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Newsletter of Dharma Rain Zen Center Portland, Oregon Volume XXVIII Number 6 November-December 2003
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By Christine Homitsu White
I cannot claim to have penetrated the Dharma of any teachers, living or dead; however, I feel more than a passing acquaintance with these three ancestors. They have assisted me in this Zen journey with their words and actions as if they were indeed alive, and it is this timeless quality that makes the ideal of "transmission outside of words and letters" completely believable. The Legendary Period-Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma is the only ancestor that I've met face-to-face, and it was because of that meeting that I was propelled into a life of practice. I still have no explanation for what happened - how a long-dead, possibly legendary, Indian communicated with an American tourist/student on a rainy day in China. While I had toyed with the idea of Zen training, I never really considered it a serious possibility until that day at Shaolin temple, a place into which I had wandered in the heedless, accidental way that was my life before.
As our group toured the temple and martial arts complex, a young red-haired woman asked, "What exactly is Zen?" I had a smart-assed answer for her, something about everything being made out of the same cookie dough. Immediately I felt as if Bodhidharma himself was reprimanding me: "What do you know?! You don't even have a practice!" The weight of remorse nearly crushed me on the spot. I thought of the opportunities I'd missed to follow a spiritual path, to ask questions of living teachers, of all the holy places I'd already wandered into seemingly by accident. And I was fearful of the fact that I was very, very far from home and might not be able to get back to Portland again.
I temporarily escaped the tour group and found the way to a small shrine on the grounds that contained a nearly life-sized statue of Bodhidharma. I didn't even feel worthy enough to gassho to it, as if doing so would insult true believers, so I just stood in front of the figure clenching my fists and staring, ignoring the two young Chinese men in the building who threw looks my way and whispered about this odd-looking tourist. So it was there on July 31, 1988 that I promised the Old Man that if I made it back home in one piece I would quit just reading books, begin training and discover for myself if this Zen stuff was for real. I did and it is.
The Classical Period-Baizhang Huaihai
Baizhang Huaihai (also known as Hyakujo), while not in our lineage, stands as a bridge across time linking me in a circuitous fashion to Dogen-zenji. Dayi Daopi, the great fourth ancestor and legendary populizer of Ch'an, supposedly wrote Zen's first monastic rules. It is on this that Baizhang is said to have based the likewise legendary Baizhang Qingguei (J. Hyakujo shingi). These were further promulgated in the twelfth century by Chonglu Zongze, on whose writings Dogen based his Eihei shingi. And it was there that I began to get a glimpse of Dogen, in amongst the homely rules for cooking, eating and studying.
I have also been greatly instructed by the tale of Hyakujo's fox. Probably the most dangerous conceit of spiritual practice is thinking that the merit of it exempts us from the workings of karma. There are numerous commentaries and layers of understanding of this koan, but the fundamental, pragmatic advice to not be fooled or misled by cause-and-effect has been of great value to me.
Baizhang's legendary insistence on an honest day's work probably kept Ch'an alive in a number of ways. His example of going out to do manual labor with the other monks, disregarding rank, is still followed by modern-day abbots such as Shodo Harada-roshi of Sogenji and Muho of Antaiji, who daily cleans the toilets. His insistence on self-sufficiency of the monastery meant fewer political entanglements with donors as well as literally sustaining the sangha when Ch'an was in ill favor with the authorities.
The Literary Period-Tiantong Rujing
I bow to the old Buddha, Rujing; if not for him, this precious practice may not have become available to us. If he had not been a stern and yet loving spiritual father to a young foreigner, would Ch'an have survived the fall of the Song dynasty in the vital form that we know? According to accounts, Ch'an and the dynasty were already beginning to decay at the time Dogen traveled to China; he makes mention of the corruption he saw in the monasteries.
