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!

-- shonin

Bodhisatttva activity

 

The sangha's current assigned reading includes Living by Vow by Shohaku Okamura. It's an exegesis of some of the chants used in Western zendos. He addresses the concerns of those, especially newcomers, grappling with what seems to be an inordinate amount of ritual in Zen ("I thought this was going to be liberating").

His choice of a key word is "vow," which he explains is not a complete translation of the Chinese and Japanese word(s), which connote something more like "resolve." "I resolve to ...." One does not fail if one does not achieve 100% of what has been undertaken, or perhaps even if one does not achieve any of it. Scale and certainty are perhaps less important in Mahayana Buddhism than sincerity and a willingness to try things.

The activities that are recommended to try are simple enough: "do not do bad things; do good things; serve all beings." What's emphasized there is not personal "salvation" but service to the community. Ultimately the community is everyone ("all beings"); but a sangha comes together to practice service. Student barbers practice on one another for a reason. 

To light the candles on the altar in a prescribed manner brings some order out of chaos and provides an opportunity for a kind of gracious mindfulness, but also for offering the gift of light. As we learn to work within the rules of our practice, we free ourselves up to concentrate on the contentless content of our practice -- the place where freedom begins to emerge without an overdose of self-regard.

Ritual is everywhere, I think. Aside from being a Zen nun I'm also a member of the Society of Friends, North Pacific Yearly Meeting affiliated. This flavor of Quakerism has no liturgy, no creed, and no professional clergy. Yet when one comes to Meeting for Worship, one knows what to expect -- greet the greeter, walk slowly in, settle down in the silence, wait in silence for an hour together, listen to any testimony that arises. The clerk or an appointed closer says "good morning, Friends" and shakes hands with those nearby, the handshake spreads round the room, and there are announcements. All this is nothing if not ritualistic, yet it clearly expedites the central concern -- the sitting together in worshipful silence, from which springs the Meeting's service to the wider community.

At the moment, this is taking place virtually, in online Meetings, but you get the drift.

Most cyclical religious (and humanistic!) activity, I think, has this function: to season service with wisdom before offering to the world. It is a dance, and we may call it sacred.

Gardening, to me, is such a sacred dance. 

My writing about the garden is an effort to produce dance notation. It chronicles seasons and strategies, up and downs -- a life, mine, but also a microcosm of the life of society. I'm active in a cyclical way, performing annual tasks: seeding flats, building up beds, spreading compost, setting out plants, irrigating, harvesting, putting the beds to bed. The aim is to find the wisest ways to do food hyperlocally, and impart what has been found. Sharing the ritual of constructing a bean trellis from willow growth, it is hoped, serves as an instance of bodhisattva activity.

-- shonin

Every act of kindness, no matter how small, provides space for good things to happen. -- Sensei Alex Kakuyo