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Village Zendo Bulletin — July 2026
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| BULLETINJuly 2026 Image by Taylor Plimpton“Your true self is always shining and free.” —Zen Master Seung SahnDear Sangha,Happy Independence Day! It’s a bit of a funny name for a holiday if you’re a Buddhist, of course. After all, as our teachings remind us, there is no independent self—no you or me (nor anyone, nor anything) that exists separately from everything else. What can be removed from relationship, from cause and effect, from the sun beating down, the rain, wheat, flowers? Go ahead and pluck something and set it aside, see if it stands. Everything leans on everything. Of course, it’s easy to see how we could be mistaken, though, now that space and time have stretched out a bit from that ferociously dense first instant of long ago. I mean, look! Bird, elephant, tree, me. Each of us distinct, unique, and theoretically free.That’s what it’s all about, apparently, this day, our obsession with being free—the great struggle to be me. What a joke. And such a sad one, too—how much suffering has ridden in on the back of that ugly word, “freedom.” How much misery from that initial misconception: that I need to guard, with tooth and claw, this fragile, separate self.Rather than “Independence Day,” we should call it “In Dependence Day”—then maybe we’d get our heads out of our asses. Because maybe then the question would become not, Can we carve out our independence? But instead, Knowing that life is dependence, can we still somehow be free?Maybe true independence isn’t about lopping ourselves clean from it all, but opening our arms to it in welcome. Maybe freedom, real freedom, comes from saying, Come, come lean on me.With love and leaning,Taylor PlimptonEditor
JULY CALENDARThursday, July 2: Evening Zazen (no Dharma Talk) Saturday, July 4: Zendo Closed Sunday, July 5: Online: Practice & Inquiry Circle with Joshin Roshi In-Person: Body, Breath & Mind, Intro to ZenThursday, July 9: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Kojin Newcomer’s Meeting, 6:40 pmSunday, July 12: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Jo An SenseiThursday, July 16: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Bokushu SenseiJuly 18 to August 2: Summer Sesshin, In-person Zendo Closed until August __________________________________________ONGOING GROUPS The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 amLiturgy Training: In-Person 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pmGrace and Grit meets online, first Thursday of each month: 3 pm
SUMMER ANGO Explore the heart of wisdom and compassion in two back-to back summer sesshins—July 18th through August 2nd 2026 at Wisdom House in Litchfield, Connecticut.You may join us for a whole week or both weeks.In-person practice at our location in Tribeca will be closed during this period, however our online zendo will remain open for those that wish to continue practicing together remotely. For those not able to attend the retreat, please remember that our Ango (peaceful dwelling) period can be a time of intensifying our practice in the midst of our ordinary daily lives of coming and going to work, our families and relations. This is a time when we personally commit to more zazen, study, and other practices, such as clear awareness of our interaction with others and attentiveness to the precepts.For more information and to register go HERE
WORK FOR DHARMA DAYA note from our Treasurer Joshin Roshi: Thanks to everyone who donated to our Work for Dharma Day fundraiser this year. It's a big help for us to cover our expenditures as we gear up for Summer Ango. Due to your generosity – with contributions from many new practitioners – we surpassed last year's proceeds. Your appreciation for the nourishment you draw from Village Zendo has been clearly expressed. And in turn, we wish you all a safe and rewarding summer. And look forward to ongoing practice with you.
TEACHINGSThe following is an edited version of a Dharma Talk given by Ryotan Roshi on June 16, 2026. To listen to the original on YouTube, go here. Dams and FlowsThis morning when it was quite a bit cooler than it is now, Corinna and I were sitting at breakfast, and she said something that struck me because it fell into line with stuff that I’ve been thinking about recently. She’s very good at cultivating bean sprouts, growing bean sprouts from mung beans. She’s really got that down. So she thought she would try to do the same thing with broccoli seeds, because broccoli sprouts are supposed to be very good for you. And she told me it was a total failure. She said, “Well, yeah, that’s the never-ending story of the the broccoli sprouts,” and I thought, “Well, yeah, it’s never-ending, because it never began.”In order for things to end, they must begin. If they don’t begin, they don’t end. No birth, no death. So, in a way, as Dogen always is pointing out, our sense of time is driven by the fact that we’re beings that have ego consciousness, emotional consciousness. We have the six senses, the five ones that we normally speak about in the West—sight, smell, taste, touch, and so on—plus the sixth sense, which is consciousness, that perceives all the rest, and out of these, we attach and we create a story called Our Life, Our Biography, Me. And so we have our time being flowing, and Dogen says that as we live in our time being, today flows into tomorrow, today flows into yesterday, and yesterday flows into today. Today flows into today. Tomorrow flows into tomorrow. Flowing is a characteristic of time. One way to think about that is in a very short time it’ll be the first day of summer, so the summer is flowing toward us, but actually also winter is flowing toward us, and so is the fall, and we are flowing toward winter, we are flowing toward fall, we are flowing toward summer. So our conventional way of looking at it is, ‘I’m here at the end of the spring, and soon it’s going to be summer.’ And I think like this because in my usual way of looking at things everything revolves around Ryotan—but when I take that out of the equation, I just see a generalized flowing. And what is Ryotan? Ryotan is just a series of moments strung together by a story, and this moment called Ryotan is influenced by all the other moments that have ever been, ever will be. So, in a sense, the time being, my time being, is the time being of everything, and everything is my time being, according to Dogen. So this is all kind of philosophical, and it’s interesting philosophy in my opinion, but it kind of became more concrete for me a week or two ago, because Corinna and I took the train out to Morristown, New Jersey, and we went to the cemetery near there and had a memorial service with the family for my cousin Stan. He passed away about a year ago, a little more, but the memorial service was recent. Anyway, we were standing out there in the June sun, and, like many memorial services I’m sure you’ve been to, people had a chance to go around and talk about their memories of Stan, and finally his sister was one of the last ones to speak, and she quoted a poem that seems to me to be right in the spirit of Dogen, and it went like this: And every person is a dam between past and future.When he dies the dam is broken and the past breaks through into the futureAnd there is no early or late. Time is oneLike our God, our time is one.And the memory of the dam is a blessing. — Yehuda Amichai (1924 – 2000)So, here we have something I find much easier to connect with than just thinking about this stuff in terms of philosophy, because each of us thinks of ourselves as being solid and having an ongoing being, we all feel like dams between the past and the future. We all feel like a point of solid present in between the infinite past and the infinite future. But somehow we can never quite find that point. Where is the present? When we try to be in the moment, the moment’s gone already, so it’s pretty tough to be in the moment. How do you be in the moment? So, when a person dies, the dam is broken, and the past breaks through into the future and we realize that our whole notion of time simply comes from the very necessary fiction that we are solid beings occupying a moment. But we’re not. We’re constantly changing. My experience now is not the same experience I had just a second ago. My being time is flowing, and because I see you all on my screen right now, your being time and my being time, I can see very clearly that we share this being time, along with the birds outside on the roof from where I’m talking here, along with the sky, along with the leaves in the garden that are waving back and forth furiously as the wind hits them. We are this time.Another way to look at it, another metaphor is the diamond net of Indra, which sort of takes it into space rather than time. So the diamond net of Indra extends throughout all space and time, and at the intersection of each thread in the net there’s a jewel: the light of every jewel reflects the light of every other jewel in the net. So this is a spatial metaphor for what’s going on with our moment of being time; it shares and reflects all moments of being time. Now you know it’s easy to think that, well, gosh, our purpose is to drop this delusion of having a solid, separate self. This is really holding me back. This notion that I’m a dam that feels so solid; and yet this is what makes us human. The human realm is the realm of delusion, so of course we think most of the time that we’re separate individual beings, and when our cousin passes away, we don’t say, “Oh, well, he was the unborn nature, and he’s still the unborn nature, and blah blah blah.” No, we shed a tear. Stan was eight years older than me, so when I was five years old, he looked big, almost an adult. He was 13, and he showed me his trumpet, and he showed me the spit valve on the trumpet, and I thought that was just the coolest thing—that you could open this thing up and shake the trumpet, and all this crap would come out of it. I thought that was so neat, so I remembered that. And I remember at the end of his life, when his illness was very advanced, and he couldn’t speak anymore, but he could function, he came up to me at his mother’s funeral, and threw his arm around me, and we, we stood there together in silence for, I don’t know, five minutes or so. That’s my last memory of Stan in life. So it’s not about trying to erase the sadness of constant change by some kind of watered-down Buddhist philosophy that’s supposed to make you feel good, or at least feel nothing. No. that’s not what it’s about. What Dogen tells us it’s about is wholeheartedly actualizing this very moment of being time, wholeheartedly coming forth as the expression of the whole universe, but as your moment of being time. So yes, you know, it’s kind of a feeble old man giving a feeble talk, and yet it’s the expression of the whole universe, and it feels exactly like a feeble old man giving a feeble talk, that’s what it feels like. It doesn’t feel special, and yet it’s the actualization of everything that ever was or ever will be right in my moment of being time here. So this notion that, you know, we’re supposed to practice really hard year after year, and we’re going to get to some place where stuff doesn’t bother us, that’s a lot of hooey; that doesn’t happen. That would be horrible. That would be checking out of the human realm. Any enlightenment that’s to be found is to be found right here in the realm of delusion.I was reading Hakuin’s autobiography recently, and he says that when he started studying Zen, he read about the great Tang Dynasty master Yen T’ou—called Ganto in Japanese—and he said that he read about Ganto’s death. In Ganto’s time, the golden age of Zen, things were going completely to shit. The Tang Dynasty was falling apart. It was a great time for Zen, full of brilliant masters, and everything was falling apart. Temples were being invaded and looted. There was civil war. There was anarchy, and so in Ganto’s temple they heard that the bandits were coming and all the monks scooted except for Ganto. Ganto just sat in zazen. When the bandits got there, they saw what a shabby temple this was. There was hardly anything there worth stealing. They were really pissed. And so one of the bandits raised his sword as Ganto was sitting there in Zazen and Ganto went “Aaaaahhhh!,” the bandit went swisssh, and off came Ganto’s head. So reading about this, Hakuin said, “That put me off studying Zen for a couple of years because I said to myself, ‘How could a great master like Ganto scream in such an undignified manner? What’s the point of this if you can’t be peaceful and composed at the moment of your death?’” Well, after sitting for a great number of years, very intensely, very, very, very intensely, having kensho upon kensho and kensho, he finally realized—Oh! He realized the same thing that Dogen talks about: It’s about actualizing this moment of your time-being, fully actualizing it coming forth as this time, this place, this person, these circumstances; coming forth as the whole universe, the whole universe was screaming, and yet it was just an old monk screaming. And so we don’t have to be above it all in Zen. In fact there is no above or below, there is only our moment of being time, and Dogen Zenji tells us that to actualize fully, wholeheartedly, our moment of being time is the meaning of practice/enlightenment.
