Senses & Strawberries! - June family program

For June's Family Program, we celebrated the abundance of nature and the vibrancy of our senses. We delighted to be inside the Temple as a Family Program for the first time in over two years! 

We shared things that we have been noticing about the natural world, such as the peonies and showy lady slippers, the abundance of light, the delectable wild strawberries, and the singing of the birds. Children then had the opportunity to ring the big Temple bell, and we all quietly listened as we felt its vibration in our bodies. 

Parents then had the opportunity to sit meditation inside the Temple. As outside, children experimented with our animal senses - deer and rabbit ears, owl and eagle eyes, bear and dog smell, mole and raccoon touch, and groundhog and human taste. We used all of our senses to forage for sweet wild strawberries around the Temple grounds and appreciated them with gratitude, along with a delicious snack in the screen house.

Stories from Rev. Taihaku’s Life 2 - newsletter article

 

Stories from Rev. Taihaku's Life 

as Remembered by Rev. Kenzan

Taihaku in front of Hokyoji Monastery (2017)

Taihaku would tell stories of her time at Hokyoji Monastery (between 1998 and 2004).  As the only foreigner and the only woman, her time there was often difficult. In addition to being sustained by the practice, she was also sustained by a very strong sense of connection with Jakuen Zenji. Jakuen Zenji was the founder of Hokyoji, 700 years ago, after having come over to Japan with Dogen from China (i.e. he was also a foreigner). That is where the number came from for the Shao Shan Temple’s “700 Year Plan.” Not that much is known about Jakuen Zenji. He is said to have sat meditation for 18 years on a rock in the mountains up above Hokyoji. Taihaku liked to say that the view from the White Jewel Mountain Retreat here at Shao Shan Temple is like a small version of the view from Jakuen Zenji’s zazen stone, “a gift from the ancestors.”  A painting of Jakuen Zenji is one of the pictures on Taihaku’s altar in the small room off the Zendo.

Taihaku would go over to Japan for an Ango (three-month practice period) at Hokyoji Monastery and then come back to the US for three months and then go back over to Japan. She said that it was important to come back to the US to integrate. I first started coming during this time. She would shut the Temple down when she went to Japan. The grass would grow waist high.

Hokyoji was a place of high energy. Taihaku told how she got to know the owner of the fire alarm company because the fire alarms kept going off from the psychic energy. It is the owner of the fire alarm company (a dedicated lay practitioner) who donated Shao Shan Temple’s big bell with the wonderful resonance.

At Hokyoji the temperatures could be extreme. In the summer it would be very hot with high humidity and in the winter it would be freezing cold. The walls and floors were thin and uninsulated, and the cold wind blew right in. It was so cold that with the long hours of meditating in the freezing temperatures with shaved heads, Taihaku began to have piercing headaches. She finally went to Dochosan near tears from the pain and asked whether it would be possible to wear a hat. Dochosan replied that she could, as long as she also made one for him and for the Buddha.  So she knit a hat for the buddha statue and for Dochosan and for herself.

She told how in her relationship with Dochosan, due to language and cultural differences, there would be painful misunderstandings and confusion, but then there would also be times where they would exactly meet – crystal clear - in the Dharma (“two arrows meeting in mid-air”).

Taihaku(front center) Shuso Ceremony at Hokyoji 2002

Dochosan could sometimes be severe and formidable, but one of Taihaku’s favorite stories highlighted his other side. One time there was a cat that had made its home in the ceiling of the monastery.  The ceilings were also thin and one day the cat fell through the ceiling – with its kittens – into Dochosan’s room.  Dochosan called to Taihaku who was nearby and together laughing they scrambled about trying to round up runaway kittens.

Entertainment in the monastery would come from natural sources, like kittens and birds.  In warmer weather, the big sliding doors would be left open during the day and birds and butterflies would freely fly in and out.  One time a pair of swallows made their nest in the rafters of the main hall (Hondo).  The monks would see/hear as the baby birds got bigger and bigger.  Taihaku told how she was able to watch when one day the parents coaxed the biggest baby bird into its first flight.  One parent bird perched on a distant rafter calling for it to come.  As soon as the little one flew its first flight over to the one parent, the other parent bird perched on a rafter on the other side of the hall calling to it to come, to do it again.  Back and forth, this one fledgling bird went, practicing flying back and forth, all day long, as the remaining babies watched from the nest.  The next day, all of the birds flew off including all the little ones that had not flown at all before.  Taihaku would sometimes bring up this story as an example.  We can learn from the experiences of others.  Even though no one else can fly for us, we can learn from their flights.

