BULLETIN
January 2026

Winter Retreat at Garrison 2026 —photo by Fusho Sensei
The year is fading,
wearing a hat and straw sandals,
while aspiring to keep it together.
—Matsuo Basho, New Year, 1685
Dear Sangha,
When you become a parent, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that your life is no longer your own. It’s all about the kid now, everything. Your life as you know it, that’s a thing of the past. And there is some truth to this. Life will indeed never be the same. But it’s still your life—well, as much, perhaps, as it ever has been.
Truth is, you’ve been giving away your life, your time, all along, since way before the bambino arrived. At work, your time is someone else’s—company time, I guess they call it. Obligations—family events, household chores, appointments, etc.—more time that is not yours. In the end, it sometimes seems like time that really is yours, time that you can do whatever you want with, amounts to a mere fraction of your day. You cherish these moments, protect them fiercely. You curl up obstinately on the couch and turn on the TV, free at last.
In the beginning of one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s earliest books, The Miracle of Mindfulness, he tells the story of a student of his who suddenly realizes that he’d been thinking about time all wrong, and who ultimately comes to the conclusion that all time was his time, if only he could shift his perspective a bit. Then, you realize that all the things you have to do and maybe sometimes don’t even want to, this is your life, too. Then, suddenly, the time spent tending to your child is no longer some kind of chore or obligation, but precious moments that belong to you, too.
I remember back when one of the things I had do on a daily basis was put my son, Ollie, to bed. We had sort of done a half-ass version of the Ferber method, which meant he never completely learned to put himself down, so I had to sit there with him while he calmed, settled, and finally slept. This could be extremely infuriating. Why couldn’t he just go the fuck to sleep so I could go do whatever I wanted—or needed—to do? But there was a weird sort of Murphy’s Law in effect, a principle theoretically applicable throughout space and time: if there was even an inkling of me that was bent on leaving or wanted to be somewhere else, Ollie wouldn’t let me go, and the process would be infinite: I would rise, try to sneak out, the floor would creak, and inevitably, I would hear, “Dada?” and, cursing the universe, I’d have to go back and sit there some more. But if I was just there, just fiercely and utterly there at my son’s bedside, sitting, then my son, reassured somehow by my simple yet total presence, would drift off, finally, to sleep. Of course, that can’t be your purpose in being present—so you can get out of there quicker—it won’t work (after all, it’s no longer true presence if you’re secretly pining for some other place or time). You really have to be there, and nowhere else—which is of course what true presence (and true meditation) is anyway.
Fortunately, I’d realize (sometimes) that this was my time, my life, and that there was nowhere really I’d rather be than here anyway—sitting quietly in the shadows with the person I loved more than anyone else in the world.
What unlikely time will you realize is your time, today?
With love,
Taylor Plimpton, Editor
JANUARY CALENDAR
Sunday, January 11: Zendo Reopens: Dharma Talk by Jisei
Sunday, January 11: Genjokoan Workshop with Ryoshin Hoshi, 2 pm
Thursday, January 15: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Seiryu
Saturday, January 17: Zazenkai and Dharma Talk by Bokushu Sensei
Sunday, January 18: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Jiryu
Monday, January 19: Online and In-Person Zendos closed for MLK Day
Thursday, January 22: Fusatsu with Precepts Talk by Shinryu Roshi
Sunday, January 25: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Fusho Sensei
Thursday, January 29: Zazen and Dharma Talk by Mukei
ONGOING GROUPS
The Bolivian Sitting Group meets online Saturdays: 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
TRUE EXPRESSIONS
Creative Contributions from the Village Zendo community:
Winter Ango 2026, photo essay
by Adam Seido Levy