TRUE EXPRESSIONS Creative Offerings from the Sangha The Knicks: A Delirium of JoyBy Adam Seido LevyThere was no way I was going to miss the “Knicks in Five” game, and I thought it would be fun to watch it outdoors with my daughter. Fusho suggested we go to Orchard Street. When we got there, the crowd was already five rows deep where the largest screens were. Standing on my feet for an hour didn’t seem like all that much fun. Instead, we went around the corner and found an outdoor table in front of a bar, where we could watch the game by peering through an open window. The waitress looked at my daughter, who is twenty-one, and said, conspiratorially, “I know what it’s like. When I go out with my parents, I always have to find a place for them to sit.” I made a fake laugh and ordered a margarita.In the fourth quarter, the crowd grew exponentially as everyone crammed in around us, trying to see through the window to the screen inside. It was like a giant family clustered around an old-school television set, and it felt warm and close.When the Knicks won, the crowd exploded. I’ve never felt anything like it. We were shouting and screaming and crying, and then we began to move as one, jumping up and down in rhythm, our cells syncing in a self-organizing pattern like a cloud of starlings, swooping and turning, a murmuration, each of us separate but also interconnected, a kinhin of joy, a sangha of strangers on the street. Strangers threw themselves into each other's arms, screaming joyously. Fireworks went off overhead. People were climbing the street signs, balancing on each other’s shoulders, hugging and sobbing uncontrollably. They were holding their phones overhead, everyone their own Statue of Liberty. It was a communal celebration for the Knicks: their skill, their grit, their underdog story arching towards the rim of history with almost mythic force. It was also an affirmation of civic and political emotions, as many have pointed out. It also felt like this was the moment when the Pandemic finally ended. The crowd, mostly in their 20s, the same generation as my daughter, was experiencing bodies holding each other, intimately sharing space and air together, everyone surging in ecstasy rather than in wariness or fear: a community of strangers, a delirium of joy. After an hour or so, we decided to take the D Train home. This is a subway platform where people usually are sunk into their own exhaustion, sluggishly getting through the day, eyes averted, just waiting for the train. But on this night, their faces were rapturous and luminous, open to the wonder of the world, emanating an interconnection that is always available but not always experienced—and I took two photographs.
REFLECTIONSAn excerpt from Lessons from a Mostly Good Dog, #10, “Be Free”By Taylor Plimpton Image by Taylor PlimptonI wonder sometimes if freedom is less about the external than it is the internal–not so much a matter of the world around you but of the one within yourself. I think of the famous story of the Tibetan monk, trapped in a Chinese prison for 20 years, who claimed his greatest fear was losing compassion for his captors—which in a sense, made him so much freer than they’d ever been, even though he was the one imprisoned. And so maybe true freedom isn’t about the circumstances that confine us—which, after all, we have so little control over—but about what we do within those confines. How we express ourselves within the space we are given. My dog, Brooklyn, for instance: Even with all those restrictions—collar, leash, admonishment, etc.—she finds a way to be herself. She finds a way to be at ease in her life. She finds a way to be free. She barks, shrilly, in the back yard, seeking out other neighborhood dogs who will bark back, till she makes such a racket that we have to bribe her back inside with offerings of chicken. (Sometimes not even the bribes work, and she’ll decide she’d rather be out there a little longer and howl some more: freedom). When we go for walks, she leads the way, her tail high and with a wag—and if we try to go one way and she doesn’t want to, she resists, plants her paws in the ground and stays put, until we find a way to convince her or we relent and follow her lead. (Sometimes you’ll see this mini-drama come to a head on city streets—a dog who refuses to go further being dragged along the pavement on their belly—a classic vision of civil disobedience, and of what freedom, at least in part, really means: choice.) Anyway, Brooklyn wags her tail when she feels like it and she mopes when she feels like it too. She takes naps when she wants, and late at night, when I’m falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV, she’ll whine at me until I carry her upstairs to bed, where she’ll curl up at our feet and snore contentedly, making it difficult to stretch out. And when she gets the zoomies and tears around the back yard, she is like a great stallion, free as the sky, the thunder of her hooves, the wind in her fur. When she’s done running, she lies down in the grass, panting contentedly, nowhere else in the world she’d rather be. This is, I think, the key difference between a dog like Brooklyn and a human like me. She feels free even though she is bound. I feel bound even though I am free. Helplessly, I long for more. There is this ache in me, this angst. Something else, something more. Then I will be free. That old, sick human whisper. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, there is no whisper, no knots. Her ears hear only the wind in the trees, the distant bark of another dog. Her limbs are long and loose and at ease.As Maezumi says, my mind is not in the right place. I think freedom is to be found in some other life. Brooklyn’s mind, on the other hand, is in exactly the right place—it inhabits, freely, the exact world in which it abides.
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor Emerita: Nina Shuka KlippelDesign & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation.
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Podcast audio:The post Talk by Shinryu Roshi “Blossoming in the Flames” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast AudioThe post Talk by Mukei “Mirror, Mirror,” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Village Zendo Bulletin—October 2025
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| BULLETINOctober 2025“I think we need to break out of some sort of rigid solemnity about what we’re doing. This practice is fun!”—Enkyo Roshi, A Little Bit of Zen Dear Sangha,We Zen students can be so hard on ourselves, so serious—it’s always work work work, practice practice practice—but it’s important to remember to celebrate sometimes, too. This Friday, October 3rd, the Village Zendo will be throwing a little party to honor the launch of the new website,Zen Women Pioneers, which features Enkyo Roshi and was created in collaboration with many VZ members. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I hope to be able to attend, and have a little fun myself.I am not suggesting that our whole existence should be some kind of party (I personally have spent far too much time attempting to live like that, and it’s exhausting and pointless). This life is, after all, the grave matter—and there is much in it that needs to be attended to with the most serious of minds. And yet I do believe that there is room, too, for lightness, joy, celebration—indeed, these elements are essential. If we are to continue to do our work at the highest and most sincere level, we need to be able to step back every now and then, take a breath, relax, and acknowledge what we’ve accomplished with a smile (and, yes, maybe even a little pride). As Enkyo Roshi reminded me once at a retreat, it’s OK to be happy for a moment, and there should be no guilt in it. We all try so hard, after all, and it is important to recognize this—and celebrate it—before back into the fray once more we go. With love and light,Taylor PlimptonEditor
OCTOBER CALENDARThursday, October 2: Zazen and Dharma Talk by MukeiFriday, October 3: “Zen Women Pioneers” Launch Party, 6 – 8 pmSunday, October 5: Online: Practice and Inquiry Circle with Joshin Roshi, 9:30 am In-Person: Body, Breath and Mind; Intro to Zen with Howard, 9:30 am Genjokoan Workshop with Ryoshin Hoshi, 2 pmThursday, October 9: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Jinno Newcomers’ Meeting, 6:40 pmSaturday, October 11: Zazenkai with Dharma Talk by Shinryu RoshiSunday, October 12: Zazen with Dharma Talk by KimThursday, October 16: Zazen with Dharma Talk by HonGoSunday, October 19: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryoshin HoshiThursday, October 23: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryotan RoshiSunday, October 26: Zazen with Guest Speaker Shodo SpringThursday, October 30: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Jisei
ONGOING GROUPS The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 amLiturgy Training: In-Person 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pmGrace and Grit meets online, first Thursday of each month: 3 pm
Friday, October 3, from 6 pm to 8 pmIn-Person *RSVP HERE LAUNCH PARTYPlease join us to celebrate the launch of our new website:ZEN WOMEN PIONEERSThe site features Enkyo Roshi in the pilot project that aims to highlightpioneering women in Zen Buddhism. It was created in collaboration with many Village Zendo members.Learn more here.Special Guests in attendance.* Opening Remarks and Film will be streamed online HERELight refreshments will be served.
Sunday, October 5Online Only Genjokoan: Fully Expressing Our LifeWith Ryoshin Charles Kalmanek HoshiSunday, October 5, 2 – 4:30 pmIn this workshop, we’ll introduce Genjokoan, one of the most important philosophical texts written by Dogen Zenji, a Buddhist poet, teacher, philosopher and founder of the Soto Zen school.Genjo means “to fully manifest or express”; koan as it’s used here means “the heart of the matter." Genjokoan therefore means “fully manifesting the heart of the matter” or fully expressing the meaning of our life. It’s often translated as “actualizing the fundamental point.” I call it “the koan of everyday life.”Our practice, when sitting zazen and in life, is to fully express and respond to the present moment, to reality-as-it-is, individually, in community and in harmony with the world. In zazen, we become intimate with ourselves and our conditioning: we see the ways in which we are caught up in attachment and aversion. When we experience moments of awakening, they have the potential to become another form of attachment. Dogen’s teaching is for us to be fully present to all of these aspects of our ourselves, without causing harm to ourselves and others.Dogen’s use of language is original and is intended to move us beyond our conventional way of thinking. When you read Genjokoan, allow the words to penetrate your consciousness, like reading poetry.This workshop involves small group discussion and sharing among participants. As such it will not be recorded. This event will take place online. DonationThe suggested donation is $40. Please consider any contribution you can afford if this is too much for you at this time. Your participation will be much appreciated.Register: HERE
Sunday, October 26, 9:30 amGuest Speaker: Shodo SpringIn-Person and OnlineOpen RealityOnly modern humans have imagined ourselves as gods…And come to the edge of destroying life on earth.Open Reality speaks to the world behind and beneath our daily collective trauma. It opens practical possibilities for creating a shared, flexible culture that knows the natural world both as family and as a working partner. It invites the reader to a world of possibility. What if industrial civilization isn’t the best that humans can do? What if we weren’t alone in the world, but embedded in a universe of conscious, intentional, powerful beings? Shodo Spring is a dharma heir of Shohaku Okumura, and has also practiced at Minnesota Zen Center and San Francisco Zen Center. Her new book is Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together With All Beings. Her previous written work includes Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World (Tuttle 1996), andediting Shohaku Okumura’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” (Wisdom 2018), plus numerous essays in anthologies, and an ongoing monthly blog.Shodo's practice focus has been engaged Buddhism, particularly climate activism. She participated in long walks in 2004 and 2006, and in 2013 led The Compassionate Earth Walk through the Great Plains along the northern KXL route. She began Mountains and Waters Alliance, hosted on a small farm in southern Minnesota; the book is an expression of that work. She recently retired from working as a psychotherapist in order to give full time to practice and teaching. Join us in-person or online HERE