Taihaku, Dochosan and Stella sitting on Jakuen's Meditation Rock (2017)

In Memory of Shinkai Yoitsu Daiosho - newsletter article

 

Memories of Shinkai Yoitsu Daiosho

Introduction

by Rev. Kenzan Seidenberg

Shinkai Tanaka Roshi, “Shinkai Yoitsu Daiosho,” Taihaku’s teacher, entered final nirvana on February 21, 2022. He had been a well-respected Zen Master in Japan with a powerful presence. Most of us at Shao Shan Temple knew him as “Dochosan” from Taihaku’s stories of him. (Dochosan means "Beloved Abbot.”) He was cared for by his students following a severe stroke in 2018 and passed away at age 83. When Taihaku visited him for the last time in 2019, she told that when he was asked about what was the most significant experience in his life, Dochosan responded: “The most significant experience in my life was meeting my teacher. If I had not met my teacher, this would not have happened” (indicating Taihaku and himself). Thanks to Dochosan meeting his teacher, Taihaku met Dochosan and it is thanks to that that Shao Shan Temple is what it is today.  With deep gratitude to the lineage that has provided us with this tradition and these teachings.

Prior to his stroke, he was Abbot of Hokyoji Monastery in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, for several decades. Hokyoji is where Taihaku did her priest training for several years (and Kenzan trained there for a couple months). Taihaku told how when Dochosan became Abbot of Hokyoji it was like a whirlpool of energy that attracted sincere dedicated students to the monastery to be his students and to train there. Before Hokyoji, he was at Saikoji, a small Soto Zen Temple in Kyoto. It was there that Taihaku met him for the first time and there that Deb Burke met him.

 

My Memories of Dochosan

By Deb Burke

Kenzan asked me to share some memories of Taihaku’s teacher, Shinkai Tanaka Roshi, since few in
the sangha had known him personally. Perhaps, though, you do know him or the feeling of being with him. There would be a warm glow in the room and a sense of peace, contentment, and harmony, like a seabird bobbing on the wake of a calm sunlit ocean. Conversation would be generous and respectful while everyone shared the oneness of moments together.

In 1978 I arrived at Dochosan’s temple, disillusioned by the emptiness of happily ever after childhood dreams. Dochosan asked me to write why I had come and had another young visitor translate what I’d said. It was a difficult task entailing back and forth communication to suss out my meaning. Dochosan was waiting for a formal meeting in another room and began calling for me to come. We were almost finished with the translation and basically ignored him, frantically working out the details amidst his growingly impatient shouts. Finished at last, I rushed into the room like a freight train barreling down a mountain. He met me with equal force, commanding me to kneel and bow to the floor before I entered the room. He taught me to surrender. How nice it is to surrender the noise inside our heads to the peace and harmony within.

When you come to a foreign country, you are like a child learning the customs of the culture: how to say please and thank you, how to eat, how to bathe, how to say good morning and good night. Even more so in a temple with all the rituals of daily life. So, although I was 21 years old, I was a toddler in many ways. I trusted Dochosan as my father with all my heart. I remember seeing him leave with some people in a car. I ran up towards him shouting, “Dochosan, where are you going?” like any four-year-old would do. He spoke to the people briefly and the next thing I knew I was traveling with him to a hot-spring resort and wonderful meal for the night.

Dochosan was particular about details. He asked someone to teach me how to sit Zazen. I remember him calling out to him, “I told you to teach her to sit,” and the translator replied, “I did.” Dochosan asked, “Then why isn’t she doing it?” He got me straightened out.

He was also fun. After the hard work of weeklong Sesshins (multi-day meditation retreats) each month we would have a party to relax. It felt like you could continue the practice as the constraints of temple life were not so far from what we’d known.

How did we communicate all the things we did with his limited English and my poor Japanese? It didn’t seem to matter. Some of the things he said still resonate to this day. Before our first Sesshin together he directed, “No miracles; look what happened to Jesus.” When we all took an outing together and a Japanese woman was curious about the foreigner in his company, he said with a big warm spirited smile, “Isn’t it something that foreigners are following our traditions, and Japanese people have forgotten them?” I didn’t get the full meaning of his comment until I saw her embarrassment on behalf of all Japanese non-practitioners. When he was making a point about attachment, he described me as spaghetti, connecting every which way. When I wanted to drop out of college because it was meaningless, he said, “It is meaningless, but you have to do it anyway. Write about us,” and so I graduated college and learned to live in this world.

