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Newsletter of Dharma Rain Zen Center Portland, Oregon Volume XXX Number 3 May / June2005
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by Richard Fumyo Mishaga
In “Katto,” a fascicle (chapter) of the Shobogenzo, Dogen Zenji uses the twining growth pattern of plant vines as a metaphor for the oneness of the master-disciple relationship. This relationship, an intuitive, mind-to-mind understanding, is a requisite for the transmission of the Dharma and for the preservation of its heritage from generation to generation. For my simple lay practice, I often like to equate Dogen's twining vines, with “Dharma encounters” those insightful moments when the connection between a teacher and student becomes so entwined that a deeper, underlying significance, an instant of clarity, is revealed. While tending my garden, I enjoy pausing to trace the twining of the honey suckles and the jasmine, the chaotic comings and goings of the vines, meeting and separating, all in a riotous pattern of spontaneous vitality. As with the twining of my vines, a Dharma encounter, a moment of intuitive realization, can be just as unexpected and spontaneous and just as intensely vital.
Over five years ago, I had the opportunity to accompany Kyogen, Gyokuko, and several DRZC members on a trip to Japan. Kyogen and Gyokuko, along with their students, had been invited by Misawa Roshi to attend the rededication of Raigakuji, in Chino, Nagino. Misawa Roshi, the abbot, was a grand_disciple of Keido Chisan his master having been transmitted by him just as Roshi Kennett, Kyogen and Gyokuko's teacher, had been. Misawa Roshi is, therefore, Kyogen and Gyokuko's “Dharma Cousin.” Raigakuji is a large, thriving temple with many lay members. Misawa Roshi and the temple sangha were completing major, long-term renovations of the temple complex. To celebrate the completion, two days of formal ceremonies, including memorial services for past abbots, were planned with both the Chief Priests of the Sotoshu General Headquarters of Eiheiji and of Sojiji officiating. Keido Chisan, the nominal founder of Dharma Rain, had been the abbot of Raigakuji before and during his tenure as the Chief Priest of the Sotoshu General Headquarters in Sojiji. His remains are buried in the Raigakuji cemetery.
Kyogen and Gyokuko accepted the invitation from Misawa Roshi and asked the eleven of us who would accompany them to help plan the itinerary for a two-week stay in Japan. That fall, our group visited many spiritual, historical, and cultural sites, staying at several temples along the way, and ending with two full days and three nights in Chino attending the Raigakuji rededication ceremonies. We were fortunate enough to spend time at Shundo Aoyama's Ni Sodo, Harada Roshi’s Sogenji, as well as four temples of primary significance for our lineage — Eiheiji, Daijoji, Sojiji Soin, and Sojiji.
When we arrived at Raigakuji the day before the official rededication ceremonies, Misawa Roshi, greeted us warmly. A man in his mid-sixties, he had the spring in his step of someone in their mid-twenties. He did not speak English and explained through our translator and fellow traveler that he would not be able to spend much time with us until the ceremonies were finished, but he hoped that we take tea with him the morning after, before we departed for the Nagoya airport. Until then, he hoped that we make ourselves at home and feel free to explore the various temple buildings and the grounds.
The freedom to roam through Raigakuji unsupervised was refreshing. Since the temple staff was extremely busy preparing for the needs of the many ecclesiastical dignitaries and lay guests that would attend the rededication, and since most of the staff spoke as little English as we spoke Japanese, we were left to come and go as we pleased.
The Rededication ceremonies that occurred over the next two days were splendid, with attending clergy in robes of every color and with a large contingent of lay people, some in traditional dress. But even with all these visual distractions and impressive events, I noticed that Misawa Roshi himself was gradually becoming the primary focus of my attention.