TEACHINGSThe following is an edited version of Sensei Fugan Dineen’s Dharma Talk, Riding the Great Turtle: Healing in Troubled Times, given 9/21/2025. A video of the talk is available on YouTube HERE.Good morning. My name is Fugan, and I practice out on Cape Cod with an affiliate Sangha called Hyannis Zendo. . .. . . Out here on the Cape, we know that fall is coming, in part because the osprey couple who live in a massive old nest across the marsh, just outside the windows here, they've left for the winter; and it's always a bit sad for us to see them go. And then I also think of the fish that they so expertly hunt, and the fish probably are feeling quite differently. And it's the last day of summer. Tomorrow is the autumn equinox. Night and day are of equal duration. Light and dark are in perfect balance. And this has me thinking about how things are feeling really out of balance right now, and we're living through a time when many things we've relied on seem irreparably broken or on their way there. Cracks, fissures, and wounds are appearing right in our families, in our communities, in our towns and cities, and in our nation.And so this idea that there are wounds appearing, that we are in a time of great suffering, is something I think we're all feeling. People are suffering, the environment is suffering, and we come together here, and as Fusho, our Ino, chanted during the dedication to the Heart Sutra, we’re here seeking healing in our broken, broken world. . .. . . Lately, I've been reading a book by the naturalist Sy Montgomery called Of Time and Turtles. And in it, she profiles a number of turtles who have been injured, and the people who spend much of their lives healing them. These people that have their hands full, quite literally. Although turtles have existed for hundreds of millions of years, before there were even dinosaurs, it's a really dangerous thing being a turtle today. According to Sy Montgomery, turtles are the most imperiled major group of animals on earth. Something like 20% of them die each year from human actions—car strikes, pet attacks, pollution; sea turtles getting caught in nets, ingesting fishing gear and plastics; climate change shifting their migration habits and putting them in peril—all this intentional and unintentional mistreatment that leads to such a high mortality rate. So the turtles that Sy meets in her volunteer work—at a place called Turtle Rescue League here in Massachusetts—are broken. One is named Robin Hood, and he was shot in the neck with a crossbow arrow; many of them, like Pizza Man, had their shells cracked when they were hit by cars. And some were shattered. They have head trauma, broken bones, severed spines, infections, loss of limbs, some have lost their eyes. And yet, with the care and attention of the two women who founded and run this Turtle Rescue League, many of the turtles who seem like they were goners have survived, and many are released back into the wild. They are tough and resilient, and the rescuers, too, are tough and resilient. They don't give up, even with gravely injured turtles. The turtles have this amazing ability to survive, and so the rescuers will keep trying to save their lives, even past the time when most people would think they were dead. Only when they become stiff with rigor mortis, or the smell of decomposition is in the air, do they give up. And even from the dead turtles they can sometimes harvest eggs and bring them to term. Natasha Nowick, who is one of the co-founders, says, basically, “If a turtle's organs are not spread all over the road, you might be able to save her.” They are icons of perseverance and serenity for a good reason. . .. . . And as I read about these wounded turtles, I'm thinking about them carrying this history in the scars and fissures on their shells, and that they do this displaying equanimity and ease, and it makes me think of what we're doing here this morning. We come to zazen, at the beginning and throughout our lives probably, with our broken shells. Sometimes we come to sit and it feels like we're also smeared all over the road. And we don't leave those parts behind. We sit with fear, with doubt, with tragedy, sadness, all our cracks are on display. Sy says that turtles live slowly. They breathe slowly. They heal slowly. This is a mark of their great understanding, their intelligence. And we come to the cushion again and again with this patience like a turtle, and we mend. And we don't know how we mend, but it's slow, breath after breath, maybe the wind outside in the trees or a truck backing up in that moment. We don't know, but we can relax. We can feel our bodies expanding as we breathe in and releasing as we exhale. And in Buddhist cosmology, Mount Sumeru, the center of everything, the core, sits on the back of the sacred tortoise, and that's where we sit in zazen. Her strength is right beneath us here and now, and so we can relax. . .For the full transcript of the talk, click HERE
REFLECTIONS: A Bud, a Fruit, and a CoreBy Adam Seido Harrison Levy I decided to eat an apple. Not any apple, but an apple from a tree that my wife and I planted twenty years ago, when our child, Alice, was born. It was a gift from friends, and we had planted the sapling next to the barn, overlooking the fields.We had just bought a farmhouse, got married, and had a baby—all within a year. We were high on life. Under the sapling we also planted Alice’s placenta, which we had been storing in the freezer for months. We called it the Placenta Tree, and it grew fast and strong, just like the baby.Now, twenty years later, while sitting on a rickety wooden chair, I take a bite of the apple. My wife is now my ex-wife, and the baby is now a young woman attending college, and I am no longer that young man. A bud, a fruit, and a core. Each stage is distinct. All as it should be. I throw the core in the high grass. And now it will return to the earth.Finally content, I lean sleepily back in the chair, and as I do, I am stung in the back by an angry wasp. I cry out, and my yell echoes off the barn and out into the fields. Tasting the fruit of the vine and then, a moment later, the sting in the back. Each stage distinct. All as it should be.
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor Emerita: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation. | | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple 260 West Broadway ~ New York NY 10013 |
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Village Zendo Bulletin—September 2024 Discover the perfection of imperfection.
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| BULLETINSeptember 2024 Image by Freddy Plimpton“There is no real beauty without some slight imperfection.” —James Salter Dear Sangha,“Discover the perfection of imperfection,” was my mom’s artistic motto. She came up with it during one of her manic phases, when everywhere she looked, especially in nature, she saw immense, devastating beauty—cracked seashells, warped driftwood, bedraggled birds’ nests. She gathered these things, arranged them together, photographed them, painted over the photographs, framed the results. It was hard for me at the time to appreciate the wabi-sabi beauty of it all—mostly because my mom was acting like such a crazy person—but her creations were indeed beautiful, and the imperfections in them were often the most beautiful part. Looking back, I wish I’d been more able to appreciate my poor mom’s imperfections, too—give the lady a break—but I was young and embarrassed and yearned for someone more grounded.Anyway, it occurs to me that in a certain sense, this is what we are doing in our Zen practice, too: seeking to discover the perfection of imperfection. Most obviously, perhaps, we do this in Zen arts. In Ikebana, for instance, which Fusho Sensei will be guiding us in later this month in the Path of Expression class, evenness and symmetry are frowned upon, and the dense, perfectly rounded bouquet of wedding roses is to be avoided at all costs. Instead, the number of flowers is always odd, stems jut off at unusual angles, and a sense of emptiness is cultivated—enough space, as Fusho once told me, for a butterfly to be able to flit in and around the arrangement with ease.This is what we seek to discover in ourselves, too, of course—the perfection of ourselves just as we are, imperfections and all. Cracked, aching, yearning, incomplete: This is what it is to be human, and there’s such beauty in this—such beauty in us—if only we allow it to be enough. If only we allow us to be enough. This is easier said than done, of course—but much the way I wish I could have given my mom a break all those years ago, perhaps we can offer this to ourselves right now, too. Right now, take a big breath, and give yourself a break. You truly are worthy of it.With much love, and a whole lot of imperfection,Taylor PlimptonEditor
SEPTEMBER CALENDARSunday, September 1: Online: Practice and Inquiry with Joshin In-Person: Body, Breath, Mind—Intro to ZenThursday, September 5: Zazen with Dharma Talk by JiryuSaturday, September 7: Daily Gathas Workshop: The Meal GathaSunday, September 8: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Enkyo Roshi Music Improv, 4 pmThursday, September 12: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Keiko Newcomers MeetingSaturday, September 12: Zazenkai and Dharma Talk by KeikoSunday, September 13: Zazen and Dharma Talk by JiseiThursday, September 19: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Shinryu RoshiSaturday, September 21: Prison Letter Writing GroupSunday, September 22: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Ryoshin Hoshi Path of ExpressionThursday, September 26: Fusatsu with Precepts Talk by Bokushu SenseiSaturday, September 28: Life and Death Worship: ImpermanenceSunday, September 29: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Fugan Sensei___________________________Ongoing Groups: The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am. Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 amLiturgy Training: In-Person, 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pmGrace and Grit meets online, first Thursday of each month at 2 pm
Saturday Sep 7, 2:00 – 3:45 pmOnline Daily Gathas:Workshop on the Meal Gatha Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis Now I open Buddha Tathagatha’s eating bowls May we be relieved from self-clinging With all sentient beingsIn this workshop, we will delve into the profound teachings encapsulated within the Meal Gatha. As practitioners, we chant this verse during retreats prior to our morning and mid-day meals and integrate it into our daily routines at home. It serves as preparation for cultivating mindfulness in eating, guiding us towards a deeper sense of presence and gratitude during mealtimes—while being aware of the yearnings of our hungry ghosts.Join us as we explore the rich layers of wisdom embedded within this simple yet profound practice, inviting transformation and harmony into our daily lives through the act of mindful consumption.This is the third in a series of workshops on Daily Gathas: verses we chant daily at the Village Zendo and on retreats. It will be led by Senior Student Karen Eko Walker.Please register for the workshop, which is online. A suggested donation of $25 for members, and $40 for non-members helps the Village Zendo sustain our operations. Thank you for your practice and your support!The workshop involves small group discussion. It will not be recorded. REGISTER
JUKAI 2024On Friday, July 26, we celebrated our 2024 Jukai ceremony at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT. It was the culmination of a week of intensive sesshin practice and a week of precepts study by the Jukai recipients. Seido offers the following introduction to the photographs he took of our new bodhisattvas:What a tumult! How do you bow to the cushion? How do you balance the fork, and the knife with the paper plate? How loud do you chant the Four Vows? How do you walk through a door? But then deeper, always deeper: How do I lie? How do I kill? How am I stingy? Concentration increases and compassion flows. And then you receive your Dharma name. You try it on like a new shoe, feeling the fit. Is it me, or is it you? Or is it both? These photographs were taken ten minutes after these Buddhas attained Buddhahood. Jukai is in their eyes.Gassho,Seidō / Adam Harrison Levy Eric Bing — Yōshō / Cultivates the Pine Henry Cham — Junpō / Pure Offering Rick Laremont — Kōtoku / Fosters Virtue Ben Ingraham — Zensei / Wholesome Energy Graham Tabor — Kōden / Spacious Field Molly Goodrich — Kidō / Joyous Way Photos by Adam Harrison Levy
Saturday, September 21, 1:30 pmOnline Prison Letter Writing Group Meeting Dear Sangha,Our prisoner letter writing group is a small group. Some of us have been corresponding with their penpals for several years and some of us are new. I believe that what we have come to share together is a deep dedication to this form of connecting with those in prison who are reaching out through Solitary Watch. It is similar to greeting a stranger with an open mind and bearing witness. Writing a letter is an almost lost way of communication today, but in this circumstance it is cherished, and moves through barriers.Sharing our lives with an incarcerated friend opens a door for their expression, which we will hear. Listening and learning about my penpal has shifted my previous held beliefs completely. I ask myself how I can bear witness without judgment. This is just one area of practice that letter writing has revealed. If you might be interested and have about an hour every other month to write a letter to a penpal, we would love to have you join us on September 21 at 1:30! If you have any questions before that time and can’t make the meeting but would like to write, please feel free to reach out. JOIN ONLINE If you have questions, concerns, or topics for discussion, contact Seishin.
