Our Practice is for Life
A Lecture by Shohaku Okumura - August 11, 1996 - Conclusion

Uchiyama Roshi places great importance on practicing with one's sangha. In Opening the Hand of Thought, he says:
And to sustain your practice over time, it is invaluable to practice together with  others, that is, in a sangha. The sangha was originally the Buddhist monks and nuns living together, but now it has come to mean all those who practice the buddha-dharma, particularly in groups. Practicing in a sangha is difficult; you have to actually taste the pain and suffering that you encounter there. It's just as difficult for Japanese as for Americans or Europeans. Sometimes you feel you want to do this or that, or you want to quit the whole business, but you just have to keep plugging away.

    Practicing with other people in a sangha is important but very difficult. Each one of us has different ways of thinking and behaving. Whenever two or more people gather together, almost always there is some difficulty, conflict and separation. But these difficulties offer us precious opportunities to practice letting go of our thoughts and feelings.
    When I practice by myself, I can do whatever I want to do. No one can argue with me. I feel safe and comfortable. If I only practice in this way, I cannot free myself from my own system of values and my perception of the world.
    When I practice with others, my opinion might be negated or I might negate other people's opinions. Sometimes we have to let go of ourselves before we judge others. If we do not, others will do it for us. This is a very concrete way of letting go of ourselves. In our zazen, we let go of our thought, but in a social situation such as our practice within a sangha or working within a company, we have to practice letting go of each other. We have to listen to others who have different opinions. We have to find the best way as a community. That is, we have to become free of our own style or our own opinions. This is really difficult and yet very important practice.
    As a community, we need to agree on certain points that shape the purpose of the community. As a community of Buddhist practitioners, our purpose is to practice buddha-dharma together. All people need to agree on this point. Still, there are many different possibilities to practice buddha-dharma together. It is difficult to find the best way for this particular group. Especially when there is no teacher with authority to decide how the group will practice.
    In Japan I practiced in a monastery where people live together 24 hours a day. It was difficult for me. I liked to be alone. In such a situation, there was no place to escape. Even when we slept, we each had a roommate. There was no privacy at all. In a sangha of lay people, you don't need to live together 24 hours a day. If you don't want to practice or don't want to see others, you don't need to come to sit. But it is still difficult to practice with others.
    Since we don't share our whole lives, we communicate through discussion. When we share everything, we can communicate without discussion. We know how this person behaves even if this person has a different personality. We have an intimate relationship with this person, like we have with members of our own families. When we don't have an intimate relationship, we communicate using language, through discussion. In that case, the person becomes his or her opinion. It is hard to negate an actual person, but easier to negate an opinion. And when we only communicate with words or through discussion, the person is the person's opinion, instead of an actual living person. Then, if we don't agree with the opinion, we separate ourselves from the person.
    It's easier to understand when we compare a sangha with a family. Family members have different opinions but they have an intimate personal relationship. As a lay sangha, we must be concerned about building relationships that go deeper than our opinions. We have to find ways to go beyond the miscommunications that arise and separate us. Somehow we have to overcome this problem as a sangha.
    The only way to get through the difficulty is to let go of thought and try to see the reality before our opinion is formed. Letting go doesn't mean we just keep silent. We should say what we think, yet we must remain flexible and listen to the other's point of view. This is how our zazen practice works in our daily lives. We should always remember that the purpose of the sangha is to enable us to practice zazen together. When we are clear on this point we will be able to share the same ground together.
    Uchiyama's last words on this subject are:

We just continue to practice, aiming to live a true way of life as best we can, neither worrying nor gauging what we are doing. In that environment the sweet persimmon branch will flourish naturally.

    To create this kind of environment, we don't worry too much about what we should be or what we should do. We just practice. We just keep practicing, just keep sitting. We cannot measure how much we accomplish because practice-enlightenment has infinite depth. No matter how deep we go, when we compare our depth with the infinite, our depth is zero. We don't need to compare how much more we sit than others because these kinds of comparisons change the sangha into a place of competition. A sangha then becomes a hierarchical society.
    We face the infinite depth that is Buddhahood. We just keep making the effort to deepen our practice bit by bit in the direction of Buddhahood. This practice enables us to awake to the reality of our life. Shikantaza means just sitting without evaluation or measurement. That is what Dogen Zenji meant when he said that practice and enlightenment are one. None of us can measure our practice or another's practice, but we are measured by the infinite depth of the Buddhahood. In doing so, we awake to the incompleteness of ourselves. We just keep sitting with this attitude. This practice of letting go creates the environment, Uchiyama Roshi said, where the sweet persimmon can grow.
    I really appreciate your practice. This is a young sangha and it is still small. I like this group because it is young and small. We have a long way to go to deepen practice but there is no need to desire to make the group big. Please just keep practicing letting go and enjoy your practice with others in peace and harmony. That is the purpose of this community. As long as we value letting go and just practicing, we can go through difficulties. If we forget this, a sangha becomes a collection of individual people who are strangers to each other. Then the sangha will separate and disappear. The most important point is to keep practicing letting go by sharing the practice of zazen.

