Myoju

In 1980 I entered Eihieji, one of the two head Soto temples in Japan, and went through Tangaryo – an intense kind of probation or screening period for new monks. After that I was formally accepted into the training community and given a designated sitting place in the Sodo (monks hall). This happened to be in front of the teacher’s seat.

Aeroplanes, Temples and Trains; Reflections on Bodh Gaya; Our “Dream Temple”; New Education Courses; Letter from Daijoji, and more…

The Decade Ahead, Zen in South America, Ballarat Celebrates, The Pursuit of Happiness, and more…

If you think you have achieved progress in your practice, then you’re going to a different place, away from Zen. Where you are is exactly where you should be. No progress! We learn to return to the present, to this moment. We’re not going away from it…

I humbly present the following quotation from the first chapter of Shushogi to share with you. I am thinking that it may be time for us to reflect on the meaning of birth and death in light of the Zen Master’s teachings. My wish is that no matter how dark the world may become, there will always be the light of Buddhism for those who can find practice, and for all beings on this planet.

When one practices long enough, at some point everything feels alright. We then wonder why we need to bother to practice. It is a classic case of delusion.

This is the last Sunday Sanzenkai in March, it is approaching the change of the season heading toward autumn. This time of the year is always good, it feels settled. I was thinking that this time of year eight years ago the Jikishoan organization was created.

It’s good to come back to our Sunday Sanzenkai routine again and to find the time to sit and do simple things, to quiet our body and mind, particularly in December, which leads up to the holidays and Christmas.

Sometimes your reaction to a given stimuli may be positive and sometimes it is not. At that moment when we react there is often a state of confusion. However if we don’t fall into an immediate reaction and sit with that confusion a little bit, then usually a sense of clarity arises.

Within the Buddhist context, the term Dharma became specific, became, in a sense, associated with the fundamental question of how to perceive reality. Dharma is not about believing in something, it is about how you see reality unfold.

The symbolic meaning of the female Bodhisattva, Kuan Yin, who evolved as the Chinese Buddhist form of the male Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, manifests as two interrelated qualities. One meaning is about how we reflect on the sounds of the world. When we face the world, we cannot help but hear the sounds of the world, the cries of suffering and joy.

In April, the Jikishoan community was privileged to have a visit to Melbourne by Taiten Kaneda Roshi, friend and teacher of Ekai-san and renowned Zen master, from Tsudaiji Temple in Japan.

Some people may comment that the moon is present in all seasons, not only in autumn. The autumn moon, however, for Japanese people, has a specific meaning. In Japan, the climate is not like that here in Melbourne.

Today the topic of my talk is four seasons in practice. Practice, what kind of practice? We need to ask that question. If you can identify the practice as your meditation, then that’s fine. If you can identify the practice as taking care of daily life… that’s fine. If your practice is maintaining a good relationship with your husband or wife… that’s fine. You don’t need to define it so much – practice or life…that’s fine.

Our practice is to settle down in the midst of whatever happens. That is the first night watch. Until we learn to settle down, we cannot see things as they really are. Until we overcome our own desires, ‘I want’ or ‘I don’t want’, we cannot really receive the eyes to see things as they really are.

Buddha is supposed to have sat intensely under the Bodhi Tree for seven days. His enlightenment experience was on the seventh day and there is a story related to the night before – and the very early morning of – the seventh day of sitting. There was a process leading up to the point of Buddha’s enlightenment.

Welcome dragons and elephants. Dragons and elephants is a traditional Zen Expression, although he sometimes used the expression dragons and snakes instead.

‘Good time’ means that it is a good environment for practice – we have a very supportive environment to assist our body and mind to settle. Settling into a natural balance is a practice; it is the practice of returning. There are many ways to describe practice.

There is an expression sazen ichimi ‘Zen and tea have one taste’. This expression really shows the characteristics of Zen practice. If you think Zen practice is just meditiation, separate from whatever it is that you do then you are missing the entirety of Zen practice.

Our practice helps us to sit with our feelings, not to reject them. To achieve this we do not just maintain stillness – we need to sit in the stillness with our feelings. This kind of practice really develops strength. It develops the ability to suffer. It develops compassion.