For Misawa Roshi, those few days were the culmination of several years of work on the temple and a year’s preparation for the formal rededication. Through the final preparations and intense activities of the rededication, he appeared refreshingly calm, always attentive to those around him. During those few days, we saw him several times on our temple wanderings. He never seemed preoccupied but nothing appeared to escape his notice. Indeed, the slightest flick of his wrist or the roll of his eye would send his attendants scurrying in all directions. I noticed that he always appeared wholly engaged and perfectly at ease, whether he was formally welcoming the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Sotoshu or laughing on the temple kitchen steps with the children waiting for their mothers. His actions always seemed appropriate to the situation. At times he seemed as imposing as the golden Vairochana of Todaiji. At times he was almost invisible, receding into the background, as if he were the smoke from incense during the memorial ceremonies. He was continually anticipating and responding to what was required, never more, never less.
The morning after the rededication, we packed up our belongings and souvenirs and hauled them over to the temple vestibule. Our travel schedule that day was fairly tight, and we would have to leave directly from the temple after our tea with the Roshi. During tea, we had a relaxing conversation with Misawa Roshi and presented him with some gifts from Oregon, including art from our Dharma school children. Knowing that our time to leave was almost at hand, Misawa Roshi requested that we join him in the Hatto for a short service. After we offered incense and chanted the Heart Sutra in Sino-Japanese, Roshi did a curious thing. He proceeded to demonstrate for us the proper form for sitting meditation, kinhin, and gassho.
This was not the first time during our Japan tour that we were instructed in the proper form. Twice before, once at Sojiji and once at Eiheiji, we were all required to go through a basic orientation before we could enter the monastery’s Zendo for zazen. During both of these situations, young English-speaking monks explained to our group the proper form for zazen, kinhin, and gassho. I’m not sure why this was universally required or whether this stemmed from a cultural need for conformity, but I found the requirement amusing, since our priests had been practicing zazen before the young monks instructing us were born,and most of the DRZC members present had probably been doing zazen longer than the monks. In any case, we listened attentively and, afterwards, at Sojiji, we had a pleasant conversation with our suddenly animated instructor about American basketball.
The reasons for Misawa Roshi’s instruction in the proper forms were very different from our earlier experiences. Misawa Roshi knew that we were about to leave the temple, not enter it. He knew that our teachers were highly experienced practitioners and that the lay students with them were familiar with the proper forms. He also knew that we were pressed for time and had a long journey ahead of us. He didn’t speak our language, and I supposed that he had to have been fatigued from the weight of all the responsibilities and activities leading up to and during the previous few days. He could have just as easily and politely dismissed us, making his farewells immediately after tea. Why was he instructing us in something so fundamental to our practices and something he knew we already understood?
Perhaps, he sensed that it wasn’t important what he was teaching us, but it was important that HE was teaching it. He knew that we had come to Japan with a desire to search for the roots of our spiritual traditions and practice; perhaps he realized this need and was responding in the limited time before us — teacher and students arising together.
When Dogen Zenji was traveling in China on his spiritual quest, he met an old monk, the chief cook at the monastery on Mount Tiantong. The old cook was working very intently drying mushrooms in the hot sun. Dogen asked him why he was straining so hard in the scorching sun and suggested that he should rest and get some help with this chore. The old monk essentially replied that this was his responsibility, his practice. He then rhetorically asked Dogen if he didn't do this work now, when else could he do it? Despite the language and time constraints and despite his own physical fatigue, did Misawa Roshi believe that it was his responsibility to establish a personal connection with those who practiced in his tradition and that he alone could make such a connection at that time? Did he act because, as the official holder of lineage, the vessel who was recognized by the Sotoshu in Japan, he must minister to these travelers who had come so far?
To my mind, this demonstration by Misawa Roshi, who acts as an authority and lineage holder in Japan, revealed the living verification of the heritage that we had studied in books and we were seeking to find during the previous two weeks. For me, this simple act, this reaching out, suddenly assumed sacramental proportions. Roshi’s demonstration provided an intimate connection in Japan, a living link between us and those who have preceded us in the Dharma. This connection, this twining of vines, infused my personal relationship with the Dharma ancestors of Kyogen, Gyokuko, and Misawa Roshi. It suddenly assumed a vitality and an intimacy that I normally would feel only for the living vessels themselves.