Shuso leaps with life
Just as she leaps with death
No separation

The hand danced
In the sunlight
Effervescent

The quince
Arrived as a stick
Departed as a blossom

Are we walking
Away from the Old Year?
Or is the New Year
Walking towards Us?
TEACHINGS
NOT INDULGING IN ANGER
A PRECEPTS TALK BY FUSHO SENSEI
This is a condensed, edited version of Sensei Fusho’s Precepts Talk given on February 27, 2025. To listen to the talk on YouTube, go here.
I'm delighted to be here with you on Fusatsu. It’s the first time I've given a talk for Fusatsu actually, so for those of you in any of the roles that might be new—which I did notice there were a few—we’re all in it together here.
This ceremony that we're doing right now together feels very urgent and important to me, so I'll share a few thoughts about the precept, but I'm just glad that we can be together and have a shared intent to be at one, to be at-one-ment.
Enkyo Roshi likes to say that all this bowing that we're doing is a real way of saying, “I'm letting everything go.” This is a dropping away, a releasing, and a reminder that we can let go of our fixed ideas and habits—we can just let it all go and just let it drop right here, and right now, with our vows.
Enkyo Roshi's and Bernie Glassman's teacher, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, said that our practice in general is about closing the gap between the self and the Self, which very much makes me think of “being at one with” when we're doing these bows. He says we have a practice known as the prajna paramita, which means to have reached the other shore. But Dogen Zenji says that the meaning of “reaching the other shore” is to realize that this shore is the other shore, and this life is the unsurpassable, realized life, and there is no gap. I think Fusatsu can help with that. So if there is a purpose to all of this, it's to realize that this shore and the other shore are the same; our purpose is to close the gap, to realize that there is just this one life, right now, right here. If we're reaching for that other shore—that idea of what we're supposed to do or be—that’s just extra.
I’ve had the honor of teaching the precept Jukai study class that we offer here, and we've been utilizing a book by Nancy Mujo Baker, who was a Dharma sister of Enkyo’s and is a teacher at the No Traces Zendo in New York. It’s called Opening to Oneness, and it’s about the precepts and different ways of working with them. One of the main differences in her approach is that instead of aspiring to keep the precepts, we look deeply into our failure to do so. It is this practice of allowing and indeed welcoming all that we tend to want to reject in ourselves and in others that opens us to Oneness, and the possibility of the precepts arising naturally and spontaneously. So, she says we need to shine the light of welcoming awareness onto the killer, the liar, the precept breaker in us. And such illumination—it’s called the radiant light in Zen—can be uncomfortable at first, but it helps us see what we're hanging on to. And it reveals and loosens our attachments to aspects of our conditioning so that that conditioning can let go of us, so that the body/mind drops off, and we are at-one-with this idea.
It’s really easy to think about the precepts as something that are bad and good, and what we're supposed to do or not do, but actually there’s a way of looking at them as before bad and good, and a way of being at one with this human condition that we all have and have inherited since the beginning of time. And these qualities of all evil karma that are in all of us—being at one with that and really getting close to that, instead of pushing it away or pretending that we don't have those qualities. Instead of denying it or letting it drag us around and totally consume us—what about just looking at it as closely as we can, with a sense of not knowing?
So, what does that look like if we're looking at an actual precept? Something that I've been thinking about and dealing with, as have many of us these days, is anger. So, the ninth precept is not indulging anger, and I like that phrasing of it—not indulging anger—because it's not saying not being angry, it's just saying not indulging anger.
Mujo Baker says anger is a great teacher. More than anything else, it teaches us what the postulating self is and how fast it can happen, especially when we least expect it. This happens when we react to someone or something with lightning speed anger. You can feel it when we're triggered, but also when some buried ancient anger we never knew was there wakes up and slowly takes us over. In either case, there's preference—not this, not this—and the self is born over and over again as soon as we say, “not this not this,” for we are separating ourselves from it and are not at one anymore.
And it's easy to think, I should just practice not being angry—but that's somewhat abstract. In general, it's important to be precise, personal, and honest—finding out exactly, what is my anger? Really, it's about getting to know it, getting intimate with it, as opposed to pretending it's something that is not part of us. And we all have a different relationship to it, and we all have different things that trigger us—it's going to be very personal. It means turning my attention away from the cause and the object and from the story swirling around to the anger itself and getting to know it; it means being curious about it, not having judgments about it, and compassionately allowing it. It means getting to know who I am in each situation—who I am as a liar, a stealer, or one who gets angry and blames. And truly accepting it without any judgment is an important step in working with any of the precepts.
That emotion and that feeling that's stuck in a destructive pattern—can we catch it, recognize it, just pause, and then respond in a different way depending on what's actually happening? Can we take a breath? Can we sit for one period with it, without the story, allowing the space of not knowing to come back in? Can we bear witness to each voice and perspective of whatever it is we're looking at and going through and feeling, and then respond?
GRACE AND GRIT
The Grace and Grit Support Group
Has a 2nd Birthday!
First, some history:
In the fall of 2022, there were two online workshops held by the Village Zendo called The Elder Years: Grit, Growth, Grace. These Sunday afternoon sessions were inspired by the VZ book group’s reading of Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal. The essential questions being addressed were:
As we move through our elder years, how can we continue to evolve with dignity and grace? How can we remain safe, assured that “someone has my back?” How can we help our loved ones and fellow sangha members do the same?
The page announcing that workshop is still on the VZ website. You can view it here. What a powerful group of presenters! The first session was called “The Path of Wisdom and Compassion” and featured Mukei, Jisei, Jinpu, JyaKuen, Tita, and Rakushin and ChoGaku. The second workshop, held a month later, had JiFu, ChoGaku and myself. It was called “Laying the Foundation: Planning for Safety, Security and Support,” and was on the “nuts and bolts” side of things, with lots of information about hospice, advance directives and nursing homes.
Out of that workshop came an ever-evolving resource page which is updated by ChoGaku and available to all VZ sangha.
There also came a call for more workshops. The following autumn, we showed the 2017 film One Body/One Heart, the very moving story of VZ’s beloved Sensei, Robert Kaku Gunn, during the year following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. This was followed a month later by a workshop called Necessary Conversations and Decisions, led by myself and ChoGaku.
After this, there was a clear interest in the sangha for forming some sort of on-going support group. Jisei and I agreed to co-lead, and we held our first Grace and Grit group in January of 2024. Due to such busy and active schedules, both for ourselves and for the sangha in general, we found the best time slot for the group was on Thursday afternoons. We meet on the first Thursday of each month from 3-5 pm EST.
Our page on the VZ website says: “We will create a safe space where we all can discuss issues around aging. This may be for people who are aging themselves, which is really all of us. Or perhaps you have aging parents or friends you care for and need support around a difficult topic. The ‘issues’ can be anything: physical problems, personal emotional reactions to aging, concerns about legal forms, philosophical/spiritual questions.”
We have cultivated a warm and close-knit group of regulars. Not everyone can come to every meeting, but the ease and intimacy of the sharing is always exceptional. We start each meeting with a short meditation (of course) and then a simple “go-around,” where each of us can share a bit about where we are at, what’s the latest, what’s the buzz, what’s goin’ on. Jisei and I always join in as well, switching hats from co-leaders to participants and back again as needed.
After a short break for 5 or 10 minutes, we meet for a group activity. Jisei and I often plan a writing prompt, which gives us all a chance to thoughtfully focus on a particular issue. We then reconvene and everyone has a chance to share thoughts and feelings inspired by the prompt. We mostly try to stay together, but will use breakout groups if there are enough people.
Here are a few of the writing prompts we have used:
- What is an identity you used to have, but now is gone?
- What is something you used to be certain about? What would you say about it now?
- Superheroes often have an origin story, a way of summing up how they got to be who they are. What’s your origin story?
- Write a letter to your younger self. Pick an age/time in your life that would really benefit from knowing what you know now. What will you say to this younger self?
- “Gravity is my enemy.” This was an actual quote said to Jisei as a volunteer hospice chaplain. This led to a prompt with several questions: What are the challenges in your life now? What is difficult? How do you cope (or not?) What happens when we see challenges as “enemy?”
Jisei and I have been co-leading the Grace and Grit group for over two years! During all group sharing, we simply follow the advice we often give for open sozen: no cross-talk; everything said is confidential; no advice given; speak and listen from the heart.
I have come to see the tremendous power of simply being available to each other, with open hearts and open ears. No advice is needed. It's OK to not know what to do. We all simply listen to each other. The things that come out of us into this shared space, sometimes very painful truths, can be deeply accepted and then let go of. What a gift we give to each other.
G&G looks forward to showing another movie in February (details to be announced in the next newsletter.) Our meetings will continue on the first Thursday of each month.
Our next meeting will be February 5, from 3-5 pm.
—David Jimon Kunin
REFLECTIONS:

