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Midwest Zen Issue 3 December 2022 A publication of Great Wind Zendo Danville Indiana

Midwest Zen Issue 3 December 2022 Published 2022 by Great Wind Zendo Editor Kristin Roahrig Address all correspondence to Midwest Zen Great Wind Zendo 52 W Broadway Street Danville Indiana 46122 1718 MidwestZen greatwindzendo org The digital version of this publication can be downloaded at no cost from our website at greatwindzendo org mwz The works included and the opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors who are solely responsible for their contents They do not necessarily reflect the opinions and positions of Great Wind Zendo Midwest Zen 2022 by Great Wind Zendo All rights revert to the author upon publication Printed in U S A Cover detail from photograph by Jay Tuttle

Contents Contents ESSAYS ART PHOTOGRAPHY David Whyte Silence 3 Neil SchmitzerTorbert Do We Really Want to Sit 7 Sally Hess Horses and Zebras 13 Gail Sher Beginner s Mind 26 Zuiko Redding Practice and Enjoyment 33 Kyoku Lutz World Peace Ceremony at the Fr hlingsmond Zendo Hanover Germany 35 Tonen O Connor Gassho 45 David Whyte Sitting Zen Nakasendo Poems 1 39 Joshua St Claire Free Form Haiku Yuan Changming A Puti Poem Meditating 11 Daniel Thomas Practicing Two Voices What Evening Can t Dispel 21 22 23 Darrell Petska In the Round Old Man Rocking 31 32 Tonen O Connor Buddhist Peace Fellowship New Year s Day Gathering 43 POETRY 6 Jay Tuttle Photographs Front cover 49 Lisa Summers Photographs 2 24 25 Kristin Roahrig Photographs 5 12

David Whyte Lisa Summers Sitting Zen After three days of sitting hard by the window following grief through the breath like a hunter who has tracked for days the blood spots of his injured prey I came to the lake where the deer had run exhausted refusing to save its life in the dark water and there it fell to ground in our mutual and respectful quiet pierced by the pale diamond edge of the breath s listening presence David Whyte Sitting Zen from Fire in the Earth Copyright 1992 David Whyte Reprinted with permission from Many Rivers Press Langley WA www davidwhyte com Page 1 Page 2

David Whyte David Whyte Silence is frightening Silence is not stillness but tidal and seasonal movement left to itself an intimation of the end the graveyard of fixed identities Real silence puts any present understanding to shame orphans us from certainty leads us beyond the well known and accepted reality and confronts us with the unknown and previously unacceptable conversation about to break in upon our lives Silence does not end skepticism but makes it irrelevant Belief or unbelief or any previously rehearsed story meets the wind in the trees the distant horn in the busy harbour or the watching eye and listening ear of a puzzled loved one In silence essence speaks to us of essence itself and asks for a kind of unilateral disarmament our own essential nature slowly emerging as the defended periphery atomises and falls apart As the busy edge dissolves we begin to join the conversation through the portal of a present unknowing robust vulnerability revealing in the way we listen a different ear a more perceptive eye an imagination refusing to come too early to a conclusion and belonging to a different person than the one who first entered the quiet Reality met on its own terms demands absolute presence and absolute giving away an ability to live on equal terms with the fleeting and the eternal the hardly touchable and the fully possible a full bodily appearance and disappearance a rested giving in and giving up another identity braver more generous and more here than the one looking hungrily for the easy unearned answer David Whyte Silence from Consolations The Solace Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words Copyright 2014 David Whyte Reprinted with permission from Many Rivers Press Langley WA www davidwhyte com Out of the quiet emerges the sheer incarnational presence of the world a presence that seems to demand a moving internal symmetry in the one breathing and listening equal to its own breathing listening elemental powers To become deeply silent is not to become still but to become tidal and seasonal a coming and going that has its own inimitable essential character a story not fully told like the background of the sea or the rain falling or the river going on out of sight out of our lives Page 3 Page 4

Kristin Roahrig Joshua St Claire Free Form Haiku fishing with my sons in the water I catch my father s face blown out candle the room is still Page 5 Page 6