I remember once when we were chatting in the sitting room before evening meditation. A moth batted in against the light creating quite a commotion. Dochosan happened to walk by and asked what was the matter. He had us turn out the light inside and turn on the light outside. The moth fluttered out and peace returned as a lesson in working with nature.

Sometimes he would just show me, asking me to follow him in kinhin around the temple hall during a Sesshin or sitting with us all in meditation and guiding us along the way through the unbearable resistance of our minds to a place of indescribable peace.

As much as I never wanted to leave there came a time when to Dochosan’s great relief, I decided to go home. I remember him saying, “You wouldn’t fit in as a nun.” That’s when he mentioned that he was coming to the United States and introduced me to Gretchen (Rev. Taihaku before her formal training). Over time I thought that he cared about me less because I wasn’t a monk. It wasn’t until I described Dochosan to my son that I was moved to tears by the incredible gift he’d given me. Besides taking me in all those years ago and guiding me towards awakening, he just happened to come to America when I was about to fall off the rails in my marriage.

The first day of that Sesshin with him at Shao Shan Temple, I had this notion to walk the couple miles in the predawn darkness to the temple. It was scarier than I expected and took longer than I thought. I was late for the early morning meditation, so I sat outside the temple doors. During kinhin Dochosan spotted me and directed me to sit beside him during meditation.  When the Sesshin ended, he looked at me and said, “You look better now.” Twenty years or so later, I haven’t fallen off the rails yet. Perhaps I’ll find my way to carry on without creating the karmas that trap us in the cycle of birth and rebirth, thanks to him. Or, perhaps he’ll guide me once again if I forget.

All these kindnesses from one who asked nothing in return: no conversion or no money. This is Dochosan to me: boundless and selfless love.

Rev. Taihaku - One Year Memorial

Altar in Cemetery

Processing slowly up to the Cemetery while chanting the Dharma lineage with each step.

Sunday, May 22nd, Shao Shan Temple honored our beloved founding abbot, Taihaku Nishiren Daiosho with a One-year Remembrance Ceremony.  A facet of the ceremony was the interment of her cremated remains in the Shao Shan Temple Cemetery.  Despite humidity, black flies and impending thunderstorms, people gathered, veiled by nets and masks, to remember Rev. Taihaku's dedication, laughter and caring.  With a gentle breeze the light and shadows danced through the spring green leaves and a raven circled overhead accompanying the closing chant.

Chanting "Kanzeon" in the Cemetery

Interment

Taihaku's memorial quartz rock in the background
with the azalea that began blooming that day

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, abiding in all directions

Endowed with great compassion, Endowed with great wisdom, Endowed with great love,

Extending protection to myriads of sentient beings, Accept our offerings of heart and mind.  

Dharma ancestors, Great Compassionate ones, possessing powers of divine deeds and protecting in incomprehensible ways; 

Our beloved founding abbot, Taihaku Nishiren Priest, has departed from this world and has absorbed into the ineffable. 

She has taken the Great Leap.

Completely supported in the embrace of Great Universal goodness, she is protected by all compassionate ones.

Within the vast luminous silence, she is at home within the great ocean of light, beyond the portals of birth and death.

Trusting in our ancient vows, she has pierced through the veil and become one with the boundless light.

May Universal Brilliance Prevail. 

 

Buddha's Birthday Celebration!

 

On a perfect weather spring day, Sunday, May 1, 

Shao Shan Temple celebrated Buddha’s birthday! 

IN-PERSON

In the afternoon, a festive celebration was held outside under crystal blue skies - the first in-person Buddha's Birthday in several years. 

An enthusiastic group gathered including many children. 

All nature seemed to celebrate the occasion, with woodpeckers echoing the Han and an eagle circling overhead. 

Participants were invited to join in a noble procession carrying parasols, walking sticks decorated with colored streamers, bubble wands and little bells. The procession was accompanied by bells, drums, and a conch. 

 Everyone had the opportunity to ladle sweet tea over a statue of the baby Buddha. 

The ceremony was followed by a delicious potluck of savory and sweet treats. During refreshments, Franklin treated everyone to a few tunes on his fiddle – a sprightly end to a joyous occasion!

ONLINE

To make the celebration more accessible, there was also an online morning program with participants joining from as far away as India! 

 During the morning program, after Rev. Kenzan’s welcome and opening blessing, 

Heather read a story of Buddha’s birth while showing illustrations. 

There was a camera close-up of ladling sweet tea over a statue of the baby Buddha accompanied by a Baika song (a Japanese Buddhist Hymn). 

Members of the sangha were also invited to make a virtual offering to the baby Buddha - these included beautiful spring flowers and fruit.