Begins Sunday, September 22Online The Village Zendo’s Japanese name, Dotokuji, means True Expression Temple. Expression and expressive forms are central to Zen practice—they bridge the contemplative wisdom of zazen with its functioning in the world as responsive action.This year’s Path class, The Path of Expression, is an exploration of two of the traditional Zen arts: poetry and flower arranging.After last spring’s sessions, led by Senior Student Gessho, which focused on Zen poetry, we are continuing with an exploration in flower arranging.Fusho Sensei will guide the group through the basics of Ikebana-influenced flower arranging for both the home altar and the home.Participants in the Zen Flowers course will be given a list of required and suggested materials to be purchased independently at a modest cost (not included in program fee).If you registered for both sessions in the spring, you are already registered for the fall session.You will receive an email and Zoom invitation from the registrar, including the list of required materials, close to the start date: Sunday, September 22.If you are not already registered and wish to join the fall session, please register below. REGISTER
REFLECTIONSPoem and image by Taylor Plimpton: Odd BirdWe are all strange birds Against a backdrop of night and starsBehind us Infinity shinesAnd we are squat or long-legged or odd-beakedWe are turkeys or ducks or other absurd thingsWinged and proud and pondering flightBut right now we’re just standing here dumblyUnaware of the immensity of the whole thingWe are considering pecking at the dust for grubsOr preening our feathersAnd it’s OK how could we get itWhat else are we supposed to do
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor Emeritus: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation. | | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple260 West Broadway New York NY 10013 |
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| BULLETINJuly 2024Without going out the door, know the worldWithout peering out the window, see the Heavenly TaoThe further one goesThe less one knows. —Tao Te ChingDear Sangha,The coming of July 4 has got me thinking about the “pursuit of Happiness,” which apparently is our God-given right as Americans. And let’s not forget Life and Liberty, either, except those the Declaration of Independence guarantees us without qualification—happiness, not so much. We tend to forget this, or misinterpret the meaning of the phrase, thinking somehow that happiness, too, is an inalienable right, when actually all we’re really entitled to is its pursuit—which could be the same thing but so often isn’t. It’s such an American energy—this kind of a pursuit—we love chasing things (especially ethereal things like happiness that resist being found). Actually, maybe it’s not so much an American energy as it is a human energy—or perhaps, even broader, a life energy. Pursuit belongs to all forms of existence, after all. Food, water, warmth, love. All life must chase these things to persist. One might even say that the energy of the chase is life. To be after something is to be alive.In Zen, our relationship to this seeking energy is a rocky one. On one level, it’s probably what brought us to this practice—we were seekers, looking for something more. And yet when we practice, we learn that this yearning for more, for something else—even (especially?) if that something is enlightenment—can get in the way. After all, the nature of any search is that it separates us from the thing we seek—there must be a distance to cross to attain it—and so if it’s happiness you’re after, it’s like you’re necessarily classifying yourself as unhappy. Put something like your happiness on the other shore, you risk removing it from yourself indefinitely, chasing it forever off into the distance. Or, to say it another way: As soon as you search for something, you miss it. Yes, in defining yourself as a seeker, you define yourself as incomplete. And oh, to say this about yourself, to classify yourself as someone who’s not perfect and whole and happy just as you are, it’s such an act of great self-harm.Still, there are useful aspects to this energy, no doubt. It can feed our determination, our focus, our sense of adventure. This thing in us, this urge for more in the pit of our stomachs, it drives us out into the world, into strange forests and up pointless mountains. It drives us deep into ourselves, too, ultimately, and though one might argue this is a better direction to search for something of true meaning, it’s still a direction, a movement—still there is something in there that you feel need to find, something that you have convinced yourself you are missing. The whole thing’s so ridiculous. All of us Buddhas wandering around seeking Buddha. Which is why one of Zen’s answers to the whole search thing is somehow not to do it at all. It is, instead, to do zazen: to just sit still for a while, and allow all these tunnels of longing to collapse. It is to allow the search itself to collapse—as all searches inevitably must, reducing themselves to rubble—till you arrive exactly where you are, which is where you’ve always been, only now, for a moment or two at least, it’s enough.Inevitably, of course, we’ll be back to seeking again. But if you can find a way to relish the search itself, there’s no real problem with this. After all, the pursuit of Happiness is a fine adventure, so long as you allow the pursuit itself to make you happy. Or, to put it another way, it’s OK to go after things—that’s who we are—just remember to enjoy yourself along the Way.Still searching, after all these years,Taylor PlimptonEditor
JULY CALENDARThursday, July 4: Zendo Closed Sunday, July 7: Online: Practice and Inquiry with Joshin Roshi In-Person: Body, Breath and Mind, Intro to Zen Music Jam, 4 pmThursday, July 11: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Jiryu Newcomers’ Meeting, 6:40 pmSunday, July 14: Zazen and Talk by Enkyo Roshi with Special Guest, Mitsue NagaseThursday, July 18: Zazen and Dharma Talk by MukeiSaturday, July 20 to Sunday, August 4: Summer Retreat, Wisdom HouseFriday, July 19 to Saturday, August 17: In-Person Zendo ClosedOnline practice will continue through Saturday, August 4Both the Online and In-Person Zendos are closed from August 5 to August 10The Zendo re-opens Sunday, August 11__________________________________________Ongoing Groups: The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am. Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 amLiturgy Training: In-Person, 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pmGrace and Grit meets online, first Thursday of each month at 2 pmSee: https://villagezendo.org/calendar/
Sunday, July 14 Join Us for a Talk by Enkyo Roshi Japanese Zen Aestheticswith Special Guest: Mitsue Nagase 9:30 am Zazen 10:55 am Talk Following a talk by Enkyo Roshi, Mitsue Nagse will introduce her book:Gardens of AwakeningA Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spiritualityof Kyoto's Zen LandscapesWritten by Kaz Tanahashi with Photographs by Mitsue Nagase Publishers Note: Renowned artist Kaz Tanahashi reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color photos of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan.Imagine yourself in Kyōto, Japan, gazing at an ancient temple garden. How would you contextualize what you are seeing? What is the history of the contemplative art form of Zen gardening, which has flourished for centuries? What aesthetic principles inform it?Richly illustrated with full-color photographs, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen temple gardens created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All share in the Zen aesthetics of awakening.Through essays and commentary on Mitsue Nagase’s striking photographs, beloved Zen artist and translator Kaz Tanahashi presents the gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.Copies of the book will be available for purchase. MITSUE NAGASE is a photographer who divides her time between her native Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Her photography is influenced by her studies in Miksang, a contemplative approach to photography as a spiritual practice, which she also teaches. For further information about her work and activities, visit: www.mitsuenagase.com.KAZUAKI TANAHASHI, a Japanese-trained calligrapher, is the pioneer of the genre of “one-stroke painting” as well as the creator of multicolor enso (Zen circles). His brushwork has been shown in exhibitions in galleries, museums, and universities all over the world. Tanahashi is the author of over forty books, including Painting Peace, Heart of the Brush, and The Heart Sutra. Schedule:9:30 – 9:35 Service9:35 – 10:05 Zazen10:05 – 10:15 Kinhin10:15 – 10:45 Zazen10:45 – 10:55 Kinhin10:55 – 11:25 Dharma Talk with presentation
Summer Ango Retreat:The Heart and Wisdom of CompassionJuly 20 – August 4Wisdom House in Litchfield, Connecticut Explore the heart of wisdom and compassion at two back-to back summer sesshins—July 20 through August 4th at Wisdom House in Litchfield, Connecticut.You may join us for part of a week, a whole week, or both weeks.In-person and online practice at our location in Tribeca will continue throughout this period. For those not able to attend the retreat, please remember that ango can be a time of intensifying our practice in the midst of our ordinary daily lives of coming and going to work, our families and relations. This is a time when we personally commit to more zazen, study, and other practices, such as clear awareness of our interaction with others and attentiveness to the precepts.Set Up: July 19Returning to Silence Sesshin: July 20 – 26A refreshingly quiet week of sitting and walking meditation, without Dharma Talks, but including daily work practice, body practice, liturgy and private interview with Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara and the Village Zendo teachers.The week will conclude with a Precepts Ceremony (Jukai), in which several VZ students will receive the Buddhist Precepts from Enkyo Roshi. The ceremony provides an opportunity for all of us to renew our vow to manifest the mind of wisdom and compassion by embodying the Buddhist ethical teachings.Voice of Wisdom Sesshin: July 27 – August 4A “classic sesshin” including Dharma Talks around the theme of our ango study text. We will be returning to family style Oryoki. The week will conclude with a Shuso Hossen ceremony in which our Shuso (ango practice leader) will give voice to his wisdom by giving his first Dharma Talk and the sangha will respond with wisdom of its own by challenging him in “Dharma Dialogue”.Please note that if you would like a service position for either sesshin you must sign up by July 8th and plan to stay for the entire week you sign up for. Also should you come for only a few days of either sesshin we cannot guarantee that you will receive private interview with a teacher.Questions? Please contact registrar@villagezendo.org.For more information and to register, click HERE
REFLECTIONSA Poem by Lu Yu Image by RyūshōThe clouds above us join and separate,The breeze in the courtyard leaves and returns.Life is like that, so why not relax?Who can stop us from celebrating?
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor Emeritus: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation. | | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple260 West Broadway New York NY 10013 |
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| BULLETINJune 2024 View of Mount Fuji—Hokusei, c. 1830With her eyes she hears the song of spring;With her ears she sees the colorings of the mountain. —HakuinDear Sangha,Outside in the late-May sunshine, it is snowing. Great downy flakes are blowing about in the wind—a summer storm of fluff and seed. “Look, Ollie!” I tell my son. “It’s snowing!” “Get out of here, Daddy,” he responds.I appreciate how in Zen, and in life, there are no real rules. It can snow in June, up can be down, a whole buffalo can pass through a window (well, except for its tail). The answer to almost everything is yes and no. Language tries to pin things down, but Zen—and life—resists this attempt. Words fail. And yet the very act of expression—whether through a poem, or the arrangement of a few simple flowers—nevertheless embodies the Great Way itself. Words may never capture the entire truth, but in reaching for it, they sing, and that song is what life is all about. Below, we are grateful to be able to include a selection of expressions from this year’s first Path of Expression Class, as well as an interview with the class leader, Gessho, in which she remarks, “The spacious practice of zazen helps me remember that poetry is an activity, not just a result. Poetic expression helps me see myself moment to moment.” May we all participate fully in the activity of true expression. In each of our actions, may we continue to sing.With love,Taylor PlimptonEditor
JUNE CALENDAR:Saturday, June 1: Prison Letter Writing Group, 1:30 pmSunday, June 2: Online—Practice and Inquiry Circle with Joshin Roshi, 9:30 am In-Person—Intro to Zen with Howard, 9:30 am Music Jam with Joshin, 4 pmThursday, June 6: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Tokuyu Sensei, 5:30 pmSaturday, June 8: Zazenkai with Dharma Talk by Soren, 8:30 amSunday, June 9: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Daishi Hoshi, 9:30 am Thursday, June 13: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Fusho Sensei, 5:30 pm Newcomers Meeting, 6:40 pm Saturday, June 15: Daily Gathas Workshop, Verse of the Kesa, 2 pmSunday, June 16: Shisanshiki Ceremony, 10 amWednesday, June 19: Zendo Closed for JuneteenthThursday, June 20: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryotan RoshiSunday, June 23: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Enkyo RoshiThursday, June 27: Fusatsu with Precepts Talk by Myoko RoshiSunday, June 30: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryoshin Hoshi_________________________Ongoing Groups: The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am. Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 amLiturgy Training: In-Person, 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pmGrace and Grit meets online, first Thursday of each month at 2 pm
Sunday, June 16 Hybrid, Online and In-Person Dear Village Zendo Sangha,We will hold a Shisanshiki ceremony on Sunday, June 16 at 10:00 am.In this traditional Zen ritual, Enkyo Roshi, the outgoing Abbot, will “descend the mountain,” and Shinryu Roshi, the incoming Abbot, will “ascend the mountain.” It will be our first Shisanshiki ceremony since 2002, when Enkyo Roshi was installed as Abbot.We hope you will be with us on this special occasion for the Village Zendo community.The ceremony will be hybrid. If you are attending in person, please register below. Online participation does not require registration. REGISTER IN PERSON JOIN ONLINE A Celebratory Potluck Picnic,hosted by the Senior Students, will follow this event.
