BULLETIN
November 2025
No Kings March, October 2025 ~ Photo by Adam Seidō Levy
“In fact, we can say that the Three Treasures of Buddhism—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—are nothing more or less than practice. The Buddha is the one who realizes. The Dharma is what is realized. And the Sangha is the harmony of practice, both communal and individual, in accord with the Buddha-way. In this way, all relationships teach us, even as we appreciate and polish each other, endlessly.”
—Taizan Maezumi, On Zen Practice
Dear Sangha,
To paraphrase that old question of Dogen’s that spurred him on his lifelong spiritual quest: “If everything is perfect as it is, then why the need for practice?” In On Zen Practice, Bernie Glassman disparagingly calls that notion “Buji Zen,” which he translates as “No Matter Zen”—going on to expound how this limited perspective can lead one to believe that because we’re all intrinsically Buddhas, everything we do is Zen practice. Of course, on one level, everything can and should be practice: not just sitting on the cushion, but washing the dishes, petting the dog, sending an email, and so on. But let’s be honest: If you’re anything like me, you, too, have probably had some moments on the cushion—mind wandering, nodding off into dreamland—when it’s definitely no longer practice. Sure, sleepy Taylor, sleepy Buddha; Taylor watching TV, Buddha watching TV—and yet, sorry, Bub, practice is something else. So: what is it?
Well, marching with my fellow Sangha members on No Kings Day—that was practice, (and strangely, quite an enjoyable practice, too. See Seido’s beautiful remembrance and photos of the event below). Doing my damndest to write this sentence—and get it right—that’s practice (even if I get it wrong). Sitting down on the cushion, even (especially!) when I’m tired and might drift off—that’s practice. In the end, I think practice might have most to do with the simplest and most basic first step: showing up.
There are of course infinite things that we can show up for—and practice with—in our lives: relationships, work, community, self, other. In other words, while not everything in our lives is practice, everything does offer the opportunity to practice. Which leads us to a question posed by Hoshi Ryoshin in his powerful recent Dharma Talk that’s excerpted below:
What are you practicing with in your life right now?
With effort and love,
Taylor Plimpton
Editor
NOVEMBER CALENDAR
Sunday, November 4: Practice and Inquiry Circle with Joshin, 9:30 am
Body, Breath and Mind—Intro to Zen w/Howard, 9:30 am
Thursday, November 6: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Yugetsu
Sunday, November 9: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Fusho
Thursday, November 13: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Musho
Newcomers Meeting, 6:40 pm
Saturday, November 15: Zazenkai with Dharma Talk by Torei
Sunday, November 16: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Fugan
Thursday, November 20: Fusatsu with Precept Talk by Bokushu
Sunday, November 23: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Ryugin
Thursday, November 27: Zendo Closed for Thanksgiving
Sunday, November 30: Zazen with Dharma Talk by Soren
_______________________
ONGOING GROUPS
The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 8 am
Beginning Saturday November 8 the meeting time is 7 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: 3 pm
The Zendo Takes to the Streets
No Kings Day, October 18th, 2025
Myoko Roshi
Photos and Words by Adam Seidō Levy
Mukei had suggested that the Sangha meet in front of the Richard Rodgers Theater on 49th Street, which seemed auspicious. Hamilton was in rep, and I thought I could hear a voice singing.
“No crown above a law
No throne to make the call.”
Or perhaps I was imagining it? In any case, there we were, a joyous bunch as we greeted each other, some for the first time since the pandemic. How was that possible? But now, shaken out of our pixilated Zoom boxes, we were hugging and laughing together on the street.
And off we went, bobbing down Broadway. It was more of a celebration than a march, a demonstration of New York spirit: fearless, joyous, and ironic. No throne to make the call here, buddy.
I took some photographs of the Sangha. Not comprehensive, just the people I found myself walking with (and apologies to the others). When I got lost (more than once), I could see the Village Zendo arrow half a block away, pointing the way forward.

Jyākuen and JiFu
Fusho Sensei Joshin Roshi
Taylor Deborah
Mukei. Torei
TEACHINGS
The following is an edited version of Hoshi Charles Ryoshin Kalmanek’s Dharma Talk, Dogen’s Genjokoan, given 10/19/2025. A video of the talk is available on YouTube HERE
Well, good morning, everyone. It’s wonderful to see a nearly full Zendo here this morning and a nearly full iPad screen to my right . . . All of us practicing together. That’s what Sangha really is, isn’t it? That’s a great place to start.
What are you practicing with in your life right now?
When I came here this morning, Bokushu Sensei was trying to fill all the service positions and I admitted that I had never been doan before and he said, “Well, why don’t you be doan?” And so of course after all these years of practice: clammy skin. Nervousness. What if I do it wrong? . . . That’s one thing I was practicing with. What are you practicing with?
