TREELEAF ZENDO PODCAST

Aftershock

There are people without homes, food, loved ones just 100 miles north of here. My son (who is -not- the child in the photo at left) is obviously shaken, tossed around with the other children in his school classroom when the earthquake hit. A seven year old cannot understand. The child in that photo must be so much more confused ... beyond a child's understanding. The aftershocks and "meltdown" talk as we constantly checked for bulletins were beginning to get to our son, so we send him (with my wife) off to relatives on the other side of Tokyo. After a fews days with no water or toilets (they're back now ... luxuries ... ), checking news bulletins for the nuclear reactors (about 110 miles from here) and being woken from sleep by the aftershocks ... I'm TIRED! But I can't help just feel fortunate that my family and I seem so well off, unscratched. Inconvenienced and sleepless at worst, maybe a bit rattled.
Zazen truly has helped to keep all in perspective this week, centered, bringing stability in the sometime chaos ... earth moves, heart still (even if now and then racing when the rafters and electric lines shake back and forth.). One truly can feel terrifying fear AND fully see through the fear AT ONCE! Fear and Peace, AS ONE! Our "a little" broken house can be fixed. Compared to those really without, hungry and sleeping in the cold, missing sons and daughters, wives and husbands swept away ... we're untouched.
Other than "stuff" ... a fallen roof, some cracked wooden beams, smashed furniture, and broken buddha statues (can they be broken?) ... we're okay. After a couple of days without power and water ... I sit here drinking my coffee, typing on the computer, enjoying a hot shower, like any other day. Here, things are getting back to normal. "Stuff" can be fixed. For these other people, some things will be much harder to repair ... their broken hearts and uprooted lives. All we can do is send our empathy and hopes out to those not so lucky.
Oh, and make efforts to lend a hand were needed (there are probably people in your own community who could use your help today... not only in Japan), and don't forget the cash.
A few people have asked me were to send money. As the Japanese are quite well off generally as a country, I would strongly suggest looking at organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, which help people in like events in countries which are not so well equiped, Haiti and such.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.savethechildren.org
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: Koku 6

At the end of this chapter,Dogen is quite clear, worthy or not worthy is not the point. Koku is for all. This practice is for all. Everybody belongs.
gassho !
Taigu 
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March 4-5, 2011- OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI!

PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME KINHIN TIMES HAVE BEEN LENGTHENED IN COMPASSION FOR NEW SITTERS JOINING US ...
Dear All,
Please 'sit-a-long' with our MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI,netcast LIVE 8am to noon Japan time Saturday morning (1/1) (that is New York 6pm to 10pm, Los Angeles 3pm to 7pm (Friday night 12/31), London 11pm to 3am and Paris midnight to 4am (early Saturday morning)) ... and visible at the following link during those times ...
LIVE ZAZENKAI NETCAST at USTREAM:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sit-a-long-with-jundo
But FEAR NOT if not possible for you to join 'live' in your location at those times, as the entire sitting is recorded in 'REAL TIME' and available for full participation 'ON DEMAND' at ANY TIME after that, no different from the 'live' sitting . Just click then on the links below:
THE 'REAL TIME, ANY TIME' recorded version is divided into 3 parts as follows (click on the blue links) :
00:00 - 00:50 CEREMONY (HEART SUTRA / SANDOKAI IN ENGLISH) & ZAZEN
00:50 - 01:00 KINHIN
01:00 - 01:30 ZAZEN
01:30 - 01:50 KINHIN
ZAZENKAI PART I LINK:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13089563
01:50 - 02:30 DHARMA TALK & ZAZEN
02:30 - 02:40 KINHIN
02:40 - 03:15 ZAZEN
TALK & ZAZEN PART 2 LINK:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13091980
03:15 - 03:30 KINHIN
03:30 - 04:00 METTA CHANT & ZAZEN, VERSE OF ATONEMENT, FOUR VOWS, & CLOSING
ZAZENKAI PART 3 LINK:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13094120
 
Our Zazenkai consists of our chanting the 'Heart Sutra' and the 'Identity of Relative and Absolute (Sandokai)' in English (please download our Chant Book at the link below), some full floor prostrations (please follow along with me ... or a simple Gassho can be substituted if you wish), a little talk by me ... and we close with the 'Metta Chant', followed at the end with the 'Verse of Atonement' and 'The Four Vows'. Oh, and lots and lots of Zazen and walkin' Kinhin in between!
Please download and print out the Chant Book (PDF) at the following link:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2231
I STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOU POSITION YOUR ZAFU ON THE FLOOR IN A PLACE WHERE YOU ARE NOT STARING DIRECTLY AT THE COMPUTER SCREEN, BUT CAN GLANCE OVER AND SEE THE SCREEN WHEN NECESSARY. YOUR ZAFU SHOULD ALSO BE IN A POSITION WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE COMPUTER SCREEN WHILE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE ZAFU FOR THE CEREMONIES, AND HAVE ROOM FOR BOWING AND KINHIN.
ALSO, REMEMBER TO SET YOUR COMPUTER (& SCREEN SAVER) SO THAT IT DOES NOT SHUT OFF DURING THE 4 HOURS.
I hope you will join us ... an open Zafu is waiting. When we drop all thought of 'here' 'there' 'now' 'then' ... we are sitting all together!
Gassho, Jundo
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Whattsa Who'sa Bodhisattva? - Manjushri