Rujing appears to have been a man of both strictness and flexibility, a blend of wisdom and compassion. He had a reputation for chasing off insincere and lazy monks and refusing to accept imperial honors. Yet Keizan wrote that Rujing allowed Daoists to study with him, without demanding that they convert, and that he carefully taught the illiterate but sincere gardener, Pu. Although it's not much mentioned, taking on a foreigner as a favored student probably wasn't a particularly popular move, and it's said that Dogen refused a position as his attendant because of possible repercussions. While Keizan makes much of Rujing's insistence on zazen as the only practice worth doing, it's clear from Dogen's China journals that Rujing considered those priests of other sects as "family members of Buddha ancestors" and that it was a mistake to regard other practices as outside the Buddhadharma. He seemed a lot angrier with Ch'an teachers who bad-mouthed other sects and yet didn't provide their students with much guidance, telling them to rely on personal experience alone.
At Antaiji, I came across Shohaku Okamura's translation of Dogen's written request to visit Rujing informally in his room, and Rujing's reply. Don't worry about formality; come any time, day or night, wrote Rujing; we can be as father and son. The words sounded so alive and sincere echoing down through the centuries. A few days later, at Eiheiji, I saw the transmission scroll he gave Dogen and I was completely overwhelmed with the enormity of what this relationship had produced. Everyone had been telling me the truth about the importance of lineage; how else would I have been able to access it at such a distance? It was as if time no longer had any real meaning; it was just a sometimes-convenient concept.
I wonder if Keido Chisan-zenji was intentionally guided by Rujing's example when he taught and transmitted Roshi Kennett or if the possibility of an occurrence like that is part of the inheritance. The right thing to do certainly isn't always the easiest. I wonder what Rujing's other students thought of an upstart young foreigner from a barely civilized country becoming a Dharma heir. While Dogen says that not all the ancestors possessed "golden bones,"there must have been quite a few who did or else we wouldn't have this opportunity to practice today.
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by Mark Sosetsu Stauffer
The word oryoki might initially lead you to thoughts of a nice, sweetly-filled Japanese snack. When translated from Japanese it roughly means the "right amount," and refers to a traditional Zen style of eating that is a skillful means of making a reality of Buddhist wisdom. Oryoki brings to mind a ceremonial way of eating with an all-inclusive dining set, like a picnic basket - only it comes as a small, cloth-wrapped package of bowls, including chopsticks, a napkin, and cleaning utensils. If you have participated in sesshin, you know this is only the half of it. At each stage of the ceremony, chanted verses convey important teachings. The practice comes from the earth, is stirred in the kitchen, offered by servers, received by eaters and re-offered to the earth and the many spirits. Its teachings are as complex as its forms are. I find I am always coming into a new relationship with it in the same way the morning chants wash over me. It is their complexity that allows for a different ministering to happen in new moments of practice. Don't be fooled by its ceremonial and predominantly Japanese presentation; oryoki is one Zen form that can inform students on the most important needs of our modern American lives.
During oryoki, the participant has the ability to put a ceiling on what is offered. So a person can take one grain or a bowl full. Later, one can usually receive more food when a second round is offered. The recipient then eats what they have accepted. What is the right amount? What are our physical needs and what are our resources? I like the word resource - replenishing from the source. When we overestimate our needs, we are ignorant and often think and act in greedy ways. Greed says, "I don't have enough!" even when there is enough. Sometimes, like a gaki or hungry ghost, we have a hard time accepting; it may be specifically the truth we can't accept, in whatever form it manifests. When our needs are not met by resources, medicine is needed. Medicine in this sense means that which sustains life.
Often what recedes into the synapse super highway is that without food, this physical form dies in less than forty days; without water, in four days; and without air, in a few minutes. Another way to look at it is that in order to exist in any moment all things must be supporting perfectly. Is this the truth the hungry ghost inside myself needs? How do we come to trust and have confidence in such support? My grandmother is 92 and is giving up the present form, the life that she has. Nurses and caring relatives feed her liquid protein through a straw. Some days she refuses food, and so continues to lose weight even though there seems to be none to lose. In my mind, she is letting go and taking the right amount. She knows! - even though she can't remember much past a few minutes. We are born and then our passions cool. We have to relearn and regain confidence and trust in this letting go. This can be learned as we put 10,000 pores of our body into lifting our bowl, serving another, wiping and wrapping our bowls.