Neil Schmitzer Torbert Do We Really Want to Sit Neil Schmitzer Torbert In these moments I find that to continue to run with this discomfort pushing heavy limbs forward again and again Last August I went for a run out on our local trail on a can seem to demand constant vigilance As if I am cool evening enjoying a respite from the scorching heat struggling with a heavy object that threatens to topple of July For much of that summer I had only gone over It feels like running requires more and more energy running occasionally on the rare days when the weather or else the whole process will collapse That without a had been mild or if I managed to make it to the gym on conscious command each time step step step again I our campus And so it really was not a surprise when I would come to a shuffling halt started to feel myself struggle after a mile or two as I made my way through the woods When I have noticed this kind of feeling recently I ve asked myself why do I have to force myself to run And In running like zazen I usually try to keep my focus on underneath that question I see an assumption that I have the present moment On the feelings the sounds made without even noticing it that running is not Bringing my awareness to the thoughts that come and enjoyable At some level I find running to be aversive or go without holding too firmly any particular one And a kind of chore And so I have to push myself to when inevitably I find myself having drifted away into continue Some days perhaps this attitude is justified I daydreaming planning or rumination I usually have to really am tired and running is a struggle But more often intentionally bring myself back to my body and my this feeling arises for no specific reason It is more of a breath habit of approaching the experience of running from a negative frame of thinking or a fearful defensive mindset But when discomfort arises like when my run feels unpleasant I might already find myself right back in the And so I have been trying to check in with what I am middle of those sensations They might intrude or press actually experiencing in these difficult moments out on into awareness with a feeling of urgency that makes it the trail To attend to my breathing to the sensations in difficult to just be with the present moment These my body Can I find some real problem in my body Some sensations feel inescapable something that demands actual pain or a risk of injury Often the answer is no my attention looking closely I cannot find any particular thing that is truly uncomfortable or difficult Perhaps it is no surprise Page 7 Page 8

Neil Schmitzer Torbert Neil Schmitzer Torbert but I have had similar experiences during zazen So many adjustment Other times there may be things going on in times I find myself wondering when the final bell would life that are difficult for me to let go of in this moment ring Even from the first moment I took my seat I may But much of the time I really cannot find a specific focus have begun with some sense of anxiety or impatience for my impatience it is more of a diffuse desire to escape When I have examined these feelings I have often asked with no particular cause My habit or bias of always myself what exactly is it that I am impatient for What is turning towards something new some new experience it really that will be better once this meditation period is some distraction is very clear on the cushion and on the over Usually the answer is not much things will be trail different I will be able to move on to some other activity but just different not better Much like running Seeing this more clearly has been very helpful for me More often I am able to find some space in these I see moments where I came to meditation as if it were a moments of difficulty to look at my experiences in a new chore expecting it to be difficult Something to get way I have felt around to see if I can shift from feeling through that these activities are chores to appreciating them as opportunities ones that I am very grateful for To And I realized that at some level I did not really want to investigate this moment with curiosity rather than dread sit zazen From that first step how I approached the or anxiety This has made an important difference for me cushion the entire experience was ready to be colored by and given me some small amount of freedom to shape discomfort resistance impatience As Charlotte Joko how I feel about meditation and running There are limits Beck said my mindset was a kind of trap of making of course I have not convinced myself that every step on zazen more difficult 1 the trail or moment on the cushion is one of pure bliss Zazen is actually not complicated The real problem is we don t want to do it But there is often some room to see this experience in a new way to savor the sensations that arise It has been a true surprise and delight for me to see how with honest Much like my experiences when running I have been curiosity so much unpleasantness in our lives can be trying to cultivate new habits of looking more closely at transformed and simply evaporate my impatience and discomfort during meditation Sometimes my body really is in pain and I might need to switch to sitting in a chair or make some other Page 9 1 Charlotte Joko Beck Nothing Special Ed Steve Smith San Francisco HarperCollins 1993 from The Subject Object Problem Page 10

Yuan Changming Kristin Roahrig A Puti Poem Meditating Imagine Just imagine Sitting under a tall pipal On a vast stretch of prairies Where you are transformed transforming Your entire physical being Into the little marigold in front of you Then the running stream water The gliding bird The drifting cloud The morning light The summer sky Where you are The universe Where the universe Is you Page 11 Page 12