An Excerpt from “Starting Over, Again,” by Taylor Plimpton,
first published here in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
…When you begin to have hopeless thoughts like every day’s the same and nothing’s ever going to change, that’s when it’s probably a good idea to start over again.
How do you do this?
Beyond counting the breath, there are all sorts of other simple things that can help wake us up and give us a fresh start: a cold swim in the sea, a hot bath, getting a haircut, putting on a new pair of socks, giving an old pair of shoes a fresh shine, having a good laugh, having a good cry, a first snow, a fine spring day, getting caught in a summer thunderstorm, brushing your teeth, making your bed, seeing something beautiful, falling in love . . .
And then of course there’s the solstice and New Year’s—natural beginnings that we have traditionally marked as occasions to inspire our own renewal. But maybe the real truth is that we shouldn’t be stressing so much about this idea of starting over. After all, the great origin—ground zero, one—is never far. It accompanies us always, a present moment of stillness that is the very path we are walking, whether we realize it or not.
We can never really be lost, no matter how far we wander.
This is why there’s something kind of dangerous in thinking that we need to start over—as implicit in that thought is the notion that we have gone astray, that something is wrong with us and needs to be fixed: that old, sad, self-help delusion. Or, to put it another way, to be too focused on getting back to one is to miss the point that one is right here.
And I guess it’s good to have these instances of renewal like the solstice to remind us that we too can begin again, or perhaps to remind us that we are perpetually already beginning again. Still, it can feel like an awful lot of pressure sometimes, the whole New Year’s thing—the idea that all of a sudden you’re somehow supposed to be able to start fresh, become a brand new, happy, healthy person, and so on—which is why it’s probably best not to take any of this stuff too seriously. In fact, if anything, the return of the light should remind us to take things—life, politics, our perfectly imperfect selves—lightly. After all, wherever we are, however we feel, that’s exactly where we need to be. Or, as the great haiku master Issa puts it:
New Year’s Day—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
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 Emerita:
Nina Shuka Klippel
Managing Editor
Design & Production: Howard Thoresen

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