Our meal verse states that "giver, receiver and gift" are one. I had an opportunity to beg in Japan and asked one of the monks studying Japanese to translate the meaning of the age-old chant that we used on our begging round. It reiterated that giver and receiver are one. In that case it was monk and householder are one in the Dharma. Our traditional ways of giving and receiving food constantly remind me that sustenance is interpenetration. The form of oryoki can help a person relearn something forgotten - in my case forgotten often. We are in this together. This is why we offer food to the many spirits and rest our spoon in the bowl so it points away from our self and towards others. We do not find freedom from suffering separate from others. A Buddha does not begrudge within or without.
Eating requires an offer and an acceptance. The begging bowl was one of the very few physical items that our early Buddhist ancestors carried to sustain life. What dropped into the mendicant monk's bowl was what was eaten and shared with others. What if you don't like onions or potatoes, are allergic to dairy or don't want to eat a leper's finger? Yes, that's right - there is a story of a leper's finger falling into Shakyamuni's bowl. What would Buddha (or Jesus) do? This historical/mythical example may lead one down a road of imagining exactly how challenging a practice of accepting everything that falls into one's bowl might be. It would assure that one had a certain level of inconvenience in the way our fast food culture thinks about it. How about trying to accept everything that falls into our life bowl? I don't mean the kind of "acceptance" that doesn't accept emotions such as anger or has no boundaries and can't say "NO!" It seems to me that acceptance isn't usually about choice and is most always about process.
We hold it as essential to practice sweeping the mind free of "excesses such as greed." I have witnessed (in a personal way) greed for more food, especially the good-tasting sugary, fatty stuff, greed for physical health, greed or maybe pride in refusing certain quantities or types of food (often the sugary, fatty stuff). Somehow for me food brings up greed more than other excesses, but indulged anger, guilt, shame, disgust, boredom, euphoria, and delight are not excluded from my mental landscape. To know the right amount, it helps to put the mind back on the food, take a small first portion and wait around a bit. I learned a lot from a teacher who said she didn't know if she wanted seconds because she hadn't finished her firsts and hadn't sat on it a bit. Just as one is present in zazen, letting trains of thought pass, excesses are dealt with by non-aggressive, slight refocusing of the mind. This is one way of leaving "no trace" as the saying goes. This makes it easier to practice resting the mind on more than what is in the mind.
By practicing oryoki, I leave no trace in a concrete way as well. I learn and apply this way at other times and in other situations. I still have yet to find a more ecologically sound ritual for eating. Our food starts from the earth and ends in the earth when we offer a portion of our meal and wash water. Because we have practiced the "right amount" we only need a bit of washwater and a spatula to clean our bowls. Think of how the world would change if we used the oryoki method on a mass scale. Usually when I eat out and order food, the food is generally the same amount for me as it is for someone whose needs are half mine. Consider fast food, which is often served in "disposables" that don't biodegrade for quite some time. It is ironic that our disposable food packaging was invented for convenience, so we wouldn't have to clean. I have been to small remote islands where beaches are covered with marooned plastic bottles from thousands of miles away. When I first saw this phenomenon on a beach in the Caribbean, I immediately blamed myself and fellow Americans.
Then I noticed that more languages were represented than the average Pope could decipher. Moreover, the myth that disposables are efficient is only apparent when we look at how much time it takes to manage our garbage. "Garbage" comes from the Middle English, meaning the "waste parts of fowl" - the parts no one wants to eat. My curbside garbage container could tell you that I waste more than the unwanted parts of chicken; our waste includes so many things. I have to ask whether the waste is in the garbage can or in my mind. For me acceptance has meant spending some time observing my garbage can. Oryoki helps me consider where sustenance comes from and where it goes. I am taught that my waste is offered to "satisfy the many spirits" and not to be another piece of the universe I want out of sight because I don't know what to do with it.
Oryoki makes it a reality to not waste a grain of rice. This isn't about the right way to do something or being snooty with food. It's about confidence and trust and about the gratitude that lets you know life is all right. Maybe that one grain of rice might inform us deeply that we are truly taken care of, that we are loved. For most, regaining deep trust is quite a leap into the unknown. Trust is unmeasurable and seems as though it becomes a reality by some mysterious process. Sometimes, it may seem like the fruition of how much "personal" work we do, but is it really because of our own merit? All of us have a hungry ghost or two inside. I have karma and its thread will not vanish in the predictable near future. For this reason, eating is done for the sake of enlightenment. Rohatsu sesshin is coming up. It is a sesshin that celebrates the enlightenment of the Buddha. At Rohatsu we practice oryoki, the right amount. I hope we will be informed by a grain of rice or maybe the green of broccoli, the smell of miso soup, the texture of oatmeal or even the sound made by the accidental drop of a chopstick.