Sally Hess Sally Hess Horses and Zebras The subject matter practice discipline zazen dance and inspiration can you explain what you mean for this writing arose from conversations with two dear Dharma friends The energy to put fingers to keyboard came from Chodo Campbell Contemplative Zen Center NYC If you want a little freedom practice a little If you want more freedom practice more If you want complete freedom practice completely I sit down I sit Down I Sit Down A sense of dropping ocean deep plunging towards beneath Exhale There is a rise a rush up and out beyond Inhale Vanishing solidity anchored evanescence I am sitting still Blood breath tiny cells waving passing and I am still sitting Through the one to the other return flow This too with my hand in my partner s I step onto the dance floor to the sound of the emcee s voice ladies and gentlemen the waltz We turn to each other and he spreads his arms invitation I enter the half oval he offers me my arms and back complete it it s called the postural embrace I melt into his shape and through his hands pressure I sense where his feet are Together we ground Down And then with a lift and a push we re gliding one being Also when I sit there are thoughts they stop and start a skeleton in muscular organization inner vision pause and sway the pumping diaphragm spreads sidewards Nerves tingle Dark finds flesh I moves in a constant process of making and unmaking then remaking itself I Page 13 believe in I then I forget I Then I find s it and it is me again And when I dance outward motion sway and pause the process of gathering the body s diverse structures is centering fully concentrated I absence brings stillness In this rhythmic activity the length of my spine functions like an electricity conductor between heaven and earth in a flash of knowing just here immobility Light finds flesh I m eighty years old and a Competitive Ballroom dancer My practice tools are the three elements of dance time space energy This artform has asked of me a lifetime of commitment and concentration Since childhood I ve been sitting shikan taza dancelike in its nothing but its precisely so ness first at the foot of my bed predawn later days and weeks in zendos in New York London Paris I ve been dancing for seventy six years What s a year But the questions who is dancing who is sitting endure for the child the adult the old woman In daily life doing dishes crossing the street riding the subway phone call all occasions requiring attention I look for the concrete physical its heavy presence if I can touch and feel perhaps I can pay attention At my desk on a scrap of paper I draw a diagram discipline is the ink line between wild and constrained It s the imaginary column around which act and practice spiral At first sometimes and for a long time I waver constricted in this body where does my mind go It flees and flutters I ve tried to clamp it down but it will not be still My body confined by its psyche turns away from possibilities of extension beauty specific to the newness of aging freezes I ve been fifty fifteen I ve been sixty I would recognize them But eighty Ninety Page 14

Sally Hess Sally Hess That s unfamiliar as five is to an infant A small zazen voice in me says into the unknown go Accept Courage Ok Things are the same and different How could I sit without perseverance and how could I dance without patience In both cases a full attention to detail of placement foot fingers pelvis body arranging in time space be it cushion or floor the living being you me must root to fly Settle on your cushion ten years said my Dharma teacher then another ten And another My Ballroom dance teacher tells me the earth is your original partner and the first ten years are the hardest Relieved I remember we are incarnated beings In the immediacy of gravity and mortality I am offered time to ground and space to grow Discipline keeps me organized a benevolent process It s both direction of reference and occasion for change flexible enough to transform with the terrain curve into arc silk wind strong enough to adopt and relinquish a position then return to it with intelligent fidelity I mean if it s difficult keep at it but gently For a dancer discipline is the formal attitude of learning The same movements we do them over and over We call this simply practice Sitting for zazen adopting the same posture hands folded on ankles this too is discipline a loving attitude towards the one here in her tempest her tears her quiet The Cosmic Mudra a gesture in stillness is fixed and open Paradox constantly defining the moment as the moment escapes definition Sally Hess and Darius Mosteika Capital Dancesport Championships August 25 2017 Photo by Ryan Kenner Photography Page 15 I ve heard it said integrity and wisdom appear in old age But it seems to me these can be characteristics of any age for opportunities to develop them are constantly available Children may be wise adults moral agents the elderly disoriented From my present perspective old age is the time for integration and awareness The effort towards such states is practice and practice becomes my Page 16

Sally Hess Sally Hess guide along the centerline between the reckless no boundaries and the rigid intense confinement powerful effort eventually transformed effortless power That too passes and we start anew How to be alert I wonder to a dancing that moves into stillness the zazen that flows in the Dharma Through present attunement I feel hand to hand mine in his or mine on mine I am conscious through interoception internal sensing and proprioception body relative to space when the music plays the bell rings Following Maezumi Roshi s translation of the five skandhas aggregates I explore the here now of form sensation perception discrimination awareness the heart s own chain of causality and release In parallel activity I recall how my ballet teacher Maggie exhorted us her voice rising loudly above the piano tunes as we moved across the floor Stay with it Stay with it Good Good With her I learned stick to it iveness through encouragement and courage through practice The Buddha practiced not eight years but lifetimes I think I m a baby Like a good parent my dance partner encloses me in his arms firmly but softly Year after year we repeat the same steps aligning refining until finally the posture embraces us and I can stay with it The body loves repetition but craves novelty This is the remark of a wise friend and I do well to remember it as I evolve through time space Why do it With old age I feel it my frame rattles then calms down Indeed we speak of the weight of time pressing on the frantic body I m slowing down we say I can no longer run to catch the bus I can no longer run I live days of freedom like a newborn without a schedule I want to eat at all hours and nap off and on But this isn t a second childhood Dharma practice invites the bodymind to settle leading the entire complex to pivot towards yes repeat integration and awareness As I wander into my last decades the ten thousand things are streaming by they bid me wrap this form in emptiness clothe my emptiness in form and in an oval of embrace prepare to close the circle What do you want A little freedom More freedom Practice a little practice more and then the breath and the leap completely just this Just sit Just dance Sitting and dancing are gerunds participles in action or call them particles of speech body and mind in movement The genius of our grammar lies in linking them from clauses to sentences to full paragraphs in the novel of my life ing is always process You ing I ing This ing As we waltz tango foxtrot and as we sit day after day my teacher says in the beginning it takes Page 17 In Refining Your Life From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment Uchiyama Roshi writes that the quality or nature of the zazen which Dogen Zenji teaches is a stability wherein life simply becomes life 1 He mentions too his teacher Sawaki Roshi enjoining us not to flitter about but to settle naturally into our lives I understand verb stabilize noun security then swirl into the ten directions dance wholeheartedly regardless of ease or difficulty life becoming life Swivel and pause I rent a small apartment in NYC the living room serves as zendo dining area and entertainment center My office desk computer phone filing cabinets is in the kitchen As my fingers press the laptop keys I listen to the hum of the refrigerator look over the sink smell my dinner cooking In the chain of form and sensation perception and discrimination I am aware of routine and revolution Yet within the mishmash each thing keeps its own place Writing and thinking reading and talking solitude and relationship Page 18

