Nature Pilgrimage - August 28

On a perfect-weather late-summer day, we gathered at Shao Shan Temple to acknowledge and pay respect to the greater nature that supports our practice.  This included a modified version of a ceremony done in Japan for blessings in gratitude to the protecting Spirits of the Land.

Beginning with fog covered hills and dewy spider webs, and continuing into bright sun - birds, newts, toads and little fishes joined in our ceremony.  We offered flowers, incense and chanting at multiple sites on the Temple land acknowledging the myriad ways - known and unknown that they support our practice.

The program included several short blocks of outside meditation and a snack of vegetables fresh from the Temple Garden that was then also shared with the fishes in Connie's Pond!

 With deep gratitude to the wondrous nature 

that supports our practice!

Heart of the Way - HonChu (newsletter article)

 

HEART OF THE WAY 

By Scott HonChu Fields

 

Born in Cleveland Ohio in 1946 & growing up in the Fifties, I idolized Beatniks & read my first haiku in a Peter Pauper Book.  Daddy died in my arms in 1961 at the age of 44 of a massive coronary, shortly after I got back from summer camp where I had my first experience of deep oceanic space, so many stars so far away in deep time. I lost my faith in the Christian God & started exploring other mystical traditions.  Mother painted watercolors & we always had a small white porcelain KuanYin next to her flower arrangements.  She died in 2016 at the age of 104, shortly after I took the first precepts & met my partner Charlie.  Taihaku was so happy I finally had love in my life.

 

I had started reading Life magazine in my playpen, & I am still usually reading a dozen books at once.  I was an English major with a Philosophy & Religion minor at Williams College & pursued graduate study at Columbia and NYU for the next ten years, living in a small railroad flat in Greenwich Village  I lived an archetypal hippie life, going to Woodstock, hitchhiking crosscountry Cambridge to Seattle, etc. Friends hooked me up with a theosophical theatre troupe called the Uranian Alchemy Players.  We celebrated pagan solar festivals & got elemental tattoos on acupuncture points with Tibetan monks chanting on vinyl. Summers in Nova Scotia jumping over bonfires in the stone circle, casting I Ching hexagrams with yarrow stalks, Letters on Occult Meditation, the Great Naga in the Bay.

In the late 70s we all took multiple teachings with Kalu Rinpoche, senior Meditation Master of the Tibetan Kagyu lineage.  When he sang Milarepa songs, it was like he was Milarepa.  Shortly thereafter, a Dharma friend invited me to sit for DzogChen teachings with Dudjom Rinpoche,   Widely regarded as an incarnation of Padmasambhava, His Holiness helped us see how easy it was to rest our minds in the natural state.  I viewed these revered teachers as root gurus & OM MANI PADME HUM as root mantra.

Moving to Vermont, I taught English & Creative Writing at Norwich for 36 years.  There were friends, but I basically lived the lonely life of a solitary practitioner, struggling at time with depression & various forms of addictive behavior.  I discovered Dogen’s Moon In a Dewdrop in 1986.  I loved his enigmatic poetic sensibility & the density of his quicksilver references to primary texts:  he seemed to know everything by heart & not know it at the same time.  Subsequently, I read every sutra & Zen text I could get my hands on, over & over.  I named my two Siamese cats Bodhi & Dharma & found myself calling out “Bodhidharma” thousands of times over the next 20 years at the front door or back door, rain or shine.  Bodhidharma brought Zen to China, & I hoped he would bring it to me. Complex visualizations had started to lose their charm:  I wanted to simplify spiritual practice, & I gradually realized I needed a sangha to practice with.

Scott at Dogen's Tomb at Eihei-Ji, 2012

In 2011 as retirement loomed I got a research grant to visit sacred sites in Kyoto & Shikoku, including famous temple gardens.  I immersed myself in medieval Japanese culture & returned in 2012, tracing Basho’s actual route in The Narrow Road to the North & since then writing a daily waka as part of practice.  I hoped to stay on retreat at Eihei-ji, which required a formal Soto Zen affiliation, & with some help from the San Francisco Zen Center I found Shao Shan not more than an hour from home.  Bodhidharma was a neighbor.

I met with Taihaku, who urged me to come to Study Group before she would write a letter.  A few years after the Eihei-ji pilgrimage I started coming to temple programs more regularly with friends who carpooled in the Buddha Bus.  I loved vacuuming the zendo & sharing sangha meals. After Taihaku’s passing I volunteered to care for several rock gardens, & during that intensive work practice I sensed intuitively that I was ready to become a formal student.  Kenzan kindly accepted me, & I spent the first half of this year sewing my rakusu with Donna’s compassionate guidance.  In the middle of that process I found KuanYin in the basement in my mother’s sewing basket.  She lives next to Tara now in the big picture window.  At the recent Jukai ceremony Kenzan honored me with a new Dharma name:  HonChu, True Center, something to live up to which is already here, here & now.  Truly it has been a circuitous route, but I have finally come home. 