 Each of the Bodhisattvas may be seen as an archetype for a vital aspect of Buddhist Practice ... Manjushri Bodhisattva for Wisdom. Taigen Dan Leighton writes in FACES OF COMPASSION ...
Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom and insight, penetrating into the fundamental emptiness, universal sameness, and true nature of all things. Manjushri ... sees into the essence of each phenomenal event. This essential nature is that not a thing has any fixed existence separate in itself, independent from the whole world around it. The work of wisdom is to see through the illusory self-other dichotomy, our imagined estrangement from our world. Studying the self in this light, Manjushri's flashing awareness realizes the deeper, vast quality of self, liberated from all our commonly unquestioned, fabricated characteristics.
... Manjushri cuts through our conventional conceptions of and attachments to abiding, increase and decrease, ordinary and holy, nirvana and samsara, arising and ceasing, aspiring, and grasping. Experiencing personally and clearly the perfection of wisdom that Manjushri expounds is about seeing through, and being liberated from, all limited views about these common snares of consciousness. (Bodhisattva Archetypes, p. 93 & 116)
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Whattsa Who'sa Bodhisattva? - Shakyamuni

We continue our series looking at THE GREATS AMONG THE GREAT BODHISATTVAS, inspired by the wonderful book FACES OF COMPASSION by Taigen Dan Leighton, highly recommended ...
http://www.wisdompubs.org/pages/display.lasso?-KeyValue=32820&-Token.Action=&image=1
... today looking at Shakyamuni ... the man who became "THE BUDDHA".
Now, most folks usually think of Shakyamuni as "THE BUDDHA" ... but before he was "THE BUDDHA" Shakyamuni was a young seeker, in search of the key to human suffering to benefit all sentient beings, not himself alone. That seeking, that "Vow to Save All Sentient Beings" is precisely what makes a Bodhisattva a "Bodhisattva".
There are legendary tales as well, the hundreds of "Jataka Tales" and others, of past lives of the Buddha ... past lives as man, woman, fish and animals too, in which he gave of himself time and again to benefit others ... often sacrificing his very life to save others. These tales, merely legend or not, show how Shakyamuni came to symbolize selfless, compassionate giving as a Bodhisattva.
But I would insist that, even after becoming "THE BUDDHA", Shakyamuni as "THE BODHISATTVA" still remained ... for Gautama Buddha did not remain sitting under that Bodhi Tree complacent in his own peace and discovery ... nor did he vanish immediately from this world ... but rose up to walk across India, teaching, serving and helping others for the next 40 years ... helping others even now.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Koku 5

Dogen writes the following:
The migrating bird leaves no trace behind and does not need a guide
This freedom from form and attachment, from past ( trace) and future (guide), this complete action, absolute and yet transitory is our practice. Koku is found in this wondrous life, in this body-mind. Totally experienced, it is forgotten. Once forgotten, it is realized.
gassho
Taigu
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Living Devil

For the next few "sit-a-longs", I'm going to revive a series from awhile back on WHATSA BODHISATTVA, looking a some of the greats ... Avalokiteśvara (Kannon), Samantabhadra and others. Before, we looked at each of the traditional Virtues, the 'Perfections' of a Bodhisattva ...
http://www.treeleaf.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=whattsa+who'sa+bodhisattva&IncludeBlogs=2&limit=20
Today, though, let's talk about the Devil, Satan, Mara, Evil ...
Oh, I believe in the Devil! Bodhisattvas too.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended.
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Koku 4

The Nishijima Cross translation goes as follows:
Daibutsu would like to tell Shakkyō the fol- lowing: “Before, when you grabbed Seidō’s nostrils, if you wanted to grasp space, you should have grabbed the nostrils of yourself, Shakkyō, and you should have understood how to grasp the fingertips with the fingertips.” Even so, Shakkyō does know a bit about the dignified behavior of grasping space. Even a good player at grasping space needs to research the interior and exte- rior of space, needs to research the deadening and vitalization of space, and needs to know the lightness and weight of space. We should maintain and rely upon [the teaching] that the effort in pursuit of the truth, the establish- ment of the mind, the practice and experience, and the assertions and ques- tions of buddhas and of patriarchs are just the grasping of space. My late master, Tendō Nyojō, the eternal buddha, says: “The whole body like a mouth, hanging in space.” Clearly, the whole body of space is suspended in space.
Grasping space is extra. This reality in this reality, this space in this space practice, teach and preach the Dharma. Like the empty mouth of a bell, space moves in space.
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