Sally Hess Sally Hess are fluid activities in space my home the dance studio the Zen Center and time Dogen Zenji 13th century Uchiyama Roshi 20th Us I m learning to focus disciple s practice The moment of creative contact offers a conscious experience of zazen and dance as inclusive and porous events When I sit and as I dance both modes of functioning open me naturally into kishin Joyful Mind Settled I am freed to dance passionately and in the giving into life dancing streams effortlessly into pervasive joy Uchiyama Roshi recalling his sixteen years as monastery cook at Antaiji signals the spirit of joy that arose from his tenzo practice I who cook every day with changing ingredients take the liberty of substituting dancer for tenzo To achieve a Joyful Mind is first to become clearly aware of the function of the dancer and then to pour all your life energy into the work itself Throwing all your passion for life into that work that is what it means to have a Joyful Mind It s 5 00pm on an autumn Sunday For weeks I ve been fiddling with the TV s remote control It stalls on a channel or jumps unexpectedly from 13 to 103 the screen remains black but the system won t shut down etc etc etc I m so annoyed Help On the phone the measured voice of the TV repairman says watch for horses not zebras I replace the batteries 1 Eihei Dogen and K sh Uchiyama Roshi Refining Your Life From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment trans Thomas Wright New York and Tokyo Weatherhill Inc 1983 p 60 91 Sally Hess and Darius Mosteika Capital Dancesport Championships August 26 2021 Photo by Ryan Kenner Photography Page 19 Page 20

Daniel Thomas Daniel Thomas Practicing Two Voices Past the room where bodies bob to pounding music trapped in spinning contraptions All day I read an Ishiguro novel marveling at the complex narrative voice But just now walking the dog I saw her brown eyes widen her ears twitch at the distant sound of surf The simple moment received and the one where steely people grunt confronting dark weights I roll out my mat in a bare room and follow the guiding voice until the mind gives in to wholly listening and curbed by a meditation on muscle and bone merges with flesh Walking home limber and loose I try to ignore the shadow rushing before me I let the cardboard bed behind the bank interrupt my meager calculations of value Page 21 Page 22

Daniel Thomas Lisa Summers What Evening Can t Dispel Though day pursues its varied duties evening lies down without care The flock of blackbirds settles on the meadow Rain brushes the veiled lake The shadow at your feet melts into the moment When the cricket sings trees quiet their leaves Moonlight muffles clocks and bells Only the screech owl insists on hearing its name called through each dark hour Page 23 Page 24

Lisa Summers Gail Sher Beginner s Mind Beginner s Mind is a term especially connected to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi because of his book Zen Mind Beginner s Mind It s a term people casually use with the sense everyone knows what that means But I wonder Let s take a moment to consider what you think Beginner s Mind means Can you articulate your relationship with it Is it a principle by which you live Is it something you hardly think about When Suzuki Roshi first saw the published copy of Zen Mind Beginner s Mind he said It looks good I didn t write it but it looks nice It s true he didn t actually write this famous book Suzuki Roshi arrived in San Francisco in 1959 to serve as priest for the Japanese Soto Zen community in San Francisco While living alone in their large temple on Buchanan Street he started sitting zazen in the morning and evening Gradually people curious about anything Zen word spread quickly through the local art scene grapevine joined him and the sittings became more frequent and more formal A few satellite groups also sprang up in Mill Valley Berkeley and Los Altos Roshi would go there once or twice a week for zazen and to give talks Eventually the woman who hosted the group in Los Altos Trudy Dixon began with Roshi s permission recording the lectures After an extremely lengthy period of transcribing and editing Zen Mind Beginner s Mind was published People love it but I m not sure how many finish it because it is actually not so simple Beginner s Mind the words have become commonplace Yet it s the fresh new breath the mind of this phrase that Suzuki roshi so emphasized Staying with this first finding it and then how to bring ourselves again and again back to it is at the heart of his legacy Page 25 Page 26