Blessings to you all for being here, too.

An Offering of Dirt - newsletter Dharma Talk

 

An Offering of Dirt

Dharma Talk by Rev. Kenzan Seidenberg

In a recent difficult situation, on pondering how I would want to handle it, I realized, ideally, I would want to offer the whole complicated situation up as an offering – simply, “whatever happens, may it be of benefit.”

There is a story of a teacher asking, “Which is more valuable, gold or dirt?”  Although perplexed at such a self-evident question, the student answered confidently, “Gold, of course!”  To which the teacher responded gently, “Not to a seed.”

We naturally judge and evaluate: “This is valuable,” “That is worthless,” or “This is important,” “That is unimportant.”  Society judges gold to be valuable since it is scarce and shiny, and dirt to be worthless, since it is abundant and dull.  Sometimes what we’ve got in our life seems like dirt.  Sometimes it may seem like dirt is all we have and all we are able to offer and it may seem not good enough.  And yet it may be exactly the right thing to offer.  It may be the nurturing ground for a sprouting seed.

Perhaps our life situation includes aspects we don’t want: confusing, chaotic, painful circumstances, our “dirt.”  When that’s what we’ve got, that’s what we have to offer.  How do we offer a situation?  One part of offering it might be to dedicate it: “May it be of benefit.” Perhaps another aspect of offering it would be to let go of our idea of how it should be.  What might be another way to offer our life?

In our current study of the Lotus Sutra, several times we’ve read things such as “They made innumerable offerings to countless buddhas.” It may seem as though this is referring to offering treasures, parasols, bubbles, and bells.  That may be, and when we have something we deem wonderful, let us offer that, too.  But likely it is also referring to the kind of offering we’re talking about here, offering this moment.

There is a legend that once when Shakyamuni Buddha was on alms round, he came upon children playing in the sand and one of the children innocently offered Buddha sand as “play food” into his alms bowl.  Although Ananda tried to stop the child, the Buddha accepted the gift of sand as sincerely given.  The child was giving what he had as an offering.

Someone asked the significance of the different little offerings on Rev. Taihaku’s altar.  It’s not so much the significance of the coffee and chocolate, blueberries, and cucumbers.  As with the temple lunch food offering, we take a small portion to give – offering the first bit of whatever we are having (not what is leftover or unwanted).  With sincerity, we give the offering of our attention to taking care.  For the kids in the Family Program, Noah summarizes what we do at Shao Shan Temple as, “We pay attention and we take care.” This is an excellent summation.  And when we do it, it is a marvelous offering.

Dogen Zenji said: “We give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Tathagata, and offer treasures accumulated in past lives to living beings. Whether our gifts are of the Dharma or of material objects, each gift is truly endowed with the virtue of offering, or dana.  . . .  In the giving the gift transforms the mind and the mind transforms the gift.”

Let us give the gift of our practice.  Whether we consider it “gold” or “dirt,” let us give the offering of this moment.

Zen Summer Camp! - newsletter article

Feature Article: Shao Shan Temple's "Zen Summer Camp"

By Noah Weinstein

This August a new program sprouted up at Shao Shan Temple. The program was originally conceived of as a  "Family-Friendly Practice Period."  Then the formal name became "Summer Practice Days (Family-Friendly)." But once it actually began it quickly took on the name "Zen Summer Camp." The Temple has offered a variety of family-friendly programs before, including the monthly Family Program and various annual celebrations, but this program was unique in providing an extended opportunity for children, caregivers, and adult sangha members to practice together over a period of three half-days. 

Each day of Zen Summer Camp began with a period of time for participants of all ages to gather in the zendo, where we shared our names and something interesting we've been noticing in nature. Rev. Kenzan then led the group in a brief meditation, often incorporating the ringing of the big bell. The children and Children's Program coordinators then left the zendo to participate in a variety of mindfulness and nature-based activities, while the adults remained in the zendo for meditation and discussions of various themes focused around practice in daily life. We then gathered back together as an entire community for the last portion of the program for more fun and learning. 

Throughout the Children's Program we returned to the themes of being present and taking care with each of the activities we did. The children spent much of Thursday morning exploring the woods and wetlands around the temple. We harvested mint from Laughing Brook (the stream between the temple and the Main House) to make mint iced tea for the whole community. We then entered the woods near Connie's Pond, where we made shelters of various sizes ranging from "mouse houses" to ones that might suit a fox, bear, or human. We snacked together with the adults, and then all proceeded back to Connie's Pond for a food offering walk. 