Saturday, June 1, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pmOnline Only Prison Letter Writing Group MeetingFor many years now, I have tried to come home, to settle comfortably in my own head, only to struggle and run once again in the face of my pain and loneliness. Then the day came when I was put in a single man cell, with no window and no contact with the outside world and there I sat for months, while my demons howled. . . . I believe that to try to practice my religion means to use whatever is available to me to help myself, and all men, to settle comfortably in the boundless nature of mind. I just happen to use howling demons.So wrote an incarcerated man to his VZ correspondent several years ago. What a gift from this man to his correspondent. Such an opportunity for both to learn, grow, practice.Whether you’re already writing to incarcerated persons, or are curious about the practice, come to the next VZ Lifelines to Solitary online meeting. All are welcome. No need to pre-register. JOIN ONLINE If you have questions, concerns or topics for discussion, contact: ChoGaku.
Saturday June 15, 2 pm – 3:45 pmOnline OnlyDaily Gathas Workshop:On the Verse of the Kesa Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu DavisVast is the robe of liberation A formless field of benefaction I wear the Tathagatha’s teaching Saving all sentient beings.In this workshop, we will explore the Verse of the Kesa. In the morning, we get up and get dressed. In accordance with the needs of the day, this can involve a suit, a dress, or jeans and a t-shirt. In the same way, we get up and get ready for Zen practice. At home, in the Zendo, or on retreat, we don the robe of liberation. Chanting the Verse of the Kesa reconnects us with the vastness of all that holds us, in this moment; reconnects us with all that we are; and launches a Bodhisattva into the day.This is the second of a series of workshops on Daily Gathas: verses we chant daily at the Village Zendo and on retreats. The workshop will be led by Senior Student Volker Kenko Ecke.Please register for the workshop, which is online.A suggested donation of $25 for members, and $40 for non-members helps the Village Zendo sustain our operations. Thank you for your practice and your support!The workshop involves small group discussion. It will not be recorded.REGISTER HERE
June 8, 8:30 am – 12:45 pmOnline and In-Person ZAZENKAI With Dharma Talk by JorenWe invite you to participate in Village Zendo’s Zazenkai, a half-day retreat that will be held both online and in person. It will include ample periods of meditation, service, a Dharma Talk, and conclude with open sozan.Zazenkai will be held in a hybrid format, in which both virtual and in-person participants will practice together. Please note that there is separate registration for online and in-person attendance.For those that will be practicing with us virtually, we offer the following recommendations:Let the schedule support you and your intention. The purpose of Zazenkai is to devote an extended period of time to meditation. Unless something compelling calls you away, we suggest that you devote the morning and afternoon to your practice. If, however, you need to arrive late or leave early, we request that you do so during the five-minute stretch breaks between meditation periods (see schedule below).Create an environment that supports your retreat. We suggest clearing a space where you can meditate and stretch between periods. You may wish to light a candle or offer incense as part of your practice.Turn off and put away all electronic devices, aside from your Zoom device, to avoid distraction.We recommend that you review the Village Zendo’s guidelines for online sitting.Note that zazenkai does not take place via the public Online Zendo link, but is available to registered participants only. The Zoom link to join Zazenkai will be included in your registration confirmation email and will also be sent to all registrants the day before Zazenkai. REGISTER FOR ONLINE ZAZENKAI REGISTER FOR IN-PERSON ZAZENKAI
The Path of Expression: An Interview with Sal Gessho Randolphby Iris Ryūshō HögerEditor’s Note: Gessho recommended that we use the above calligraphy to accompany her interview. She wrote, ‘For an illustration, here's one of my very favorite poems, by the great Japanese poet Ryokan: “Sky above, great wind.” Ryokan was happy to do calligraphy for children. It is said in Anecdotes: When Ryokan was begging in the highway station town Tsubame, a child with a sheet of paper came to him and said, “Rev. Ryokan, please write something on this paper.” Ryokan asked, “What are you going to use it for?” “I am going to make a kite and fly it. So, please write some words to call the wind.” Right away, Ryokan wrote four big characters, “Sky above, great wind,” and gave the calligraphy to the child.’https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Ryokan.htmlCould you, in a few sentences, describe what the first part of the Path of Expression class was about?The spring sessions of Path of Expression focused on poetry, beginning with the question, “What is Zen poetry?” The tradition of poetry as a spiritual expression begins well before the time of the Buddha and continues into the present. Over four sessions we followed the path of Buddhism and its poetic expressions as it began in India, and then traveled to China, Japan, and North America. We read poems from those traditions, but then took their inspiration to practice our own writing.How has Zen poetry informed your understanding of Zen/life/art?I’ve been writing poetry since high school, and at this point it is something I do almost daily. While I was teaching this class, I came to understand how integral poetry was to Zen over the course of its history. Poetry is everywhere you look, from the gathas written by the Buddha’s followers, to the poems in every koan collection, to expressions of the moment like haiku, or the final poems that teachers wrote before death. Has Zen influenced my idea of what poetry is, or has poetry influenced how I see Zen? Both! The spacious practice of zazen helps me remember that poetry is an activity, not just a result. Poetic expression helps me see myself moment to moment. In a recent Dharma Talk you recommended “poeming” on a daily basis. From your experience, what’s the specific potential of creative expression as a regular practice?We have a cultural idea that poetry, or any kind of art, is about the product: It has to be special, it has to be excellent, it has to be public. “Poeming” is the practice of poetry without any regard to all of that. We can practice poetry the way we practice Zazen. Seen this way, poeming is just a way of regularly connecting our inner understanding with outer expression. It also leaves us with a record of how our understanding and experience change from day to day and year to year. When Dogen says “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things,” he could just as well be speaking of poetry. And Dogen himself did practice poetry, as did all the teachers in the Chinese and Japanese traditions.What could encourage someone who feels they are “no good at poetry?” Could you recommend a simple accessible exercise for everyday practice?Personally, I think if you practice poeming without expectation, it’s impossible to be bad at it. It is simply something you do. Still, there are many rich traditions to draw on and take inspiration from. During the class we often warmed up with a variation of an exercise that was developed by the poet Marie Howe (which I learned about from writer Summer Brennan). You simply create a numbered list of things you observed recently or can observe in the moment. Don’t take too long to do it, move quickly. Be specific and sensory; no metaphors. Try to get to ten observations. Marie’s exercise is a perfect way to begin poeming without being tangled up by the idea of “poetry.”Could you say a few sentences about the upcoming second part of the Path of Expression class?I’m so excited about this. Beginning September 22, Fusho Sensei will be leading a class in Ikebana-influenced flower arranging for the home and the home altar. Her mother taught Ikebana, and Fusho Sensei is part of the team that creates flower arrangements for the Zendo, so she has a deep history and an active practice with flowers. Fusho will be demonstrating at the Zendo, and we’ll all be working from home with our own flowers and some simple tools. We’ll be leaping beyond words into another expressive form.Editor's Note: For information and to register go HERE.A Selection of Expressions from the Path Class: Two poems by Marjorie ChoGaku Mccoy Death PoemAt bedsides and across tables, holding hands and hearts While seventy-two summers came and left. I'm living toward finally becoming The truth of not knowing. ShisanshikiEbb and flow. Sunset,Moonrise. Sharing light now. NOW!Throughout space and time. Editor’s Note: David Chalem Levy explored “poeming” on the flute—a reminder that expression comes in many forms, not just words. He also played the flute during class, which was very touching. Here are his thoughts about the class and a link to his YouTube channel.* This was a wonderful class. I am very appreciative of the opportunity to deepen my relationship with haiku and the journey of Zen poetry from India, China, Japan, and the US. I have been exploring Ryokan’s work through flutes this past year. Here is a link to the YouTube channel that carries a few pieces of Ryokan, and in one piece, Basho, and the flutes. The photographs are teleidoscopic photographs of flowing water. This too has been an amazing journey. There is no photo shop. Just adjusting qualities like highlight, contrast, definition. I am still amazed, after 10,000 photographs, that each photograph is new, fresh, defined by the weather, environment, season, time of day. Link: youtube.com/@davidlevy108OOOps. I forgot to mention the pieces working with Ryokan. The Fireplace As I Watch Mid Autumn I’ve Left the World The Village What is the Heart Bright Moon The Flower Invites the Butterfly First Winter Rain—though since making this video I have found a translation that I prefer: Autumn's first drizzle: How delightful, The nameless mountain. I am Awestruck. Five poems from Mary-Anne Seiju O'Sullivan1. A Poem:If when I become aware of the surf pounding the shore I concentrate on breathing Syncopated rhythms with that soundMomentarily my breath carries me to the edge of the waterOvercoming my fear of the darkMy fear of the waterI plunge inBreathing with the seaThe water, surf, wave, churning sand, tumbled seaweedI am the ocean,All the way to the horizon.Then a glimmer of dawn wakes meAnd I drown.2. Poem Yesterday on bending I heard mygrandmother sigh.A long-forgotten sound.How curious, this body knowsA breath leapsover decades, in a continuous loving thread.3. Ordinary Mind is TaoSome mornings,Like this one,Before the sun risessadness seeps inThrough cracks, around corners, In that stand of trees off to a distance,Trimming the clouds, beyond.4. A poem Waves of life roll ceaselessly as the sea,Birth, old age, sickness & deathAll living things sway in the great tidesAs the wheel turnsMy life will sink inexorably Where vast histories are inscribed. I am not alone.5. Death PoemMy body is crumblingAn aging monument toToo much to do To be one with Two poems by Iris Ryusho Hoger Just-in-case 24Showing up again and again48 years did it take me to actuallyDare to live!OpenhandedSwift!* First swift of the yearHow my heart longs for summerTime to spread all wings
Reflections:An excerpt from “Expressing the Inexpressible,” by Taylor Plimpton. You can read the whole article here: https://tricycle.org/magazine/expressing-the-inexpressible/One of the wonderful things about Zen and Taoist literature is how honest it is about its own shortcomings. When it comes to the great matters of life and death, it does not pretend to have the answers. Indeed, one of its hallmarks is a certain distrust of language and its ability to express the inexpressible. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” So opens the Tao Te Ching, but what does this even mean? Well, for one thing, it means what we all already know about language: that words are not the things themselves, but only symbols for them. This applies equally to concepts as grand as the Great Way and to things as plain as a potato. No matter how deliciously I describe a roast potato, it will not fill your belly; no matter how luxuriously detailed my account of an armchair, if you try to sit in it, you will most certainly fall on your ass.But the opening of the Tao Te Ching is not only a critique of language and its inevitable failure but also an actual description of the Tao. How does the ancient Chinese text describe it? By saying it is beyond description, beyond naming, beyond imagination and definition, beyond the power of words to capture. And yet of course it is words that are telling us this, that are in fact functioning, through their very failure, to give us if not the Tao itself, then at least a sense of it—of its overwhelming immensity, its unfathomable mystery. It’s that old rhetorical trick of telling us what something is by admitting that language can’t convey it. Consider Buson’s haiku, as translated by Sam Hamill: “Sweet springtime showers, / and no words can express / how sad it all is.”This is what Zen loves to point out when it comes to the topic of expressing the inexpressible. Not this, not that; not speech, not silence; whatever you call it, however you approach it, you’re mistaken. “Turning away and touching are both wrong,” as the Zen poem “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi” reminds us. Yes, any way you try to capture it, it will slip away, and as soon as you think you’ve finally got it and are standing on solid ground, the rug gets pulled out from under you again. And it is this resulting feeling, of plummeting into the abyss, of true not-knowing, an ultimate resignation to the great mystery and absurdity of it all, and of ourselves, that somehow comes closest to embracing the truth of it. These are the moments that language drops away, becomes meaningless, its efforts only laughable. . . . . . Yet as much as language may not itself be the answer, it can indeed help guide us there. There is the old Zen metaphor about the finger pointing at the moon: one shouldn’t mistake the finger for the moon, language for the thing it describes. But sometimes, if you’re walking along through the night with someone you love, your mind wandering off onto other things, if they don’t stop you and say, “Look!” and point up at the forgotten moon shining there in the dark, you may easily miss it.