Gail Sher But it isn t easy Not because IT isn t easy but because the cultural values with which it contends make it extremely challenging I refer to setting goals to winning to achievement to progress these are all de emphasized because the mind behind their direction is at crosspurposes with a beginner s mind Reb Anderson Roshi a close disciple of Suzuki Roshi says that Roshi considered his main job as a Zen priest to encourage people to practice upright sitting For him Reb says the most pure and direct way of sustaining the Buddha treasure was just to be fully himself in each moment His way of protecting the Dharma treasure was to practice wholeheartedly with no gaining idea And his way of protecting and sustaining the Sangha treasure Buddha Dharma Sangha the Triple Treasures of Buddhism was what he called group practice practicing together in harmony with others When you consider that for Roshi anyone being fully themselves means to be rooted in their fundamental Buddha nature and that to do this one would have no gaining idea because there is nothing to add to one s Buddha nature THIS in itself would be Beginner s Mind When Roshi says In the beginner s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert s there are few by beginner he means our fundamental selves and from there being anything the situation requires The phrase has a kind of innocence and lack of calculation or contrivance about it It s ironic Suzuki roshi loved Americans because they don t know anything about Zen so they re receptive to the teachings Yet at the same time Americans are steeped in gaining ideas If you talk about upright sitting for many people their first thought is I don t have time by which they mean I can t afford not to accomplish something Page 27 Gail Sher even for 15 minutes Most of Roshi s first students were artists who were operating differently already At first the effort you make is quite rough and impure but by the power of practice the effort will become purer and purer When your effort becomes pure your body and mind become pure This is the way we practice Zen Let me give an example When I was seventy five my husband gave me a banjo for Christmas My back was weak My hands were stiff There were many obstacles but I just thought Well I have always wanted to play the banjo If I practice every day every day I will have the joy of the banjo Even one tune will be amazing Before I started playing I could hardly believe that I Gail would ever be able to play the banjo But day after day I just did the things from my lesson and now a few years later I actually can play a few tunes And it doesn t seem special It is just me nothing special Day after day it s just me figuring out how to get the strap over my head and the banjo so that it doesn t slip There are so many considerations if I let them they could get annoying But I just say Nevermind This is what it takes In the end I get my tune which at best doesn t sound too bad Deep inside I am very satisfied Beginning at seventy five has many advantages I am not thinking Boy if I practice really hard I could win a competition I m not thinking Too bad I can t play fast like her Instead I am thinking Every day I can try as hard as I can and since I can t do better than that I will have done my best In this way it becomes a practice Every morning for half an hour Practice is about HOW how to simply stay with how making sure I have the half hour that I have what I Page 28

Gail Sher need with me that I know what to do during that time that I m alert It s easier to have a beginner s mind at seventy five than at fifteen At fifteen one is full of fantasies notions looking around trying things on At seventy five you can just be yourself Anyway playing the banjo is not really about playing the banjo Playing the banjo is about sharpening the MindThat Plays the Banjo Correct Mind creates correct playing whether that be awkward faulty kindergartenish Correct Mind knows that there is nothing to know This is important to understand Knowledge information and Wisdom spirit are not the same Playing the banjo is a Wisdom practice You being YOU is the Wisdom practice of returning to the Source Actually when you think about it it s the Source that plays the banjo Wisdom practice means NOT KNOWING Suzuki Roshi calls it Beginner s Mind If you want to do something fully you need the real you The real you lives inside behind or underneath all of your knowing touching the spot of JUST YOU first recognizing it then touching it and then becoming it in your stillness Gail Sher The word practice you can turn anything into a practice means turning it into a relationship In the case of my banjo it is a Self relationship with the banjo being a mirror Oh I don t really feel like practicing today I may think but because it s a practice I get to see my mind when it is reluctant but I practice anyway If it were not a practice I might just do what I feel like risking the whole prospect which could easily fall away Tell me about There is nothing to know when it comes time to change the strings you could rightfully ask Because while for big mind there is nothing to know small mind needs lots of information It s the way you hold the details however that makes the difference The details are just details Just as the waves of the sea are the practice of the sea so are the information and skills required to play an instrument or to sit zazen In the beginner s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert s mind there are few simply describes a way of holding these details Our original mind includes everything within itself It is always rich and sufficient within itself Roshi means that we have everything that we need to begin and continue with our practice The goal of practice is always to show up and to keep a beginner s mind It means that endlessly we stay with that fresh effort because boredom laziness of mind is always remediable Page 29 Page 30

