October 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Offering Metta to Violent People)

For today's Metta (Loving Kindness) Recital, in the section of offering Metta to people difficult in our lives or in this world, I will be offering in my heart to "people like Stephen Paddock", the man who killed 58 people, and wounded hundreds more, in Las Vegas this week.
I feel I need to explain why, and the meaning of this. Someone might misunderstand or be confused. I am sorry that it is a little complicated.
Our Metta chant states:
May he be free of suffering; may he feel safe and still.
May he be free of enmity; may he be loving, grateful and kind.
May he be healthy and at ease in all his ills.
May he be at peace, embracing all conditions of life.
We must somehow not turn away, not forget ... yet see the real culprit as the "greed anger and ignorance" that infects human beings. Perhaps it is too hard to ask people to forgive, but at least, let us strive not to meet anger with further anger of our own. The best response to hate is ... peace.
Hostilities aren't stilled through hostility, regardless. Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.(Dharmapada 3-5)
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:October 6th-7th, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

September 2017 Zazenkai Talk (A SPECIAL TALK to COMMENCE 'ANGO' SEASON)

Today is the Beginingless Beginning of our Jukai and Ango Season. Especially for our Ango participants, and for anyone, a short Talk on the meaning of the 'True Ango' that has 'No Obstacles' and nothing ever to interfere ... and which is precisely the obstacles that interfere!
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:A SPECIAL TALK to COMMENCE 'ANGO' SEASON »

September 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Dogen's Hokyoki)

Having returned from my own travels by plane, car and train, I thought to begin a series of talks on a text by Dogen which is not so commonly the topic of Dharma Talks, but which contains a detailed record of Dogen's own lessons and interactions with his Teacher in China, Master Tiāntóng Rújìng (天童如淨; Japanese: Tendō Nyōjo). Dogen was then a young student who went to travel (by boat, across deadly seas, not airliner) seeking an answer to many questions. This is the record of Dogen's remembrances of much of the advice and guidance he received on those questions from his own Teacher.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:September 2nd-3rd, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

July 2017 Zazenkai Talk ("Practice-Enlightenment" for Practical People)

Buddhist meditation has commonly been considered an instrumental technique aimed at obtaining a heightened mental or spiritual state, or even as a method for inducing some dramatic "enlightenment" experience. But in some branches of the Zen tradition, Zazen (Zen seated meditation) has been seen not as a means to attaining some result, but as a ritual enactment and expression of awakened awareness. This alternate, historically significant approach to Zen meditation and practice has been as a ceremonial, ritual expression whose transformative quality is not based on stages of attainment or meditative prowess.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:June 31st-July 1st, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

June 2017 Zazenkai Talk (Dogen's Instructions to the Ino)

Our Talk this Month is "What I Know about the Ino" (the Supervisor of Monks) ... a monastic office, but not that far from our own lives, jobs and family duties ... It is from Master Dogen's "Pure Standards for the Temple Administrators (Chiji Shingi)" for Eiheiji Monastery (translated by Taigen Leighton and Shohaku Okumura)
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:June 2nd-3rd, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

May 2017 Zazenkai Talk (May 5th-6th, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI!)

Our Talk this month digests the Chants for Formal Meals ... not bread alone, these Chants guide us for all our Practice and Life ... The talk covers the Formal Meal Verses (Gyôhatsu nenju 行鉢念誦):
Verse upon Hearing the Meal Signal (Montsui no ge 聞槌之偈)
Verse for Setting Out Bowls (Tenpatsu no ge 展鉢之偈）)
Verse of Buddha Names (Butsumyô 十仏名)
Food Offering Verses (Sejiki ge 施食偈)
Verse of Five Contemplations (Gokan no ge 五観之偈)
Verse of Food Offering (Saba ge 生飯偈)
Bowl Raising Verse (Keihatsu no ge 擎鉢之偈)
Meal End (Sessui no ge 折水之偈)
Verse of Purity While Abiding in the World (shose kaibon no ge 処世界梵之偈)
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:May 5th-6th, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! »

April 2017 Guest Zazenkai Talk (David Loy and A New Buddhist Path)

A special Zazenkay and talk by guest speaker David Loy. David Robert Loy is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. He is a prolific author, whose essays and books have been translated into many languages. His articles appear regularly in the pages of major journals such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines including Tricycle, Turning Wheel, Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma, as well as in a variety of scholarly journals. David lectures nationally and internationally on various topics, focusing primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and modernity: what each can learn from the other. He is especially concerned about social and ecological issues. ... David Loy is one of the founding members of the new Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, near Boulder, Colorado.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:ATTENTION: Special Zazenkai SUNDAY April 30th with DAVID LOY »

April 2017 Zazenkai Talk (The Heart of the Heart of the Heart Sutra)

The Talk this time will look at the Heart of the Heart of the Heart Sutra, form and emptiness in a nutshell ...
We will reflect on the wording of the Heart Sutra as we chant for Zazenkai in English most weeks. However, I will touch briefly on the somewhat longer version used by Tibetan Practitioners and some others, with adds a little more at the startless start and endless end.
Further reading and discussion for this talk are available on the Treeleaf forum:March 31st-April 1st, 2017 - OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI! (NOT APRIL FOOLS!) »