THERE IS STILL TIME TO DONATE TO WORK FOR DHARMA DAY!
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor Emeritus: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation. | | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple260 West Broadway New York NY 10013 |
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| BULLETINSeptember, 2023“Let me respectfully remind you:Life and death are of supreme importance.Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.Each of us must strive to awaken. Awaken!Take heed. Do not squander your life.” —Our Evening GathaDear Sangha,Dog years are a devastating phenomenon, if you have a dog you love. Seven years to our one, is the formula. That means my sweet little girl-puppy, nearing ten years old, is really almost seventy now. It also means that one day is, for Brooklyn, somehow seven. Yes, each day is a week, each week is near two months, each month is more than half a year. Oh, for time—for life—to move this quickly, galloping so relentlessly on.We humans are not immune to this version of time. Indeed, that one year suddenly becomes seven: this is the nature of our lives, too, is it not? Certainly, it did not take 47 years for me to become 47. Time skips and lurches and falls away—great gulps of it are swallowed up—and then, impossibly, here you are.There are very few months that so exemplify this slipping away of time like September. It’s funny, too, because September can be so still, the quiet heat, the hum of insects. It has all the relaxed laze of summer, and yet just beneath it, there is this crisp in the air of winter to come. You can sense the seasons at work, the great, groaning shifting of the planet’s gears—and in the pit of your stomach is a hollow, a gulp of emptiness, a pang for things lost, all those summers gone. In some senses, September is the saddest month, but its reminder—to be aware of the too-swift tumbling of time—offers opportunity, too. That coolness of September shadow, it can awaken us, if we let it. With love,Taylor PlimptonEditor
ZENDO NEWS: NEW SUNDAY SCHEDULEThe Village Zendo's Sunday morning schedule will change beginning on Sunday, September 10, 2023. The new program structure will encompass two periods of zazen (there was one previously) and two 10-minute kinhin periods (previously, there was one 5-minute kinhin). This schedule change will apply to both the online and in-person aspects of our program—please see below for details.The new schedule means that Dharma Talks will begin at 10:55 am Eastern time.The schedule change noted above does not apply to the first Sunday of each month when two programs run independently and in parallel. Practice and Inquiry Circle (led by Joshin Roshi online only) and Body, Breath and Mind; an Introduction to Zen (led by Executive Director Howard Thoresen in-person only) will continue with their same structures and schedules.New Sunday Schedule: 9:30 – 9:35 Service 9:35 – 10:05 Zazen 10:05 – 10:15 Kinhin 10:15 – 10:45 Zazen 10:45 – 10:55 Kinhin 10:55 – 11:25 Dharma TalkPEOPLE OF COLOR GROUPEXPANDED SCHEDULE Beginning Saturday, September 16, the POC group will have a monthly extended sit, from 10:30 am to 1 pmBeginning Saturday, September 23, the POC group will have a monthly book discussion following our regular 10:30 am to 12 pm time slot. This month's book will be The Diamond That Cuts Through Delusion, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Future dates for these events will be listed on the Village Zendo calendar.
REPORT ON WORK FOR DHARMA DAY Dear Village Zendo Community,Our 2023 fundraiser, Work for Dharma Day, raised $20,300. Although our rent is less as of April 1, we have had many expenses associated with establishing our new space, improving the audio functioning for the hybrid format, storage fees, etc. Your generous contributions help us to meet these costs and to secure our future.The Executive Committee joins me in thanking you for your ongoing support.With deep appreciation, Howard Thoresen, Executive DirectorThe Village Zendo
September CalendarSunday, September 3: Online: Practice and Inquiry Circle with Joshin Roshi In-Person: Body, Breath and Mind, an introduction to Zen Monday, September 4: Zendo closed for Labor DayThursday, September 7: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Enkyo RoshiSaturday, September 9: ZazenkaiSunday, September 10: New Schedule, two periods of Zazen Dharma Talk by Keiko Music JamThursday, September 14: Dharma Talk by Daishi Hoshi Newcomers’ MeetingSaturday, September 16: Four Vows Workshop—Saving Sentient BeingsSunday, September 17: Dharma Talk by Fusho HoshiWednesday, September 20: Guest Speaker from Soto-Shu, JapanThursday, September 21: Dharma Talk by HonGoSaturday, September 23: Prison Letter-Writing Group meetingSunday, September 24: Dharma Talk by MukeiThursday, September 28: Fusatsu, Precepts Talk by Bokushu SenseiSaturday, September 30: Four Vows Workshop—Ending Desires___________________________Ongoing Groups: The Bolivian Sitting Group meets Saturday mornings, 8 am Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets Saturday mornings, 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets Monday evenings (except holidays) at 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets Tuesdays at 10 amLiturgy Training: 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month at 6 pm
Saturday, September 162 pm to 3:45 pm Online OnlyPlease join us for the first part of a four part seriesof workshops on the Four Vows:Saving All Beings The Four Bodhisattva Vows are chanted at the end of services at the Village Zendo and in most Mahayana Buddhist centers around the world. They express our profound vows as Bodhisattvas – to save beings from suffering, to let go of delusion, to master the Buddha’s teachings, and to awaken in each moment of our lives. But the language used to express these Great Vows is paradoxical and mysterious. How can we possibly save all sentient beings? Do we really want to end all desire? The Four Vows are seemingly impossible. It’s their impossibility that gives them their power.In this four part workshop series, we’ll delve into each of the four vows in turn, examining what they mean to us, and how they work in our lives. The workshops are an intimate and experiential journey into our own life and practice, giving each of us an opportunity to renew our vows as Bodhisattvas.In this workshop, we will explore the first of the Four Great Vows, our vow to save all beings from suffering. Who are the numberless sentient beings and who is the “I” that vows to save them? Is it possible to realize this liberation in our ordinary lives? Workshop Schedule:September 16, Saving All Beings, Leaders: Gessho and RyoshinSeptember 30, Ending Desires, Leaders: Ryoshin and MukeiOctober 21, Mastering Dharmas, Leaders: Mukei and FushoNovember 4, Being Buddha, Leaders: Fusho and Gessho JOIN ONLINE Registration is not required to participate in the workshop. A suggested donation of $15 for each workshop (or $50 for all four workshops) would help the Village Zendo sustain our operations. Please go to the “Support Us” page, enter a reason of “Other” and enter which workshop(s) you plan to attend, along with the requested information. Thank you for your practice and your support!This workshop involves small group discussion and sharing among participants. As such it will not be recorded. SUPPORT US
Wednesday, September 20, in-person and online 6 pm: Service with liturgy6:30 pm: Zazen7 pm – 8 pm: Dharma Talk and greetingsRev. Kosai Ikeda Sōtō-shū International Guest Speaker Abbot of Kenryu-ji TempleChonai-cho Town in Yamagata PrefecturePracticing the Buddha Way Wherever and WheneverPlease join us for this special visit from a representative of the Soto School in Japan.“…I have been serving as a Buddhist chaplain of the local correctional facility for the last 15 years helping the inmates with their rehabilitation and re-entry programs. Regardless of circumstances, those who have aroused the mind to study the Way all equally have the eyes reflecting their sincere dedication.Repenting their own shortcomings, their mind and heart are seeking the teaching of truth. While practicing the Buddha-way, I have been learning Kendo (Way of Sword) and teaching it to children.Kendo was something I also briefly shared with people in San Francisco, where I realized that moments of empathy and awes transcend the barriers of languages. I see this is also exactly the same among those who walk on the Buddha-Way.It is a great honor for me to visit temples overseas for the first time on behalf of the head priest of Soto Zen school in Japan. I hope you will kindly accept me as a sangha friend who shares the same aspiration.”Rev. Kosai Ikeda: Personal ProfileGraduated from Sakata Higashi High School Yamagat Prefecture, Japan. Dropped out of Hosei University, Faculty of Law and studied in the U.S. Graduated from College of San Mateo. Enrolled in Ango training at Chokoku-ji temple, Daihonzan Eihei-ji Betsuin (Branch Temple) in 1999. Enrolled in Ango training at Daihonzan Eiheiji Temple in 2000.Currently the abbot of Kenryu-ji temple Chonai-cho town in Yamagata prefecture Tokuha Fukyoshi (Soto Zen Teacher Specially appointed to be a delegate of the Head Priest); Fukyo-shi Yoseijo Koshi (Instructor at the Institute to the Fukyo-shi disseminating teacher); Kendo (Way of Sword) Instructor for the Elementary and Junior High School students.
Saturday, September 231:30 pm – 3:30 pmOnline Only Lifelines to Solitary Prison Letter-Writing Group Most, if not all, of us have already forgotten the brutal heat waves that plagued New York and much of the country earlier this summer. And most, if not all, of us have forgotten—if we ever knew—that an unimaginable number of incarcerated Americans endured that heat in small, non-air-conditioned cells, with no access to fresh air or other relief. Many still do. Indeed, as I write this, the temperature is expected to reach 100 degrees today in Missouri; in Texas and Oklahoma 101; in Louisiana 102; in Arizona a whopping 107. What can any of us do about this situation? Well, for one thing, we can bear witness. We can write a letter. Establish a correspondence with an imprisoned person, perhaps a deep friendship.If this interests you, please join VZ’s “Lifelines to Solitary” quarterly online meeting on Saturday, September 23, at 1:30 pm. Everyone is most welcome to attend to learn about our ministry and discover how we “letter writers” have been changed by this practice.For more information, please contact ChoGaku at marjoriesmccoy@gmail.com.
