at the CBA under Myōon Chikō Maurine Stuart and later became a Dharma successor to Eidō Tai Shimano Rōshi. It is our privilege to welcome Shinge Rōshi back to her former place of studies and to hear her speak about a portion of the Rinzai Roku.

Please note that the CBA is subject to a strict 35 people limit of occupancy, which will be strictly enforced. Seating is on a first come basis. The talk is part of the regular Sunday schedule, which begins at 10 am. If you plan to come just for the talk, please arrive by 10:45 am. We are able to provide chairs for those who choose not to sit on the meditation cushions.

On Sundays parking on Sparks Street is not restricted, so please feel free to park close to the center. A donation of ten dollars is suggested.

It is Sunday morning, and we are just about the start the regular morning sitting. This is the second day of our retreat to commemorate Buddha’s enlightenment.  About ten participants joined us for the retreat, some of them part-time, the majority full-time for both days.

The Saturday schedule looked like this – if you’re ever interested in joining one of our retreats:

6:00 am Sarei – formal tea, followed by the morning chanting (choka)
7:00 am Zazen (seated meditation), kinhin (walking meditation) alternating unti
8:10 am Informal, silent, self-serve breakfast
9:30 am Zazen, kinhin (alternating)
10:30 am Dharma Talk, followed by zazen, kinhin
11:45 am formal lunch followed by 20 minutes of cleaning (nitten soji)
1:15 pm Zazen, kinhin
1:50 pm Hosan sarei (tea) followed by afternoon chanting (banka), zazen
3:30 pm Samu, one hour of meditate action, i.e., “work”
4:45 pm Gyodo – walking chant (Heart Sutra), zazen, kinhin
5:45 pm Closing

The officers were:
Joju
Shika: Shuko
Shoten: Hogen

Donai
Tanto: Dokuro
Jikijitsu: Myoki
Shoji: Jodo

Members
Eigetsu
Taigen
Paul
Eileen
Peter

Participants had a chance to sit for an extended time, chant the entire Sutra Book three times, and reap the benefit of a strong group sitting together. The formal meal also offers a good entrance into the world of extended formal practice and surely is a good preparation for participation in a Dai-sesshin with Joshu Roshi. Participants also had the option the meet privately with Dokuro.

We are going to plan the retreat dates for the coming year and will announce them here, so that we have a longer lead time and our friends can make plans with plenty of notice.

For the upcoming year we – as a sangha in conjunction with the abbot and the vice-abbess – have decided to move the Sunday morning schedule back thirty minutes. Instead of starting at 9:30 a.m. we will be starting at 10 a.m. sharp, following the same schedule that constitutes the regular Sunday morning. We hope that this change will help to accommodate those who need just a little more time on Sunday morning before joining us here at the Zendo.

We have also started a new process in which all sangha members who have received jukai and a dharma name will be responsible for running the retreats under the supervision of the ordained members of the sangha. This will help us come up with the dates for retreats earlier and as a community.

Last week the vice-abbess Shuko and I went to participate in a five day retreat at Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles.

Joshu Roshi changed the General Sesshin that ran from 10/14 through 10/18 into a Dai-sesshin, meaning that there was full-time sitting schedule with four sanzen and teisho. The numbers were quite impressive, having as many as 37 participants. A large number, almost 20, came all the way from Europe to sit with Roshi. This contingent also included Seiun Genro, Osho from the Bodhidharma Zendo in Vienna – the teacher with whom I first made contact with in 1982 and who started me in formal Zen practice. It was nice to meet many people with whom I go back as far as 27 years of practicing together. It is just amazing to be able to see and appreciate the changes that take place over this amount of time. I feel very fortunate and grateful to have met such outstanding teachers and human beings. A good number of these European practitioners I have not seen since I moved to the US, that means for more than fifteen years. It was nice reconnecting with them.

Joshu Roshi was in good health condition and did not skip a single sanzen. Although he is working slower now than in the past, he saw each of us four times a day. With this number of participants the time elapsed during sanzen varied between four and six or seven sitting periods. This translates to anywhere between two and three and a half hours – which adds a massive amount of sitting to an already tight schedule. Some days we did not close the zendo before 10:45 pm, which pushed the schedule way beyond the 9 pm regular closing. Even with these changes, the 3 am wake-up remains in effect. Altogether this made up for an intense Dai-sesshin that had a quiet and calm overall tone. I had the honor to serve as Jikijitsu and lead the group through most of the retreat. Roshi has moved on to Saisho, Mt. Cobb in northern California, where he is giving a Dai-sesshin starting on the 22nd of October. Mt. Cobb is an evolving center that is aspiring to build Rinzai-ji’s senmon dojo – the monastic training center for future generations of Rinzai-ji monastics, teachers, and leaders. A full plan for all facilities is in development and Gido Osho, who is in charge of Saisho, is working very hard to realize this aspiration on Roshi and his sangha. Many thanks and a deep bow to him and his helpers.

Many thanks also to everyone who helped in making another Dai-sesshin with Roshi possible, and to all who covered for us absentees during that time. We’re back!