Darrell Petska Darrell Petska In the Round Old Man Rocking strings jump in to the baton s flick and swish crows chorusing in a linden tree an infant cries a baker pounds dough roosters in Shenyang waking as ghost notes murmur on the timpani eat those beans a mother scolds ba boom fall the drum sticks howitzers discharging thunder crackling over the Empire State lento now a priest intoning pacem in terris soft waves lapping Mykonos olive leaves whispering to the breeze they don t want our help have you seen my glasses he doesn t live here anymore dix euros s il vous pla t tires screech hyenas harassing a feasting lioness children shrieking on a playground trumpets blaring let it be let it be she looked just fine on Thursday fresh from the womb and crying 5 98 ostinato s flow the wind the waves wolves on crusted snow performance in the round suspirations through pampas grass the humpback s soaring song partyers singing American Pie the wry bassoon commenting Reprinted from Buddhist Poetry Review Volume 3 Issue 1 Spring 2020 Page 31 What is he saying His words dangle from trees Shake in the wind Filter to the ground Where has he gone Through plain and forest across every ocean distance shining in his eyes Ask his name He answers tiger antelope dog Say you are his children His eyes lift to the sky watching you sing and glide Your ant legs marching ring in his ears Does this mean he can t know you love him But of that tall ship he is the mast Can he differentiate the real from what is not He sails the one Sea walks the one Earth Long since has he stopped answering foolish questions Reprinted from Buddhist Poetry Review Volume 3 Issue 1 Spring 2020 Page 32

Zuiko Redding Practice and Enjoyment How is your zazen these days With all the cold windy rainy weather maybe your thoughts aren t so quiet and well behaved Or maybe you re having a really quiet time and hoping it will last In Fukanzazengi D gen says The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice It is simply the Dharma gate of joyful ease Baseball practice season is beginning right now and players are heading to warm states to hone their skills Zazen isn t like spring practice we don t do it to get better at it Or at anything else for that matter And we don t get better You know how distracted you were when you sat a couple of days ago Well that will still happen after you ve sat for thirty more years The point is not to improve The point is to just sit there with whatever s happening whether it s wonderfully calm or it s bouncing around like a possum trapped in a mailbox When we first do zazen we re amazed at the activity in our heads As time goes by we get used to it and just hang out with it This is zazen practice We can think of this zazen practice as being like the practice of law or medicine A lawyer practices from inside a knowledge and experience of the law crafting the wisdom and precedent of the discipline into a cogent argument for a specific outcome A lawyer is a person who is actively making law into law Sitting zazen we are awake We are there with our thoughts our body this Page 33 Zuiko Redding place just sitting with it being aware of it doing nothing about it We are awake in the midst of awakening creating awakening within awakening That s it It may be messy and painful sometimes but that s it There s no room for improvement here there s just what s happening right now This is the dharma gate of joyful ease Yes joyful ease even in the midst of pain in our legs angry fearful disgusting thoughts and all the rest of it And the good times too the times when we sit down and thoughts are like the still surface of a pond with the moon shining on it and our bodies sit upright joyfully The joyful ease comes from basically being awake to everything with no discrimination no judging When we see everything as just this without categorizing and criticizing we become calm and curious What is this awful fearful thought What is it saying will happen Well that s not happening now Let s pay attention to now Let s notice what that fear is about how it feels in our stomach In that way we can be at ease and play with reality especially when we leave the zendo We can also relax and be easy because we don t have to improve Whatever today s zazen was it was just fine We return and sit tomorrow There s no pressure to do better no ideal batting average to attain In the midst of a world that constantly urges us to make something of ourselves it s a relief to do something where there s no improvement to work at We can just sit down being awake in awakening making ourselves into ourselves and the world into the world Picture zafus at Zen Center Come sit on one You can find Fukanzazengi here https www sotozen com eng practice zazen advice fukanzanzeng html Page 34

Kyoku Lutz Kyoku Lutz World Peace Ceremony at the Fr hlingsmond Zendo Hanover Germany I only became familiar with the World Peace Ceremony when I began practicing in the tradition of the Sanshin Zen Community It is a ceremony to which all people feel equally called So far everyone who has come to the ceremony has also wanted to come before the Buddha afterwards to personally offer incense after the recitation of the Heart Sutra and the dedication In this way it is possible to bring together people of all cultures faiths and other worldviews in one meeting The first time we held the ceremony outdoors in a clearing in the city forest within walking distance of the Fr hlingsmond Zendo There we sit zazen under trees every Sunday morning with a few participants weather permitting Cold and heat are not much of an obstacle but when it rains the ground becomes too muddy Our most recent World Peace Ceremony was held indoors Given the rampant infections in our region from covid flu to various types of childhood illnesses it is amazing that we ended up being a group at all Our meetings which often include light refreshments afterwards include discussion of a wide variety of topics I would like to present one of the reflections on peace in the world in this context For us peace means not only cooperating with people who think differently in a non violent way but also learning to exist in peaceful community across our entire context of life That means We must recognize our kin our deep connectedness with all sentient and nonsentient existences the animals plants micro organisms the water and the air and express our respect towards this kin in a tangible and recognizable way 1 A Page 35 Page 36