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September 2003 (photos are of jack-o-lanterns carved for Segaki/Halloween, 2002.)
Present:Gyokuko Carlson, Kyogen Carlson, Jeanette Ryan, Gary Oshiro, Dosho VanSant, Kisei Martin, Kei'un Clardy, Sylvan Rainwater, Joe Niski, Choten Robinson's dogs
The meeting began shortly after 7 pm. No members brought issues to the Board at this meeting.
1) Review Committee Report
Ko'in Newsom presented the final version of the Committee's report. Hyakurei verbally accepted the final report and agreed in principle with the recommendations. Kyogen was pleased with the description of events and wording of the recommendations. The subset of the Board reviewing the Ethics policy has begun addressing several of the recommendations.2) Formal Approval of the Minutes from the Annual Retreat
The minutes were approved unanimously.
3) Treasurer's Report
As of August, we're $4235 in the red for the year, up from $2250 mid-year. This is much better than last year, and comparable to 2001. At present we have $74,200 cash in the bank. Not all of the expenditures related to the Dharma House improvements have been categorized appropriately yet.4) Operations Report
The Dharma House improvements are in full gear; basement windows are installed, two of the basement rooms are completed, with the other two due for completion this week. One inspection has happened. Gyokuko received bids on replacing all the galvanized plumbing, accepting a bid for $4000 to install a new flexible plastic tubing that is food-safe. This should put an end to the water damage in the kitchen ceiling. Some new residents are confirmed, with others awaiting revised guidelines.5) Residential Guidelines
There is a new "Guide to Residential Training at DRZC", intended as an introduction to residential practice for persons considering it. The role of Doan, currently filled by Domyo, is worth noting. An additional, more detailed, list of rules and expectations is part of the signed agreement for new residents. A recent addition is an explicit requirement for residents to have a sanzen relationship with one of the Carlsons.6) Calendar Committee
Much work has revolved around the Seminary program, with Kisei stepping into the Registrar role (as well as joining the Calendar Committee). The Dharma School calendar is planned for the entire year, a first appreciated by Dharma School parents on the Board. The next Calendar Committee meeting is an open meeting after the Sunday Dharma Talk, October 12th, inviting input from the wider Sangha.
7) Review of Proposed Changes to By-laws
Kisei, Sylvan, and Joe presented the proposed changes. Gyokuko raised some concerns regarding appointment of a co-Abbot, even with Board approval. After some discussion it was agreed to change the language in section 3.4 to "The current Abbot may nominate a co-Abbot, subject to approval by the membership as specified in Section 7.1, ŒAppointment.'"8) Planning for Sangha Forum
It's been almost one and a half years since the last Forum. A summary of that event will appear in the next Still Point.9) Board Elections
Since the membership list needs to be updated in preparing for elections, this will be a good time to publish a new member directory. Any members who wish to run for one of the two positions opening up should contact either Kyogen or Kisei who will put together a list of candidates.10) Support for Cambodian Monks and/or Tibetan Children
Kyogen proposed supporting one or the other of these. While this seems like a good idea in principle, Directors expressed some concern about what level of support the Sangha can afford, agencies managing this kind of charity and how much money makes it to the intended participants, etc. Kyogen will follow up with Great Vow for further info on how they're doing this.Next Meeting:
Thursday, 13 November, 7 pm at the Sangha House. The meeting adjourned at 9:10 pm. Respectfully Submitted, Joe Niski, Secretary .
Submit!
The newsletter is put together in the first week of every other month. Submissions are very welcome: short or long articles, which can be on any point of practice, including travel, research or personal experience; descriptions of events we've had; the occasional poem or drawing.
Send your items to: newsletter@dharma-rain.org, or by regular mail, or drop it off in the newsletter slot in the Center house office.
News now has its own, separate page. Click here to go to the archived news page. This page contains the news that appeared with the December/November 2003 StillPoint.
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