Summer Ango 2023REFLECTIONS FROM ANGOBy Mark Toshi SolanBeing withoutSeeing without looking.Loving without acquaintance.Comraderie without fist bumps.Sitting Silently, eyes down Without subway din.Walking without destinationBreathing without separation.Being without knowing.Summer Ango Views of Summer Ango from ChoGaku Congratulations to New Jukai Members 2023 In the above photo, this Ango’s Jukai recipients are as follows (left to right, not including teachers): Mark Solan, TÔSHI 透志 Clear Resolve Michael Hollander, EMYO 恵 明 Benevolent Clarity JF Shaw, SAI JU 済珠 Liberating Jewel Harry Sabnani, KAKUŌ 覚応 Awakening Response Nancy Mann, ZESHŌ 是 照 Illuminating RealityDharma Names Explained by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara [Editor’s note: When Village Zendo students receive Jukai, they are given a dharma name. Along with their dharma name, Roshi offers the students an explanation of what their new name signifies—including its etymology, Buddhist symbolism, and various deeper meanings. Finally, Roshi offers each student an original verse. Below, the Bulletin is honored to share a slightly edited version of the dharma name explanations and verses from this year’s class of Jukai recipients.]Nancy Mann, your Dharma name is 是照 ZESHŌ, meaning IIluminating reality. It suggests a bright light that illuminates things as they are: quite literally, illuminating—just as it is! Your first character, 是 ZE: means Proper, rightness, just as it is! The pictograph is of a spoon in its proper place and came to mean rightness, justice, correctness. In Zen, we use the phrase ZE to point to the vitality of things just as they are! 照 SHŌ means to illuminate, shine bright; the pictograph shows a sun, making light and fire (four strokes below), meaning illuminate, sunshine, light, reflect; and, like in English, it also carries a sense of checking, of observation, clarity.Here’s a poem for you: Looking for the light, Revealing the truth, It’s light seeking light, eh? JF Shaw, your Dharma name is 済珠 SAI JU, Liberating Jewel.Your first character, 済 SAI is water plus the sign for equal and came to mean clear water, pure, settled, even, put in order… In Buddhism, it can mean salvation. Thus we say, ‘liberating.’And your second character, 珠 JU, means jewel or pearl. A gem, a jewel, often a pearl, represents in Buddhist symbolism the hardness, the toughness of aspiration, of insight and clarity. Also, as the light plays on the precious jewel, we realize that it is the pearl beyond price, the ultimate: the enlightened life.Here’s my poem for you, Where is that pearl? Hasn’t it always been here, Beneath the dragon’s chin?Harry Sabnani, your Dharma Name is 覚応 KAKUŌ, Awakening Response. Your first character, 覚 KAKU means to awaken, to learn, or to remember—even to ‘sober up’! It is composed of two parts: one, to obtain knowledge; and two, to realize it. Thus, it came to mean to awaken. And in Buddhism, to enlighten. And your second character, 応 Ō, means response or answer. It is a lovely character, showing a roof, or shelter, protecting a bird, and beneath these characters, the symbol for heart, thus meaning a response. Taken together, your new name is Awakening Response, the quality of responding new, in this time, with an awakened heart that truly responds.Here is my verse for you: Waking up, over and over, Throughout our life, Responding to our gift, Thank you thank you!Mark Solan, your Dharma name is 透志 TÔSHI, Clear Resolve. 透 TO means clear, even transparent; the ideograph is made of two parts: one indicates movement—expressing to lead, and thus to excel. Also, a quality of non-obstruction. Now it means clear as the ability to pass through, to penetrate, see through.志 SHI means will, intent; on the top part of the ideograph is an emerging plant, and below, the heart/mind; thus the movement/the emerging of the heart. It also now has a quality of intent, aspiration, desire, purpose, will, mind, determination, as well as a kind of benevolence. Here is my verse for you: When the heart is clear, Wisdom arises, Over and over, Resolving and restoring. Michael Hollander, your Dharma name is 恵明 EMYO, Benevolent Clarity. 恵 E – The first character has two parts, below, the heart/feelings (same as in shin) and above, a spinning weight. It looks very balanced and stable, and it acts phonetically to express give, and also means all-around—thus, the heart that gives all around, a generous, kind heart. Also, blessing is an associated sense, as well as a quality of favor, grace, kindness, intelligence, and wisdom.Your second character, 明 Myo, means luminous, clear. Associated with sun and moon, both symbolizing bright, its connotations include open, clear-sighted, discerning, intelligent, clear, lucid.A verse for you: Bright! It is clarity that opens The gates and the heart opens, A kindness flows like sun and moon.
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor-at-Large: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation.
| | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple 260 West Broadway, New York NY 10013 |
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These are the days the helicopter seeds come whirling and shimmering down. From a distance, it looks like the air has come to life—a flashing cloud of glint and wink. Pollen, too, has been creating this illusion, great gusts of it pushed from out of the trees, so that in the late afternoon light, you can see the wind filled with the vibrancy of things that one day will be—the great shining dust of existence. It is June, and all around us, everywhere, flower and leaf and weed—the lush wildness that is summer. To honor this explosion of new growth, the Bulletin is thrilled this month to run an excerpt from our own Marco Seiryu Wilkinson’s, Madder: A Memoir in Weeds—as well as a poem that explores the wilds of a community garden by editor-at-large, Nina Shuka Klippel.
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| BulletinMay 2023 Azalea Garden, Bronx Botanical Gardens“When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don’t wobble.” —YunmenDear Sangha,We’re honored this month to share here in the Bulletin an excerpt from Neil Soten Theise’s new groundbreaking book, Notes on Complexity. In the first chapter, Soten reminds us that “complex” doesn’t necessarily mean “complicated”— but while the book focuses on complexity, I found my own thinking over the past few days veering helplessly to the topic of complication. After all, life can seem so complicated, sometimes, so overwhelming. Health, money, family, friendship, love, work, practice, suffering, desire, etc., etc. etc.—how is one to handle all this stuff on a day-to-day basis? My honest answer is: I don’t know. I realize this is part of practice—to simply live your everyday life as best you can, complications and all—but personally, I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed as of late. Which is, I guess, sometimes just how it goes. My mom was a big fan of the acronym, KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. (I wish she were here right now to remind me of this in her wonderfully wry, no-nonsense tone—but in a sense she sort of is.) In Zen terms, what this means, perhaps, is that’s in our best interest to focus solely on the matter at hand. After all, you can’t fix everything at once—and to attempt this is part of what can make us feel so besieged by it all. But you can take care of what’s in front of you right now. And then, after that, you can take care of what’s next. Of course, there will never be an end to things that need to be taken care of—it will be one thing, and then the next, forever and ever, Amen—but one thing at a time even I can theoretically handle. Our practice can help with this idea of keeping it simple. We sit, we breathe, we pay attention to our posture. We keep our focus on the present moment, and whatever arises within it. As Yunmen reminds us: when walking, just walk. As someone who’s been feeling a little wobbly as of late, I might add: when wobbling, just wobble. Simply yours,Taylor PlimptonEditor
May Calendar Thursday, May 4: Dharma Talk by Bokushu SenseiSaturday, May 6: Prison Letter Writing Group, 1:30 pmSunday, May 7: Online: Practice and Inquiry Circle, with Joshin Roshi In-Person: Body, Breath and Mind— Intro to Zen, with HowardThursday, May 11: Zazen (no speaker)Saturday, May 13: Zazenkai, Dharma Talk by Fusho HoshiSunday, May 14: Dharma Talk by Enkyo RoshiThursday, May 18: Dharma Talk by Kenko Saturday, May 20: Rituals Workshop on PostureSunday, May 21: Dharma Talk by RyoshinThursday, May 25: Fusatsu, Precept Talk by Fugan SenseiSunday, May 28: Guest Speaker: Cuong LuMonday, May 29: Zendo closed for Memorial Day___________________________Ongoing Weekly Groups: The Bolivian Sitting Group meets Saturday mornings, 8 am Bolivia Zoom Meeting ID: 297 525 8394; Password: 1234The People of Color Sitting Group meets Saturday mornings, 10:30 amHow to Meditate meets every Monday evening (except holidays) at 6:30 pmSorting Out Your Stuff meets Tuesdays at 10 am
Notes on the Annual Meeting by Howard Thoresen, Executive Director Dear Village Zendo Community, Congratulations! Throughout the pandemic and in a time of political and social turmoil, we have been strong. We have completed a full year of practice in our new Tribeca space. Our membership has remained steady, and our online community has grown exponentially. We’ve maintained a full schedule of practice, talks, Zazenkais, and Fusatus, and we have returned to in-person retreats at Wisdom House and Garrison. We have added several new teachers, and a number of members have taken jukai. And we have maintained our online practice, moving forward as a truly hybrid dharma center with affiliates and members spread across the globe. Please take a moment to look over this organization chart, created by Joshin Roshi.Notice the various streams—Online and In-Person, Practice and Administration, Maintenance and Communication. To our teachers; to our webmaster, Kojin, who with his team keep the beautiful website and calendar up to date; to each of you who wear many hats as openers, coordinators, registrars, service position holders—we thank you all for your service. And, of course, this only represents a tiny glimpse of Indra’s Web: the People of Color group has expanded online, the Book Group, the Prison Letter Writing group, the group that prepares and posts our talks on podcasts, Facebook and YouTube, the Sorting Out Our Stuff group, our affiliates in the northeast and Bolivia…thanks, and ever thanks. Please email me if we’ve missed something or someone—this chart is an overview of our basic structure and will later be expanded to include all the active groups at the Village Zendo. Financially, we experienced a deficit in 2022 which had to do with the costs of moving and preparing our new Zendo, and with paying two rents as our lease at 588 Broadway had not expired. Now that that connection has ended, our expenses are considerably reduced. We continue to depend on income from donations, memberships, and programs. We are grateful to the Sangha for your continuing support. For several years I was a student of Ashtanga Yoga. That practice began with a chant, bowing to the lotus feet of the teacher—something I was never that crazy about. But one time, one of my instructors pointed out that the teacher had two feet. He said, “One foot is planted firmly in the tradition and the other is moving in improvisation.” That struck me as a kind of aspiration for my practice. Last month we had an Urban Sesshin with the theme “Sangha as Shuso,” a title that sums up for me the history and future of the Village Zendo. We bow to our teachers, of course, but the great matter they are teaching us is that wisdom, intelligence, and compassion reside within us, and therefore that the future of the Zendo and the Dharma itself reside within us. I believe that more than ever, our programming has come out of Sangha initiatives, and there are more such programs coming in future months. I believe new leadership will arise out of the Sangha; we’re looking for it, and I believe it will take us in unexpected directions. I take refuge in the way of Not Knowing.