Kyoku Lutz worldwide overall peace is not possible without peace for the totality of all these existences From these considerations it is not far to acting out of deep compassion There is for example the idea of rewilding 2 of land Let us stop wherever it makes sense our highly unpeaceful human theft of land Our human kind lets the habitats of innumerable existences melt away by its way of living and reproducing Often only small habitat islets remain which we with apparent generosity put at our kin s disposal as nature reserves Is that any way to treat your family By the way this aggressive shabby behavior toward our different kin only harms us humans in the long run something which will not be explained here further however How could this concern Buddhist practitioners in particular Summarized very briefly In times long past when the forests still seemed unlimited and the vast land of this earth was not yet conquered overbuilt and littered to this extent one could probably step into various places and say What a view and What heavenly peace in this clearing and then declare Let s build a Buddhist temple right here But times have changed drastically Grasping this situation with fresh eyes it may turn out that our Buddhist practice today out of deepest compassion requires exactly the opposite conclusion What a view What heavenly tranquility in this clearing and Let s not build a Buddhist temple right here Let s buy the land and give it to our kin to do with as they please We will find accommodation somewhere else Especially in our Soto Zen tradition and with Dogen Zenji s Fukanzazengi in mind it is important to carefully weigh the encroachment into the habitats of other beings We do not need special places to sit shikantaza our Zen meditation Page 37 Kyoku Lutz In the context of the densification of cities and the considerations of urban horizontal as well as vertical food cultivation there is also a lot of discussion about the new and reuse of vacant building complexes such as former department stores parking garages and factory halls etc There is still a lot of free space in the urban environment And if the cities in the industrialized countries gain in comprehensive quality of life perhaps the unfortunate human desire for an escape to the countryside with the urban sprawl that inevitably follows on its heels will subside This would create for example more scope for the reclaiming of asphalted areas and the renaturation of rivers and streams and much more for the benefit of all existences Peace PEACE 1 See for example Donna J Haraway Staying with the Trouble Making Kin in the Chthulucene Duke University Press 2012 and Anna Tsing The Mushroom at the End of the World On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Princeton NJ 2015 2 Rewilding Letting nature take care of itself See also www rewildingeurope com Page 38

David Whyte David Whyte Nakasendo Poems RIVER FALL SHOJI We follow the river s fall down through the mountains all day but now our bodies have stopped to rest the water still flows on without us In the moonlight of the early hours a shadow across our shoji window a hesitation a shout Someone else stumbling toward home ONE EAR FOREST PATH The white forest path that brought us here and a kettle just boiled tired eyes warmed by the steam from lifted cups AFTER WALKING After walking in the heat to Tsugamo the cool evening light on the Ryokan ceiling makes every memory clear Page 39 After the heat my head resting on a cool buckwheat pillow one ear listening to the river SLEEP Closing my eyes the body seems to fall and to follow the same waters it followed all day tumbling through darkness Page 40

David Whyte David Whyte Nakasendo Poems continued FOOTSTEPS Walking through pines and birdsong this morning thinking of Basho Who will walk In my footsteps OLD FRIENDS The clouds the blowing rain and the clear bent mountain pine against the sky three old friends who never had a dime still helping each other after all these years THE PASS The pass was always just over the next rise of trees a notch in the skyline One day I will take my last breath from that beckoning sky David Whyte Nakasendo Poems from The Bell and the Blackbird Copyright 2019 David Whyte Reprinted with permission from Many Rivers Press Langley WA www davidwhyte com THE BAG ON MY BACK The bag on my back is full of presents my head with memories my feet with every step I ve trod along the way Page 41 Page 42

Tonen O Connor Tonen O Connor Buddhist Peace Fellowship New Year s Day Gathering Outside my window winter branches Were black lace against a pewter sky On a day when an email arrived An event is planned You are invited oh yes do come We find peace in knowing someone Also in having known Resolution for the new year Find the peace of knowing one another We will gather peace Together of course We will seek the elusive dove Hiding just out of sight I wonder Is peace absence Or presence I do not know so many things Living in anticipation of knowing Hoping for the absence of anguish The presence of a smile Had an email from Paolo in Rome Things are good with him and his family But our friend Slava has died in Russia Paolo says The void left can never be filled But maybe this is the sign of the age I am living The farewell time The Buddha knew that things arrive and things depart Farewell we say to those who go Yet to leave a void they must have been known Page 43 Page 44

