February 2019
A line from our Morning Bell chant (which comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra) comes to mind and repeats itself like a mantra in my head these days, “Emptiness is a string that leaves nothing unstrung.” Causes and conditions, dragons and snakes, time and space are ceaselessly intermingled, interconnected. Are we feeling yanked around? By whom, by what? Are we pinning it down to one individual, one cause? What about if there’s no separate I? What then?
There is a kong-an in our collection, about Zen Master Man Gong, who during their winter Kyol Che, gave a talk in which he said that he made a net out of a special cord that could catch all Buddhas, Patriarchs, Matriarchs and human beings. That was his first course of foolishness. Clearly, he was testing, if not outright teasing, his students. It’s like someone came up to you and said, “Look, I made
the sun today!”
But then he added a second course, just in case nobody was paying attention to the first one, and he asked, “How do you get out of this net?”
How indeed. If anyone were to say they’d already gotten out, well, good luck with that storyline. I would feel compelled to respond, “Looks like another fish has been caught!”
What a net, what a life! May all beings realize that the whole universe in all its particularity and splendor and suffering is created by mind alone. Only then, can we be set free.
Jeong Ji
|
|
photo by Eric Nord, JDPSN
|
|
Kong-An Interviews:
1st Tuesday with Zen Master Jeong Ji:
Alternating Tuesdays during Kyol Che
2nd Sunday with Zen Master Jeong Ji or Eric Nord, JDPSN:
February 10th
3rd Wednesday with Zen Master Jeong Ji:
February 20th
3rd Thursday with Eric Nord, JDPSN:
February 21st
Consulting Interviews:
None scheduled this month
Special Chanting:
Sunday, February 3rd
Please visit the
website calendar
for complete and current details of these events and for the weekly practice schedule.
|
|
(NEW) Online Practice for Kyol Che
Mondays at 6am
We are expanding our practice opportunities to include a new option to practice online in the comfort of your home. Dharma Teacher Lisa Kaufman will be leading this practice which will include sitting for 30 minutes, two chants, Four Great Vows, and a short reading. All are welcome to be supported in creating and sustaining a home practice, no experience necessary.
We will meet weekly on
Mondays from 6am – 6:45am Pacific Time via Zoom Video Conferencing starting Monday, January 28, 2019.
Please check
here for complete details.
|
|
Neighborhood Cleanup
Sunday, February 3rd: 10am - 11am
As a part of our involvement with our community, we have instituted regular trash pickup from the streets of our
neighborhood. Please join the sangha for this outreach. Blue Heron will supply garbage bags and pickers for trash. Please bring gloves if you have them.
|
|
|
|
Monthly Potluck and Book Club
Sunday, February 24th: 11am
Starting this month, we’ll be hosting a monthly book club, combined with a Potluck. This will take place on the last Sunday of every month, at 11am. We’ll begin with
Swampland Flowers, by the great 12th c. Chinese Zen Master Ta Hui, translated by Christopher Cleary. This book consists of a series of short letters he wrote to lay practitioners, outlining the core of Zen practice, its methods, pitfalls and applications for living in the world as an ordinary/extraordinary human being. Please join us! Note: while the hardcover book is out of print, there are some used copies out there. Also, it is available as an ebook to download to your reader or tablet. And…if neither of those options work for you, we have a few copies at the Zen Center. We might also post the excerpts that we’ll be reading each month on our members’ page online.
|
|
Blue Heron Zen Community Tee Shirts
We are currently taking orders for tee shirts. Please check them out
here.
|
|
Looking Forward
Dharma Talk:
Thursday, March 7th
Three-day Retreat with Jeff Tipp, JDPSN:
Friday-Sunday, March 8th-10th
Fundamentals of Zen:
Sunday, March 17th
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