How We Can Help
by Neal Griebling

This past October I sat sesshin at Tassajara, the training monastery of the San Francisco Zen Center. Shohaku Okumura was one of seven prominent teachers invited to lecture there during the seven-day retreat. I served as his attendant. The format was such that each teacher held dokusan, or private interviews, after the lecture for those attending the sesshin. Most of those attending were priests of long-standing or were to be ordained in the near future. I was struck by how many of the participants (including the featured speakers) spoke of their deep respect for Shohaku and asked to have dokusan with him. They clearly recognized his attainment and hoped to learn from him.
    Many of these same people knew of Shohaku's vision of his own practice environment, which he calls Sanshin Zen Community and which was described in the last issue of our newsletter. They wanted me to tell him they were prepared to take up their belongings and move to wherever he settled so they might study and practice with him.
    At present Shohaku is Director of the Soto Zen Education Center, an organization established by the Soto School of Japan in the United States (currently in Los Angeles) to serve as a bridge between the Soto School and Zen centers throughout North America. Shohaku was the perfect choice to deepen relations between Japanese and American practitioners. He agreed to serve in this position for five years and currently has about three and a half years left of this commitment. Afterwards Shohaku hopes to establish and lead Sanshin Zen Community.
    While Shohaku has numerous friends and students in the United States, they are scattered throughout the country. It has been extremely difficult to collect and distribute resources on behalf of Sanshin. Accordingly, Shohaku's vision has remained largely a dream, without flesh-and-blood substance. That's about to change and Stillpoint's Board of Directors has pledged our sangha will help him transform vision into reality.
    This November Stillpoint and Sanshin Zen Community will co-sponsor a series of events designed to generate interest in and build support for Shohaku's vision. He has chosen Stillpoint as the first Zen center to launch this initiative. During a two-week time frame, Stillpoint will host a weekend sesshin, a translation workshop featuring the poems of Dogen or Ryokan, a public lecture, and an introduction to zazen. We will publicize these events widely and expect Zen students and teachers from throughout the country to join and practice with us.
    It is somehow fitting Stillpoint should be involved with this effort. During his association with us, Shohaku has established a deep and abiding relationship with our community. Many of our members consider him their personal teacher. He has given us much and seldom asked us for anything. We now have the opportunity to respond to his compassion and his teaching by demonstrating our commitment to transforming his dream into reality and embedding Sanshin Zen Community within the fabric of American Zen practice. It is my hope you will reflect deeply on this matter and consider offering your time, energy and support in the months and years to come.
    Nine bows.

Sangha News and Upcoming Events

Rev. Shohaku Okumura will lead two weekend retreats at Stillpoint in 1999. The first will be held April 9-11 and the second November 12-14. Rev. Teijo Munnich, a dharma successor of Katagiri Roshi and who assisted Rev. Okumura during last year's Jukai ceremony, will lead the sangha's summer retreat, June 25 - 27. Early reservations for the April and June retreats are encouraged.
    The November retreat will be part of a series of events Stillpoint is co-sponsoring with Sanshin Zen Community, the unique practice organization Shohaku Okumura is developing to disseminate the teaching of Dogen Zenji and that of his lineage teachers, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and Kodo Sawaki Roshi. Stillpoint's role in support of Sanshin Zen Community is discussed more fully elsewhere in this issue.
    Board member Hank Walshak resigned his position in February, 1999. The Stillpoint Board of Directors and membership thank Hank for his contributions and service. Hank played a key role in drafting the organization's bylaws.
    Stillpoint held its annual sangha meeting March 14, 1999. The community elected a slate of three members to serve on the Stillpoint Board of Directors. Each will serve for a period of two years. New directors include Barbara Lebeau, Adrian McCoy, and Mike Usman. The Board reported on actions taken during the past year and charted new directions for 1999. Members offered many suggestions that will be incorporated into our community practice.
    The Board of Directors now totals 11 members:

Neal Griebling, President Tim Kennedy, Vice President
Pam Bram, Secretary  Beverly Griebling, Treasurer
Catherine Gammon  Jay Hershey
Barbara Lebeau   Angus MacDonald, III
Adrian McCoy   Don Orr
Mike Usman