Tonen O Connor Tonen O Connor Gassho As followers of Buddha s teachings on numerous occasions we place our palms together in the gesture known in Japanese as gassho We greet our teachers each other the zendo our cushion and the altar with this ancient gesture I sign my letters in gassho and then add palms together in respect in cases where the recipient might not know what it means For a very long time people in China Vietnam Thailand Korea Japan and India have been greeting each other with this gesture which has many names but always meaning respect whether it is used in a religious or a social context When asked about the meaning of gassho I usually use an explanation someone else gave me long ago it demonstrates that I have no weapon in my hands and that I expose my neck to you as I bow i e I come in peace In the West we also have the ancient gesture of extending our weaponless right hand to grasp another s hand I come in peace that our sole relationship of respect is with others like us And we face them directly even sometimes utilizing the handshake as demonstration of superior strength In gassho we bow our heads slightly in humility and we bow to everything we encounter be it a person a room a cushion or plate of food expressing our respect for all things We are acknowledging them as entities with whom we share this life and upon whom we depend for our very being So for me gassho is more than a strange Asian gesture that we are asked to use as part of a Zen Buddhist practice that comes to us from Japan Gassho is an expression of respect for all life including our own Yet I think that gassho has perhaps a deeper meaning than our handshake First of all as we place our palms together we are creating a metaphor for the coming together of opposites self and other you and me ignorance and wisdom life and death In this sense it is an expression of emptiness in which all things depend for their definition upon their opposite Dark is the absence of light light is the absence of dark There is also a significant difference in the manner in which the two gestures of gassho or a handshake are applied We in the West shake hands only with other human beings in a way that hints at our understanding Page 45 Page 46

BIOGRAPHIES Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan at poetrypacific blogspot ca Credits include 12 Pushcart nominations 15 chapbooks appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry 2008 17 and Poetry Daily Sally Hess was introduced to Buddhism at the Zen Community of New York in 1984 She received lay ordination from Dai En Bennage Roshi in 1994 with the Dharma name Daisen Kyoku Lutz is a Dharma successor of Rev Hoko Karnegis Sanshinji and leads the Fr hlingsmond Zendo in Hanover Germany She is a Doctor of Educational Science with training in Systemic Family Therapy and Counseling Tonen O Connor is the Resident Priest Emerita of the Milwaukee Zen Center Her most recent literary adventure was editing and writing an introductory essay for Ryokan interpreted by Shohaku Okumura Darrell Petska is a retired university editor and 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee His poetry appears in 3rd Wednesday Magazine Buddhist Poetry Review Verse Virtual Soul Lit and widely elsewhere conservancies wordpress com Rev Zuiko Redding is pastor of Cedar Rapids Zen Center a Soto Zen temple in Iowa She has two cats Roy and Sam You can see the Center at www cedarrapidszencenter org Kristin Roahrig resides in Indiana where she engages in writing and photography Neil Schmitzer Torbert began his Zen practice in Minneapolis while studying neuroscience in graduate school Today he teaches psychology at Wabash College and shares reflections on practice and science at neuralbuddhist com Gail Sher received lay ordination from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1970 She is a poet writer teacher and psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay area Her weekly talks on Zen practice are at gailsherdharmatalks com Joshua St Claire is a corporate controller from rural Pennsylvania His haiku have appeared in several international journals and he believes that small poems can contain the universe Lisa Summers lives in rural Indiana and teaches in a women s prison She enjoys capturing the world she wanders with photographs and in writing Daniel Thomas s second poetry book Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn was published in 2022 His first collection Deep Pockets won a 2018 Catholic Press Award More info at danielthomaspoetry com Jay Tuttle finds the mix of art and science in photography very appealing Making photographs that others enjoy are a great pleasure in his life Enjoy more images at jaytuttlephotography com Poet David Whyte grew up with a strong imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father s Yorkshire The author of eleven books of poetry and four books of prose he holds a degree in Marine Zoology and leads workshops and walking tours around the world

Jay Tuttle Great Wind Zendo is a place for Zen Meditation located in Danville Indiana We are open to the public and there is no charge for our programs Anyone new to meditation is welcome We provide meditation instruction on Thursday evenings at 6 30 p m Please e mail us so we know to expect you Our schedule includes weekly meditation on Thursdays from 7 00 to 8 00 p m morning meditation one Sunday each month from 9 00 a m to noon We offer World Peace ceremonies and celebrate Nirvana Day Buddha s Birthday Bodhidharma Day and Enlightenment Day Our web calendar is the best place to find our schedule Great Wind Zendo is a 501 c 3 non profit religious organization funded by the generosity of donors Great Wind Zendo 52 W Broadway Street Danville Indiana 46122 email greatwindzendo org https www greatwindzendo org Page 49

Sky Above Great Wind Ryokan