Frequently Asked Questions (More of a site map really)
What is Manzoku-an?
- Physically, it's a converted former utility shed at the back end of an urban driveway in Eugene, Oregon. It's nine feet by thirteen, and the roof leaks. It's effectively a part-time hermitary.
- Digitally, it's a Zoom room where a few Soto Zen Buddhists meet five days a week.
- Also it's a Blogger blog [information about Blogger] serving as a web site to support the activities in the Zoom room.
- Its name means, roughly, "enough" in Japanese. I'm told it can also mean "overfed." Okay, that works too.
How do I navigate the site?
We get asked this because apparently many people don't intuitively navigate Blogger blogs any more; the software is a legacy from a time before most switched to, or only have ever used, phone apps.
Most of what you will need is provided by the menu bar at the top of every page, beneath the title header and subtitle line. Here are the current menu items:
- "Home", when clicked, takes you to a page that considers itself the "home page" of the site. It contains a few basic links such as to the calendar and some information about shonin, the resident nun. Using this page as "home" is a bit of a kludge; if you click the header (or footer --the word "home" at the bottom) you'll return to the top of the blog, not the home page (can't fix this).
- "Blog" points to the reverse-chronological posts (dated pages) that make up most of the site. There are more than 300 of these. When a new one is published, it appears at the top of the column. These are navigable by scrolling, clicking on keywords (listed at bottom right of the column, by archive date, month or year (listed at bottom left of the column), or by means of the search form at upper left. These means of searching apply to the blog but not to the pages (all of which may be found in the menu).
- "Morning Service" is the script page for the Manzoku-an Morning Service and Zazenkai, currently a one-hour event at 10 a.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, on Zoom. This supplements Bird Haven Zendo's Zazenkai which occur on Mondays and Tuesdays, also on Zoom. This schedule supplies publicly available Buddhist services (simplified), with zazen, five days a week.
- "Calendar" links to a copyable Google calendar for Manzoku-an, and includes Bird Haven Zendo events and events of Soto Zen Sangha of Florence (Oregon). It also provides courtesy links to the calendars of Berkeley Zen Center (Manzoku-an's grandparent sangha) and Treeleaf Zendo (we're friends).
- "Zoom Zendo" links to a simple page containing the "Enter the Zendo" button and a bit about Zoom zendo etiquette.
- "Bird Haven Zendo" links to the home page (very much like that of Manzoku-an) of Bird Haven Zendo, a former brick-and-mortar zendo which was located in the vicinity of Cheshire, Oregon. Since March, 2020, the sangha has met almost exclusively online. Bird Haven Zendo is the parent sangha of Manzoku-an.
- "FAQ" links to the present page.
- "Contact" links as a mailto to the email of rev. shonin risa bear, resident nun at Manzoku-an, also a Bird Haven Zendo priest.
How does the calendar work?
- Click on "schedule" at upper right of the table to see weekly or monthly calendars.
- Click on any entry to see information about that entry's event. Example:
Why are there over 300 posts, going back all the way to 2008?
The blogista has chosen to treat this site both as a Buddhist hermitary blog and a personal blog. She's packed the "back rooms" with her books and poetry and things, back dated. It contains:
- A linkroll page, called Information for Ecohealers.
- The Buddhist memoir In Place, in chapters, with additional chapters added since the print edition. Begins here, in reverse chronological order (blog order).
- The booklet Buddhism and Permaculture, in chapters. Begins here.
- The homesteading memoir Viewing Jasper Mountain, in chapters. Begins here.
- Almost all the poems from the books Desire for the Land, Lettuce in Winter, What To Do About Trees, and Collected Poems, beginning here.
- The 1970s treeplanter's memoir Iron Buddhas, in chapters. Begins here.
- The dystopian cli-fi trilogy Starvation Ridge, in chapters. Begins here.
- shonin's dad's letter to the world, A society that has no public spirit is poor.
All these are easily navigable from the archive (lower left) or the index (lower right) on every page.
-- shonin