Sunday, May 28, 9:30 amIn-Person and online Guest Speaker: Cuong Lu Cuong Lu will give a Dharma Talk and read from his book:Happiness is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each MomentCuong Lu, Buddhist teacher, scholar, and writer, was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in 1968 and emigrated to the Netherlands with his family in 1980. He was ordained a monk at Plum Village in France under the guidance of Thich Nhat Hanh and became his 18th disciple. In 2000, he was recognized as a teacher in the Lieu Quan line of the Linji School of Zen Buddhism. Cuong is the founder of Mind Only, located in Gouda, where he teaches Buddhist philosophy and psychology, specializing in Yogachara Buddhism combined with the Madhyamaka (middle way) school of Nagarjuna. In 2022, he founded the No Word Zen order, emphasizing the whole world as a place of practice. Cuong leads retreats and gives Dharma Talks in Europe, the United States, and Asia, and offers presentations to large organizations. He is the author of three books, The Buddha in Jail, Wait, and Happiness Is Overrated. For more information, please visit www.nowordzen.com.
Creativity is the Essence of ComplexityAn Excerpt from Neil Soten Theise’s New Book Nothing in the universe is more complex than life. Microscopic life abounds both in the scalding, pressurized, sunless depths of ocean trenches and upon the highest, frozen Himalayan peaks. In between, throughout skies, in oceans, and across lands, life is endlessly on the move. And, surely, in the billions of years in which organisms will continue to thrive on the planet, there will be vastly more life forms, with variety beyond anything we might imagine. The complexity of all this rich abundance has long resisted explanation. The origins of life remain deeply mysterious. What biological wonders might emerge next are beyond our knowing. If we were even to begin to fathom it all, a theory of complexity was necessary. Complexity theory is the study of how complex systems manifest in the world. The use of the word complexity here does not mean “complicated,” however. Complexity in this context refers to a class of patterns of interactions: open-ended, evolving, unpredictable, yet adaptive and self-sustaining. It is this complexity that we will explore—how life self-organizes from the substance of our universe, from interactions within the quantum foam to the formation of atoms and molecules, cells, human beings, social structures, ecosystems, and beyond. A distinguishing feature of life’s complexity is that, in every single instance, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Even if one knows the characteristics and behaviors of all the individual elements of a living system (a cell, a body, an ecosystem), one cannot predict the extraordinary properties that emerge from their interactions. In complexity theory, these surprising outcomes are called emergent properties or just plain emergence. This unpredictability is both a core subject of complexity theory and a key feature of what it has to offer our understanding of the world. Neither we nor our universe is machinelike. A machine doesn’t have the option to change its behavior if its environment changes or becomes overwhelming. Complex systems, including human bodies and human societies, can change their behaviors in the face of the unpredictable. That creativity is the essence of complexity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So much is packed into that simple expression. Colloquially, the phrase evokes community, teamwork, elevated purpose—the ways in which people, with their own differing talents and abilities, when working together, can create synergies beyond the scope of what any of the individuals alone might have been capable of producing on their own. A winning team. A social movement. A perfect dinner party. But complexity extends far beyond human beings and their social behavior. Examples of complex systems are found not only in sociology and biology but also in chemistry and physics. The universe is a shimmering web of complexity that continually births and nurtures life, tempting us to believe that life might even be its central purpose and most fundamental expression. Complexity bridges the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the universe at its most infinitesimal, described by quantum mechanics, and at its most vast, described by the theory of relativity. As successful as these two most successful of all scientific theories have been, they are unable, on their own, to illuminate how we go from the most basic elements of existence (space, time, matter, energy) to the complex behaviors of living organisms and their social structures: ecosystems, cultures, and civilizations. It is complexity theory that shows how the entities arising from fundamental physics actively weave themselves into ever larger structures, step by step, until they become the fabric of our everyday lives and of the dynamic, natural, living systems that surround us. While the aims of complexity science are grandly ambitious, when studied with careful intention, its lessons can also be deeply personal. It can solve some of the most crucial riddles of our sense of being. In the womb and for a relatively short time afterward, we are in a seamless world in which we experience no divisions: there is no self and no other, no baby and no mother. Gradually, inevitably, in early infancy, we move from this state of intimate wholeness into another state, one of separation. We become bounded by our skin: everything inside it an “I,” everything outside it “the world.” Parts, not wholes. Occasionally, if we are fortunate, we find ourselves in a situation with other people in which we achieve that feeling of complete unity, of something bigger than ourselves. In the absence of that experience, many of us will spend our days struggling to understand how “I” and “the world” relate. If we’re at all able to recall that sense of seamless unity, we may look over our shoulder and wonder, “How can I get back to that?” And if we’re not able to recall it, we may instead just be left with the uneasy sense that something is missing, even though we’re unsure what that something is. Complexity theory not only provides us with scientific understanding, but as we travel down its paths, the implications of the theory can also enlighten us, providing insight into everything from the permeable boundaries of our bodies to the nature of consciousness. Complexity theory can foster an invaluable flexibility of perspectives and awaken us to our true, deep intimacy with the larger whole, so that we might return to what we once had: our birthright of being one with all. Notes On Complexity © 2003 by Neil Theise. Published with permission of Spiegel & Grau.
Announcing Our New Covid Policy The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has determined that transmission rates for COVID-19 in our local counties are low. As a result, the Executive Committee of the Village Zendo has determined that effective immediately the use of masks will be optional for in-person practice at the Zendo. We will no longer require proof of vaccination to enter the Zendo.You are still very welcome to wear a mask when you attend Village Zendo events.If you have a condition that impairs your immune system, and if you are over the age of 75, we recommend that you wear a mask.If you have fever, chills, cough, sneezing, runny nose or a new rash please take appropriate care of yourself and do not come to the Zendo until you have recovered. If you have been exposed to COVID-19 recently, please wear a mask.. Any member may still choose to wear masks or N95s. Please respect their decision.Please be aware that if community transmission of COVID-19 or Flu return to high or substantial levels, we may be required to return to mandatory masking. Staying up-to-date with vaccines remains the most important way to prevent the serious complications from COVID-19.
Reflections: A Poem by Editor-at-Large Nina Shuka KlippelAs Picasso said“I don’t seek, I find”Not seekingFindingTo seek is to name:Nothing to discover!
We communicate in three places online:our email list, a Facebook page, and a Groups.io listwhere we share events and information among the wholeSangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected andup to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
Editor: Taylor PlimptonEditor-at-Large: Nina Shuka KlippelManaging Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen
DONATE HERE In these trying times, the Village Zendo still relies on your support.If you are able, please make a donation and type"DANA" in the Comments box. Thank you! | | VILLAGE ZENDO – True Expression Temple 260 West Broadway New York NY 10013 |
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Summer was a season for empowerments at the Village Zendo, with five longtime practitioners receiving Dharma Transmission and some becoming newly entitled to give the Buddhist precepts. The Dharma Transmission and Preceptor ceremonies took place at the VZ’s summer ango retreat at Wisdom House in Litchfield, Connecticut. On July 29, Jeremy Tokuyu Manasia and Allan […]
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The post Retreat Talk by Fusho Hoshi “The Pain and the Joy of Inconceivable Freedom” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Retreat Talk By Ryoshin “This Mind is Buddha’s Mind” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Retreat Talk by Gessho “Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Retreat Talk by Myoko Roshi “Under A Tall Pine” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Retreat Talk By Enkyo Roshi “The Light of Sesshin” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Dharma talk by Kenko, “Move to Heaven” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Dharma talk by Kojin, “No Running, No Hiding” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi, “About the Body” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Fusho Hoshi, “Practicing With the Treasury of Luminosity” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi, “The Whole Balloon” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Shinryu Roshi, “Speaking the Truth”” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryoshin, “Knowing What You Don’t Know” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Tokuyu “Good for Nothing” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Mukei, “Juneteenth and the Four Vows” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk By HonGo “Take Off the Blinders” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi, “Moment to Moment, Non-Stop Flow” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Joren, “Grabbing and Holding” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryoshin, “Now More Than Ever” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi, “Nothing to Attain” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Bokushu, “The Real Real” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Fugan, “Heat, Cold, and the Path of (Climate) Action” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi, “Who Am I, Right Now?” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Kojin “Buddhas Bumping into Buddhas” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Joshin Roshi, “Dharma Mothers” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Musho, “Putin Vs. Buddha and the Four Noble Truths” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Rev. Gyokei Yokoyama: “Soto Zen Forms and Images” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
In this talk, Soshin Hoshi explores the Precept of Not Defaming the Three Treasures as it applies to our practice in the face of war.
The post Talk by Soshin Hoshi “War and Peace” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Jo An, “Twining Vines in the Pines” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi, “What is Your True Self?” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Tokuyu, “Tune Up Time” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi, “The Dharma that Has Not Been Preached” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi “Beyond Knowing and Not Knowing” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi, “Bearing Witness” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio: The post Talk by Fusho “Creativity is the Practice” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Bokushu, “Requesting Peace, Right Here” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk By Ryoshin “The Freedom Convoy” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Tim Kansho Reynolds, “‘To Be, or Not to Be’: What Is the Meaning?” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio: The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi “Many Rivers, One Ocean” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi, “The Gift of Giving” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Soten, “The Garuda Bird of Ordinary Mind” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Seicho, “The Great Turning” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Ryotan Roshi: “Kwan Yin, Here and Now” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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Podcast Audio The post Talk by Gessho: “A Parakeet at the Window” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Shinryu Roshi “Setting Aside the Pipe” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Jo An Hoshi “A Visit to the Optometrist” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Soshin Hoshi “The Poverty of Shakya’s Sons and Daughters” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Enkyo Roshi: “Dr. King and Shodoka” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
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The post Talk by Bokushu, “Working in the Cafeteria” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Seicho “Just Keep Showing Up” first appeared on The Village Zendo.
This Tuesday, January 11, 2022, Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, our beloved founder, teacher, and Abbot, will celebrate her 80th birthday. For over 35 years Roshi Enkyo, with her partner and co-founder, Roshi Barbara Joshin O’Hara, has inspired and guided the Village Zendo community.
Roshi Enkyo is known for her compassionate, down-to-earth, practical teaching, her deep insight, her ready wit, and her appreciation of everyday life. As a Soto Zen priest and contemporary American Zen teacher, she integrates traditional meditation and koan practice with social engagement and peacemaking. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, she taught for many years at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, centering on new media technologies and social justice. Roshi O’Hara’s writing has appeared in Tricycle, Turning Wheel, Shambhala Sun, Buddhadharma and other Buddhist journals. She is the author of Most Intimate, A Zen Approach to Life’s Challenges, A Winter Sesshin: Ten Talks on the Heart Sutra, and A Little Bit of Zen.
Roshi’s 80th birthday coincides with the Village Zendo’s move to a new home in the Tribeca section of New York City. The Village Zendo community looks forward to many more years of her fellowship and spiritual direction.
Happy Birthday, Roshi!
Roshi Enkyo and Roshi Joshin live in a very small Village apartment in New York City, and request no physical gifts. If you wish to give a donation to the Village Zendo in honor of Roshi’s birthday you can do so below:
Fill out my LGL Form!
The post Roshi Enkyo’s 80th Birthday Fundraiser first appeared on The Village Zendo.
Podcast Audio The post Talk by Shinryu Roshi, “Playing the Ancient Tune” first appeared on The Village Zendo.