Finally, we all played "Meet a Tree," in which one partner was blindfolded while the other took care of that person, while leading them to a tree for them to get to know and eventually try to find once removing their blindfold.

Friday's Children's Program centered around art and science. Susan Calza offered a face-painting workshop with the children, exploring how we sometimes feel like we know who we are, and sometimes not so much. We also made nature journals, experimented with drawing with fresh, colorful flowers, and making leaf rubbings. After a snack the adults joined us to make glitter jars which can be used to represent the mind in its various states of swirling and settling. They also made little tornadoes inside when shaken, which was pretty cool. 

For Saturday's program the children's group traveled to the temple vegetable garden, where we harvested carrots and green beans to contribute to the community potluck lunch, as well as basil and Swiss chard to give away to program participants. In the garden we again reflected on the themes of taking care and being present, entering the garden gates with wonder and enthusiasm, as Rev. Taihaku so often reminded us all.

What participants said about the program....

The kids and I greatly enjoyed our morning at the temple. The kids had fun while the grownups meditated, received wisdom, and shared ideas. The best part was the "blindfolded find the tree game" for grownups and kids. Arlo really enjoyed trying to stump Rev. Kenzan!  Thanks to Rev. Kenzan, Noah and all.
-- Joe Golden

I found that it was especially useful for the young mothers and the older women who were sharing together. Both ages have specific stresses at these crucial and dynamic times in their lives. They were at very different stages in life and had much to offer each other in terms of support. The sharing was beautiful. Stella was wonderfully warm and tactful (as always). That put everyone at ease.                      -- Susan Calza

My favorite part was doing the leaf rubbings and making the glitter jar tornadoes.
 -- Izzy Weinstein, 5-years-old

I enjoyed the game that Noah taught us which was a variation on the familiar “rock, paper, scissors” game.  People started out as a seed and then became a sprout, flower, fruit, and then a seed again. To go from one to the other, you had to find another person who was in the same stage as you and do rock, paper, scissors with them. Whoever won that would move on to the next stage of seed, sprout, flower, fruit, seed. Then you would look for someone else in that same stage and repeat the game. It provided an opportunity to interact, briefly, with a lot of different people.
-- Priscilla Fox

My 5-year-old daughter and I attended the Summer Practice for all three days. We traveled from Virginia and the camp was totally worth it. Zen Camp was an amazing experience. Having a family practice gave a chance for all ages to be together in the temple at first, and then the kids going outdoors in the "Nature Club" proved to be a good structure. Our 5-year-old said, "I had a great time. I wish the Shao Shan Camp was everyday and didn't end!!" As an adult I benefited from the meditation practice and Dharma talk/discussion. I looked forward to Rev. Kenzan's guided meditation. Noah's group activities were fun and will stay with us even when we go back home. The kids loved visiting the garden and playing around in the woods. The potluck on the last day had delicious food. I'm grateful to all the hands that made the Zen Camp possible. Here is to hoping there will be many more.
-- Monika Gadre

 I found the guided meditation to be a great tune-up and the discussion on bringing your practice to work very interesting. The potluck was a nice opportunity to meet with people who were new to me in the sense of folks that have been practicing at the temple but I had only seen on Zoom. The informal atmosphere of the program and having kids involved was very sweet. I enjoyed hearing the yells and screams of the kids running outside while we meditated. It brought back many happy memories of the sounds of summer in my neighborhood when I was growing up. It was a nostalgic day in the most peaceful way.  As I would say as a kid, "Camp was swell!"
 -- Max Schlueter

Open House - August 21

 Shao Shan Temple hosted its 5th annual Open House on Sunday August 21st. 

This was an opportunity for people who practice here at Shao Shan Temple to invite family and friends to experience the temple on a more informal occasion.  Due to covid and other factors this was the first in-person Open House since 2019!   

The Open House included an introduction to the Temple and Zen Buddhism, a time for questions, an introduction to meditation, a tour of buildings& grounds, refreshments, and the option of hiking up to the mountain retreat.  Sangha representatives Stella, Julie, Max and Heather assisted and shared their experience of being part of Shao Shan Temple.

A warm welcome to all who came to visit the Temple for the first time on Sunday!

Summer Practice Days - August 4-6

A new program sprouted at Shao Shan Temple this past week!  The Summer Practice Days (quickly nicknamed "Zen Summer Camp") was a fun and inspirational time of practice for participants of all ages.

Most of our programs are either oriented towards families or towards adults.  This several day period, August 4-6, of Temple Practice allowed all of the community to come together.  The program included a combination of activities for adults and children separately, and activities for the whole Temple Community together. 

Adults had time for meditation, discussion on bringing practice into daily life, work practice and activities together with the children.

The children's activities were varied including a brief time each day inside the Temple, art projects, mindfulness games outside in nature and working in the garden.

The program closed with a potluck lunch.