July Dai-sesshin at Mt. Baldy
Dharma Cloud Hermitage had a good showing of four participants in the July Dai-sesshin that opened Mt. Baldy Zen Center’s Summer Seichu (training period). Shuko, Myoki, Taigen, and Dokuro participated in the week of intense schedule. The number of participants was around 30 full-time, which made it a good match for Roshi, who gave four sanzen (private interviews) a day, and the usual daily teisho (lecture).
The weather was at first cool, but then turned into a hot stretch. It was nice to be able to connect with many long time students of Sasaki Roshi, just sitting in the same meditation hall, and to see that there is still agood number of younger Zen students who join these retreats.
At this point Roshi is in the last days of a five-day retreat at Rinzai-ji, celebrating his 48 years in the United States. Roshi’s health is good, as reported by Myoren, who has been serving as his Inji for some time now. Dokuro had a phone call with Roshi yesterday, and Roshi sounded strong and healthy. We congratulate him on his 48th anniversary of arriving in the US. May there be many more in good health.