We chanted the Heart Sutra this morning, and we went through the sick list. There are people in my circle of family and friends who are quite ill now and that’s what they are practicing with and what I’m practicing with as well.
I know in our world and in the United States, some of us are practicing with a kind of background level of anxiety about what’s going to happen in this country with the abuse of power that is going on: people being put in detention, people who are lawfully in the United States being rounded up and put into detention, children being zip tied . . .
And then yesterday, I was practicing with a bit of joy. I was with several hundred people at a No Kings March out in South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey near where I live. It was a festive occasion and a joyful occasion to see that there are so many people in this country—you’ve all seen the pictures of New York City and Washington D.C. and Boston and Atlanta—who are angry and upset and concerned about what’s going on, and they’re taking time out of their schedules to stand up even if they’re afraid. And I know that some of the people that I talked to about the rally out in Maplewood asked, “Are we going to be safe? Is it safe?” Fortunately, it was.
So, practice is always a relevant question for all of us.
For the next 20 minutes or so, I would like to talk a little bit about the first part of Dogen’s Genjokoan. We had a workshop two weeks ago which some of you may have attended. If so, please bear with me. I’ll try not to say exactly the same thing I said before. It’s a rich text. Not necessarily the easiest text to follow. Dogen wrote it to a lay student of his very early in his teaching career. And it’s in a way a summation of all of his teachings in a very pithy, sometimes inscrutable few hundred words. So we’ll talk about Genjokoan today and I hope it’s helpful to those of you who are interested in Dogen but struggle with him as I sometimes do.
First the title, the meaning of Genjokoan, which I got from Okumura Roshi’s book, Realizing Genjokoan . . .
. . . Okumura Roshi says:
“In my understanding, this teaching of individuality and universality is the essence of the title Genjōkōan. Genjō is nothing other than kōan, and kōan is nothing other than genjō: Genjō means “reality actually and presently taking place,” and kōan means “absolute truth that embraces relative truth” or “a question that true reality asks of us.”
What are you practicing with in your life right now? What question is true reality asking of you? It’s a question we can ask ourselves at any moment.
Next, we’ll talk about the first four lines of Genjokoan, and I’ll just read the first two.
When all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, Buddhas and sentient beings. When the myriad dharmas are without a self, there is no delusion, no realization, no Buddha, no sentient being, no birth or death.
These first two lines are depictions or expressions of reality from two very different points of view . . .
The words that Dogen used in Japanese for buddhadharma actually mean to study the Buddhist teachings. So when we study the Buddhist teachings, we begin to understand our life through a particular lens. And there are all of these distinctions. We learn about delusion and enlightenment. What’s that? What’s delusion? What’s enlightenment? We learn about Buddhas and sentient beings. The Buddha said, “All beings without exception have Buddha nature.” What does that mean? What was the Buddha trying to say?
As we study the teachings, we begin to see the arising and falling of all things. We begin to see impermanence. We learn about karma, the law of cause and effect, from the point of view of our own individual lives. We notice when we’re reacting unskillfully, for example, in our life, when we’re coming from a place of delusion, suffering results. So we begin to understand something about delusion through this practice, and of course the suffering that we experience in our own lives is the First Noble Truth. We see that there is no life without suffering. Suffering is a little bit too strong a word. Unsatisfactoriness. Do you ever feel unsatisfactoriness in your life? That you’re not good enough? That things aren’t as you would like them to be? That you would like things to be some other way than the way that they are? It’s the First Noble Truth. Noble because it’s fundamental to our human existence.
Somehow, as we sit and we study and we practice, bodhi mind is awakened. We aspire to enlightenment. We have a taste. We have an understanding of our own deluded mind. And we aspire to enlightenment.
Dogen is saying that the buddhadharma holds all of these things, including delusion, including enlightenment or realization, including Buddhas and sentient beings, life and death. And as a result, we have to do something. We have to practice. We have this opening where we begin to see delusion and begin to aspire to enlightenment and this motivates us to practice, to come to our cushion to practice, and to practice in our everyday lives…
[[You can read the full transcript of the talk on Ryoshin’s Substack HERE]]
REFLECTIONS
Conversation in bed with my wife, Thanksgiving morning
By Taylor Plimpton
Lizzy: “What do you call it when you run away from the Army?”
TAP: “AWOL?”
LIZZY: “No, there’s another name for it . . . Deserting . . . deserter. Deserter. I’m going to be a deserter for Thanksgiving.”
TAP: “You’re gonna desert with the desserts.”
LIZZY: “That’s right. I’m gonna take the pies.”
TAP: “I’ll write a poem about it: ‘She deserted her family/ but it was Thanksgiving, and understandable.’”
LIZZY: “’The pies she knew to be delicious, so she took them with her. Her husband she left behind.’”
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Editor: Taylor Plimpton
Editor Emerita: Nina Shuka Klippel
Managing Editor/ Design & Production: Howard Thoresen

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