Fall schedule at Bird Haven Zendo and Manzoku-an Hermitary

 Let us know of errors, omissions and details as needed, and we will follow up. 🙏

Sept. 1     Manzoku-an morning service and zazenkai, 10-11 a.m. Pacific time Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays on Zoom. Two periods of twenty minute zazen. This schedule through December 8th.

Sept. 4   Friday morning zazenkai at 8:30-10:30 a.m. approx. Pacific time, on Zoom. Weekly thereafter.

Sept. 7   Monday afternoon zazenkai at 3:00-5:00 p.m. approx. Pacific time on the Zoom. Weekly thereafter.

Sept. 20 Avowal of karma and renewal of vows. September 20, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Pacific time, on Zoom.

Nov. 26 A reading of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on Zoom.

Nov. 30 Manzoku-an Ecotonglen and 108 Bells for Lost Species event at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on Zoom.

Dec. 8   Manzoku-an Rohatsu sesshin from 10 am. Pacific time, on Zoom, with a service and three  periods of twenty minute zazen, ending with a recitation of the Fukanzazengi. 

You may generally find out about or join with a Zoom event directly from the calendar. 

Soto Zen Sangha of Florence

Sept. 7 12:30 PM Pacific time, and Mondays thereafter. Hybrid session: at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, at the intersection of 19th and Tamarack Streets, or one may attend via SZSF's Zoom. 

Berkeley Zen Center

Our parent sangha has many hybrid attendance opportunities.
 https://berkeleyzencenter.org/

 

 

 

Let's heat up some water

 Stonehouse says:

The whole Buddhist Canon 
is worthless old paper 
seventeen hundred tangled vines
who can see through the mess
one thought is still too many (tr. Red Pine)

Finally it rains, and I sit staring out the kitchen window past the sunflowers and sunchokes to the chopped and dropped Deer Garden, tomatoes and corn (not much of either) gathered, hoses and shades put away, listening idly to the rain barrels filling. Having done the things, I'm caught between the Zoom zendo and the neighborhood walk, a fly in amber, a slow brain complemented by slow moment. There's not enough motivation in this moment to move tea things around on the table and convince myself I'm doing. A crow on top of the neighbor's ash tree seems to agree, hardly bothering to swivel its wet head and inspect its retinas for signs of an approaching hawk. Do soaked crows shrug?

We've been talking a lot around here about "entangling vines," those tendrils of the world reaching out to curl round our ankles and demand of us the tribute of at least aversion if not attachment. If we are to have no preferences, why not let the hawk have us? Why struggle to live? Or, perhaps less momentously, why get up, dress, come to the hut, make tea, wake the Mac mini, say the Robe Verse, put on the rakusu, log in, and begin Morning Service?

Well, if it seems to us like Right Action, we pull ourselves together and do it.

The morning after Philip Kapleau and Professor Phillips arrived at Ryutakuji Monastery they were given a tour of the place by Abbot Soen Nakagawa. Both Americans had been heavily influenced by tales of ancient Chinese masters who’d destroyed sacred texts, and even images of the Buddha, in order to free themselves from attachment to anything. They were thus surprised and disturbed to find themselves being led into a ceremonial hall, where the Roshi invited them to pay respects to a statue of the temple’s founder, Hakuin Zenji, by bowing and offering incense.

On seeing Nakagawa bow before the image, Phillips couldn’t contain himself, and burst out: “The old Chinese masters burned or spit on Buddha statues! Why do you bow down before them?”

“If you want to spit, you spit,” replied the Roshi. “I prefer to bow.”

-- One Bird One Stone: 108 American Zen Stories, Sean Murphy

That sure is a lot of rain. Maybe I'm done pushing around the tea things. Let's heat up some water!