Glimpses From The Soto Zen Gathering, October 2000
was the host of the sesshin. Rev. Bennage is head priest and teacher at Mount Equity Zendo in Pennsdale, Pennsylvania.
Rev. Bennage is a former classical ballet dancer. She has been a student of Buddhism for over 40 years, and a resident of Japan for 23 of those years.
She is the translator of Abbess Shundo Aoyama Roshi's book: Zen Seeds. She leads meditation at several federal prisons in central Pennsylvania, and also at Bucknell University.
Mt. Equity Zendo is located about a 3 1/2 hours from Baltimore, an easy drive for those of you who would like to get to know this outstanding woman zen teacher, and her Sangha. MEZ offers a resident program, an overnight Sojourner program, monthly Days of Mindfulness, and monthly Sesshin, lasting from three to seven days. Phone (570) 546-2784 for more information.
30 Soto Zen practitioners, among them 5 teachers and a visiting priest from Japan's largest Soto training monastery, Eiheiji, did sesshin together at Mt. Equity Zendo
The teachers, from left: Rev. Keishi Miyagawa, Rev. Dai-En Bennage, Rev. Shohaku Okumura, Rev. Teijo Munnich, Rev. Eshin Ikeda, Rev. Issho Fujita.
is located deep in the countryside, next to a working farm. Early morning and late evening kinhin was outdoors, under the starry autumn sky. During the quiet of evening zazen, we were visited by horses who whinnied outside the zendo. Zazen began at 5:00 AM every morning, with the sitting periods lasting for 45 minutes, in blocks of 2 or 3 sitting periods, each one punctuated by kinhin, or walking meditation.
Morning zazen was followed immediately by morning service, lasting for about an hour. In Soto Zen, service consists of chanting, bowing, dedications and offerings of incense. Traditional morning service chants in the Soto tradition are the Heart Sutra, the Sandokai, and the lineage of ancestors from Buddha up to the present.
After morning service, we ate breakfast together in the zendo. At this retreat, all meals were served Oryoki style, sitting in formal meditation posture in the zendo, and eating the meal out of Oryoki bowls. While the meal gatha was chanted, the teachers were served, then all waited until the last person had been served before starting to eat together. When all bowls were empty, washing water was brought out, the bowls carefully cleaned and polished, the washing water drunk and offered to hungry spirits - only then were the bowls wrapped neatly up again, and the meal meditation over.
Rev. Shohaku Okumura
is the Director of the Soto Zen Educational Department of North America. He is the sponsor of the yearly Soto Gathering Sesshins.
Rev. Okumura is a Dharma heir of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. He is the translator of Uchiyama Roshi's books, 'Refining Your Life' and 'Opening the Hand of Thought', and of various other books on zen practice.
In his opening words the first evening, Rev. Okumura cautioned us not to look to him or his dharma brothers form Antaiji for traditional, monastery forms of Soto Zen, but to be inspired by the strong zazen, shikantaza, that was their practice at Antaiji.
About his practice with Soto Zen practitioners in the west, Rev. Okumura said in his closing remarks, that he has met many very sincere practitioners and many very sincere teachers. He feels that Zen in Japan is in decline, but that at the same time, Soto Zen in America is "still a seedling, without deep roots yet". He reminded us again not to compare the forms of our practice to those practiced in big, Japanese training monasteries; "A violet blooms as a violet and a rose blooms as a rose. There is no comparison."
In his lovely and deeply inspiring Dharma talk, Rev. Okumura explained that he understands living by vow and the practice of repentance, or seeing the incompleteness of self, as the heart of mahayana practice. He spoke about the practice of Dana Paramita, building his talk around Ryokan's Waka poem:
In my begging bowl
Violets and Daisies mixed together
Let's make an offering
To the buddhas in the three worlds
Rev. Shohaku Okumura
is the Director of the Soto Zen Educational Department of North America. He is the sponsor of the yearly Soto Gathering Sesshins.
Rev. Okumura is a Dharma heir of Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. He is the translator of Uchiyama Roshi's books, 'Refining Your Life' and 'Opening the Hand of Thought', and of various other books on zen practice.
In his opening words the first evening, Rev. Okumura cautioned us not to look to him or his dharma brothers form Antaiji for traditional, monastery forms of Soto Zen, but to be inspired by the strong zazen, shikantaza, that was their practice at Antaiji.
About his practice with Soto Zen practitioners in the west, Rev. Okumura said in his closing remarks, that he has met many very sincere practitioners and many very sincere teachers. He feels that Zen in Japan is in decline, but that at the same time, Soto Zen in America is "still a seedling, without deep roots yet". He reminded us again not to compare the forms of our practice to those practiced in big, Japanese training monasteries; "A violet blooms as a violet and a rose blooms as a rose. There is no comparison."
In his lovely and deeply inspiring Dharma talk, Rev. Okumura explained that he understands living by vow and the practice of repentance, or seeing the incompleteness of self, as the heart of mahayana practice. He spoke about the practice of Dana Paramita, building his talk around Ryokan's Waka poem:
In my begging bowl
Violets and Daisies mixed together
Let's make an offering
To the buddhas in the three worlds
Rev. Teijo Munnich
is head priest and teacher at Zen Center of Asheville in Asheville, NC. She is a Dharma heir of the late Dainin Katagiri Roshi. Teijo has trained both in the US and Japan. Teijo came to zen after a childhood wanting to become a Catholic nun, and several years as a novice in a convent, right out of high school. She left the convent, met Katagiri Roshi and started to sit. His instructions to students were often short and to the point; "Just sit down, and shut up!"
Many of us recognized ourselves in her description of her practice at Minnesota Zen Center: Katagiri Roshi kept rotating his students constantly through positions of responsibility: She was kept extremely busy, always in charge of some project or other. When she became aware of taking a certain pleasure in her "bigwig" status, she welcomed the chance to go to Japan for 3 years to study, for a chance to "be nobody, to JUST follow the schedule." She feels the experience made her "less arrogant about this practice". It was extremely hard to "just follow the schedule", to simply do as one was told. Being the lowest person on the totem pole at a training monastery for men, was difficult. Now, as a teacher herself, she aspires to live the life of a simple monk, to simply "Do whatever needs doing, moment after moment."
Rev. Keishi Miyagawa,
a priest visiting American practice centers from Eihei-ji, Dogen's old temple, and one of the main Soto training monasteries in Japan, found the meditation practice at MEZ more challenging and intense than in Japan: "At Eiheiji we can go back to our own departments for coffee in the breaks between each sitting. Here there is no escape!"
Rev. Miyagawa told us he was ordained by his master, who is also his father, when he was 10 years old. "Not my will, of course!" Never the less, he now has chosen as an adult to continue on the path. "I can not explain why, but I want to continue this practice." After finishing a 3 month training period at Eihei-ji, he asked to be sent to North America to study how we practice here. Permission was granted, and he was asked by Eiheiji to prepare a report on Soto Zen practice in this country.
Rev.Miyagawa feels that zen in Japan is somewhat in decline. In the west he has found that people are more deeply passionate about their practice. He hopes to be able to use what he has learned here to revitalize practice at his own temple, Tentoku-ji, when he gets back to Japan and takes over from his father.
Most of the students at the retreat were Rev. Dai-En Bennage's long time students, and the atmosphere of the entire retreat reflected their practice. Mt. Equity is a joyful and harmonious place to visit.
Thank you NiOsho and Sangha for creating and maintaining this wonderful practice center! Thank you Soto Zen Educational Department of North America and to all the teachers for this unique learning experience!