    Rev. Mike Shu Ho Bonasso, a priest in the Pure Land and Chan traditions of Buddhism, gave a lecture at the Stillpoint zendo Saturday, January 22, 1999. He spoke on the origination of and the relationships between traditional Pure Land Buddhism, Chan Buddhism, and their subsequent manifestation in Japan as Shin Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. Rev. Bonasso leads the Cloud Water Zendo in Cleveland, Ohio. His gift to Stillpoint of a brass incense holder now graces one of the alcoves in our zendo.
    Those attending our regular Sunday morning sitting have begun sharing a light meal and some social time following the close of the sitting. Participants rotate bringing something to eat and share food, coffee and tea with one another. What began as an occasional event now seems a regular part of Sunday morning activities. Participants are also considering convening occasionally at local coffee shops for brunch, as an alternative to the Sunday morning zendo meals.
    Deep gassho to Catherine Gammon for her gift of a framed lineage chart of Zen teachers from Shakyamuni Buddha to present times; to Don Orr for a framed print of a Buddha head; to Georgia Schneider for her generous financial support; and to Mike Usman for his donation of Zen and the Human Brain by James Austin, MD, to the zendo library and for making a Japanese style table which has been appropriated for zendo meals.

An Evening with Beth Goldring at Stillpoint

Wednesday, October 27, 1999
 6:30  Zazen; sitting meditation
 7:00  Kinhin; walking meditation
 7:10  Zazen
 8:00  PROGRAM: The Nature of Compassion

Why is Avalokitesvara/Kanzeon often depicted as having a thousand eyes and a thousand arms?

There is suffering everywhere. In each moment, Avalokitesvara grows an eye to see it and an arm to reach out. What does this mean? What is the nature of compassion with regard to both emptiness and practice?
 

Beth Goldring is a 20-year practitioner of Zen Buddhism. A student of Maurine Stuart, she was ordained at Empty Hand Zendo in Maurine's name in 1995. Having been a human rights worker in the Middle East and Cambodia for many years, she is currently working in Cambodia on spiritual care for those dying of AIDS.

Please plan to arrive ten minutes before the meditation period if you will be joining in that part of the evening. A brief orientation in sitting and walking meditation will be provided at 5:45 for those who have little or no experience in Zen practice.

Donations welcome. All funds contributed this evening will be used to support Beth's work among the poor in Cambodia.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 412-431-8016

Fukanzazengi
by Eihei Dogen

The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for man's concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?
    And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion. Suppose one gains pride of understanding and inflates one's own enlightenment, glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the Way and clarifying the Mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. One is making the initial, partial excursions about the frontiers but is still somewhat deficient in the vital Way of total emancipation.
    Need I mention the Buddha, who was possessed of inborn knowledge? The influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Or Bodhidharma's transmission of the mind-seal? The fame of his nine years of wall-sitting is celebrated to this day. Since this was the case with the saints of old, how can we today dispense with negotiation of the Way?
    You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.
    For sanzen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros or cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. Sanzen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down.
    At the site of your regular sitting, spread out thick matting and place a cushion above it. Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position. In the full-lotus position, you first place your right foot on your left thigh and your left foot on your right thigh. In the half-lotus, you simply press you left foot against your right thigh. You should have your robes and belt loosely bound and arranged in order. Then place your right hand on your left leg and your left palm [facing upwards] on your right palm, thumb-tips touching. Thus sit upright in correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward or backward. Be sure your ears are on a plane with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. Place your tongue against the front roof of your mouth, with teeth and lips both shut. Your eyes should always remain open, and you should breathe gently through your nose.
    Once you have adjusted your posture, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale, rock your body right and left and settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of zazen.
    The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, your are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when he enters the mountain. For you must know that just there [in zazen] the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.
    When you arise from sitting, move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Do not rise suddenly or abruptly. In surveying the past, we find that transcendence of both unenlightenment and enlightenment, and dying while either sitting or standing, have all depended entirely on the strength [of zazen].
    In addition, the bringing about of enlightenment by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and the effecting of realization with the aid of a hossu, a fist, a staff, or a shout, cannot be fully understood by discriminative thinking. Indeed, it cannot be fully known by the practicing or realizing of supernatural powers, either. It must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing-is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perception?
    This being the case, intelligence or lack of it does not matter; between the dull and the sharp-witted there is no distinction. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the Way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward [in practice] is a matter of everydayness.
    In general, this world, and other worlds as well, both in India and China, equally hold the Buddha-seal, and over all prevails the character of this school, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting. Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way solely in zazen. Why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep, you go astray from the Way directly before you.
    You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your time in vain. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha Way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning - emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.
    Please honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not be suspicious of the true dragon. Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. Revere the person of complete attainment who is beyond all human agency. Gain accord with the enlightenment of the buddhas; succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestors' samadhi. Constantly perform in such a manner and you are assured of being a person such as they. Your treasure-store will open of itself, and you will use it at will.