After Misawa Roshi’s instruction, we left the Hatto, collected our belongings, said our hasty goodbyes, and hurried on down the road. While we traveled on the crowded trains south to Nagoya, the events of the morning so occupied my thoughts that I hardly spoke to anyone that day. In Nagoya our group disbanded, most returning to Oregon with Kyogen and Gyokuko. Some of us stayed on a few more days.
We returned to the Kyoto area to visit more temples including Koshoji where Dogen practiced after returning from China. At Koshoji, Dogen trained a group of monks who gathered about him. They would later accompany him north into the mountains of Echizen and help him build his temple and his Dharma heritage at Eiheiji. Within this group of monks at Koshoji were Dogen’s chronicler and Dharma successor, the gentle Koun Ejo, and Ejo’s Dharma successor, the indomitable Tetsu Gikai, who in his time would found Daijoji, the spiritual center of our lineage for almost 400 years. During his time at Koshoji, Dogen wrote several fascicles of the Shobogenzo including “Katto, Twining Vines.”
I don’t know how my traveling companions personally reacted to the incident at Raigakuji that morning. I never broached the subject with them nor mentioned it to anyone else until now. There are events in life, like a face-to-face encounter with a cougar on a solitary morning hike in the mountains, that are so unexpectedly spontaneous, so rare, and so wondrously complete in themselves that some people will feel no desire to discuss them for their own sake. Yet these are the events that inform and transform our practices. And just as the roots of twining vines can spread deeply into the earth, the intuitive cognition of these Dharma encounters can pierce many levels of one’s consciousness. For me, since that incident at Raigakuji, I have never once been able to enter a Zendo and bow in gassho without feeling a flush of gratitude for that kindly master, that living Buddha treasure, and for his teaching on that October morning many years ago.
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by Rich Mackin
It seems strange to realize I first took the precepts a year ago. Like many anniversaries, this has prompted me to think of where the time has gone and to feel amazed at how much has taken place in only one year, especially at how different a person I seem to be.
After living with the precepts for a year, it’s interesting to me how differently I view them now. I find that instead of feeling restricted by them, I feel freed by them — as if I don't have to worry about how to act in some situations, because I already have behavioral guidelines. A recurring situation is the temptation to tell a “little white lie” to get out of something. Knowing that I have vowed not to lie, I need to tell the truth — only to find that openly and honestly discussing things actually makes my life easier in the end. As the adage says, when you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember how your lie went.
It's also interesting to realize how much sitting zazen has become part of my life. The idea of sitting several hours in a single day once seemed momentous — daunting to undertake and impressive to have done. This year, I found myself doing 4 or 5 hours of sitting, realizing only afterwards how much I had done. Like many things, the actual doing is not as hard as the worrying.
Monday, March 14 was the Kyojukaimon ceremony. For those familiar with the Kyojukaimon, the actual document of the precepts, this was a relatively straightforward ceremony, based on age-old transcriptions and descriptions of the sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts that we live by. To take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; to do no evil, do only good, and to do good for others; to not kill, steal, misuse sexuality, lie, become intoxicated, dwell on past mistakes, praise self or blame others; to not be greedy, indulge anger, or defame the three treasures. Of course, the Kyojukaimon is much longer and poetic than a list of rules. The precepts are not commandments, but things to be held, which might be why we say we take the precepts, not obey them.
Wednesday, March 16 was the Sange ceremony. This was the first of the more unusual ceremonies, one that only occurs during Daijukai, and was something none of us newer people expected. To honor this, I will only hint at some of the aspects of what happened. While most of us sat zazen upstairs, the downstairs tearoom was converted by unseen forces (probably DRZC staff and senior members, but who knows?) into a physical metaphor for some aspects of practice. We learned that sometimes the precepts we officially live by are not the only ones worth considering.
