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On Friday evening, September 23rd, an intimate group gathered to commemorate Peace Day and the Autumn Equinox, with a ceremonial fire, incense purification, chanting and readings. The Peace Pole (donated by Japanese monk, Shinjo, in 2013)and surrounding garden were specially decorated with lights and peace cranes for the occasion. The program extended the wish for world peace at this seasonal time of balance between dark and light.
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An important additional aspect of this year's Anniversary Ceremony was honoring Shao Shan Temple's beloved founding abbot - Taihaku Nishiren Diaosho - who created, envisioned and manifested this beautiful place of practice.
We were honored this year to also have the Stuart of the Burlington Taiko Drummers. The Taiko Drummers performed as part of the Opening Ceremony in year 2000 and Taihaku-Roshi had often spoken of wanting to invite them back for a major Anniversary. The drumming perfectly expressed the resolve of intention, the ongoing connection and the prayerful celebration.
The ceremony was followed by a festive social-refreshments time.
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Meditation prior to ceremony
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| Offering incense at the Taihaku-Roshi altar |
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| Ringing the outside bell for "Ji Ho San Shi..." |
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| Tying Intention ribbons |
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| Taiko Drum Performance! |
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.
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| 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
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.
