June 2024

*|MC:SUBJECT|*
 

BULLETIN

June 2024


                      View of Mount Fuji—Hokusei, c. 1830

With her eyes she hears the song of spring;
With her ears she sees the colorings of the mountain.

                                                  —Hakuin


Dear 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 Plimpton
Editor

 


JUNE CALENDAR:


Saturday, June 1:        Prison Letter Writing Group, 1:30 pm

Sunday, 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 pm

Thursday, June 6:         Zazen and Dharma Talk by Tokuyu Sensei, 5:30 pm

Saturday, June 8:          Zazenkai with Dharma Talk by Soren, 8:30 am

Sunday, 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 pm

Sunday, June 16:          Shisanshiki Ceremony, 10 am


Wednesday, June 19:  Zendo Closed for Juneteenth

Thursday, June 20:      Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryotan Roshi

Sunday, June 23:         Zazen with Dharma Talk by Enkyo Roshi

Thursday, June 27:      Fusatsu with Precepts Talk by Myoko Roshi

Sunday, 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: 1234

The People of Color Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 10:30 am

How to Meditate meets Monday evenings online: 6:30 pm

Sorting Out Your Stuff meets online Tuesdays: 10 am

Liturgy Training: In-Person,

               1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month: 6 pm

Grace 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 pm

Online Only

 
Prison Letter Writing Group Meeting


For 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.

 
If you have questions, concerns or topics for discussion, contact: ChoGaku.
 

Saturday June 15, 2 pm – 3:45 pm

Online Only
Daily Gathas Workshop:

On the Verse of the Kesa


                               Photo by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis

Vast 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 pm

Online and In-Person


 
ZAZENKAI 



With Dharma Talk by Joren

We 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 Randolph

by Iris Ryūshō Höger


Editor’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.html


Could 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 Poem

At 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.

Shisanshiki

Ebb 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/@davidlevy108

OOOps. 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'Sullivan

1. A Poem:

If when I become aware of the surf pounding the shore 
I concentrate on breathing 
Syncopated rhythms with that sound
Momentarily my breath carries me to the edge of the water

Overcoming my fear of the dark
My fear of the water
I plunge in
Breathing with the sea

The water, surf, wave, churning sand, tumbled seaweed
I am the ocean,
All the way to the horizon.

Then a glimmer of dawn wakes me
And I drown.

2. Poem 

Yesterday on bending 
I heard my
grandmother sigh.
A long-forgotten sound.

How curious, this body knows
A breath leaps
over decades, in a continuous 
loving thread.

3. Ordinary Mind is Tao

Some mornings,
Like this one,
Before the sun rises
sadness seeps in
Through 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 & death
All living things sway in the great tides

As the wheel turns
My life will sink inexorably 
Where vast histories 
are inscribed. 

I am not alone.

5. Death Poem

My body is crumbling
An aging monument to
Too much to do 
To be one with


* Two poems by Iris Ryusho Hoger 

Just-in-case 24

Showing up again and again
48 years did it take me to actually
Dare to live!
Openhanded


Swift! 

First swift of the year
How my heart longs for summer
Time 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 list

where we share events and information among the whole

Sangha. Explore these various ways of staying connected and

up to date here: https://villagezendo.org/connect-with-us/
 


Editor: Taylor Plimpton

Editor Emeritus: Nina Shuka Klippel

Managing Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen





 
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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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