Friday, March 17 was the Ketchimyaku ceremony, which ends with the new preceptees receiving the Ketchimyaku. This is the ceremony you hear spoken of in hushed tones and with knowing glances. The one someone might suggest you be prepared for, only to inform you that there is nothing you can do to be prepared, since it involves expecting the unexpected. This sounds scarier than it is — part of the secret is to not “give away the ending’ — like not spoiling the end of a well-written book, but part of it is simply to acknowledge that some things can be described only in basic terms, which cannot truly get the point across. I could tell you that the Grand Canyon is a big hole, describing what something looks like is never complete, and always only a part of what it IS. Indeed, though, all things can be teachers, even when they don't try to be. Another thing to be sure, our practice and paths through life are never straight lines.
Saturday, March 19 was the Recognition ceremony, which was an important event, especially for those who took the precepts this year or in the two years since the last Daijukai. While describing the Ketchimyaku ceremony would be like calling the Grand Canyon a hole, describing simply what happened at the Recognition ceremony would be like a parent hearing a child’s first words and saying they had a discussion. Sometimes something that touches you in a profound way is, at heart, incredibly simple. A special occasion often is simply a celebration of everyday things.
Sunday, March 20 was the actual taking of the precepts. This is one of the occasions throughout the year where friends and family come in to see what this Zen stuff is all about and find a lot of chanting and recitation followed by a wonderful brunch. Most importantly, on this day a group of new Buddhists came forth, and there was much rejoicing.
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Dharma Rain Zen Center -Board Minutes Summary
10 March 2005
Present:, Gyokuko Carlson, Kyogen Carlson, Gary Oshiro, Dosho VanSant, Kisei Martin, Kei'un Lewis, Genko Rainwater, Kat Strieby, Sherman Conventry, Shisei Niski. Absent: none.
The meeting began shortly after 7:20 pm.
1) Approval of Minutes from prior meeting — Minutes of the January meeting were approved unanimously. Minutes of the special meeting in February were reviewed and approved unanimously.
2) Open Forum for Members — No members brought concerns.
3) Treasurer's Report — Gary shared the Income/Expense and Financial Position statements for all of 2004, with comparisons to the prior year. We ended the year $31k in the black, a considerable improvement over 2003. Subtracting the $25k anonymous donation, we’re still $11k ahead of the prior year. Gary made the $10k payment towards mortgage principal that the Board agreed to several months ago, and also made the annual payment on the Carlsons loan to the Sangha.
4) Membership Committee Report — Four or five new members have joined since January. Follow-up with new members is happening, though outreach to renewing members is still stalled. Kakumyo and Kyogen have cleaned up the database. We discussed the issue of whether to do follow-up/outreach with people who leave or drift away, and decided informally not to do so at this time.
5) Operations Report — The ducts at all three houses have been cleaned. This led us to the discovery that the gas furnace at the 20th Ave. house needs replacing. New blinds were installed in the Dharma House. The carpeting needs replacement, estimated cost: $5k. The Board agreed that the carpeting should be replaced, but not until the 20th Ave. furnace is dealt with, and only if we can manage it financially. Work remaining to bring the Dharma House into compliance with the certificate of occupancy includes the stairwell and side entrance. The issue of improving wheelchair accessibility at the Zendo, a suggested purpose of the large end-of-year donation, needs further research.
6) Sell or rent the 20th Ave. House — The terms of the mortgage that financed the Taylor St. purchase prevent us from selling the 20th Ave. house for a few months. Kyogen sent an email to the Sangha to determine if there is any interest in renting it. The Board discussed how this fits into our long-range goal of a single campus for all our facilities/activities.
The Board also discussed present demand for lay residential training. There are also three persons applying for postulancy, causing us to re-evaluate the terms of that arrangement. A motion to continue evaluating the financial picture and exploring the issues around renting the 20th Ave. house passed unanimously.
7) Web Site Update — There is some awkwardness in communication with the consultant doing the work — Kyogen will follow up in person.
8) Sangha Forum, Sunday April 3rd — The Spring Forum usually focuses on Operations and our Strategic Plan. Items to include: thanking the Sangha for their support; review Strategic Plan; discuss the Taylor St. purchase, 20th. Ave rental option, and how they fit into the long-term vision.
Respectfully submitted,
Joe Shisei Niski, Secretary
News now has its own, separate page.Click here to go to news for May/June 2005
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