April 13, 2020

Our ZHS on-line schedule (go to our website for more information: zenheartsangha.org):

• Mondays: 7-8:30pm - zazen, short service, lecture/discussion
• Tuesdays-Fridays: 5:30-6:10pm - zazen, offering of merit/bows
• Saturdays: 8:00-10:15am - zazen, short service, tea, discussion/study

Special bows for today:  

• Please continue to offer bows for the family of Alison Templeton, a Peninsula School parent, who died on April 1st after a long struggle with cancer
• Please continue to offer bows for Jeff Ghazarian and his family, friends of Lilliana Mendez-Soto’s nephew who died on March 19^th at the age of 34 from COVID-19
• Please continue to offer bows of well-being for:   
• Gil Bergman, Shannon's husband who is recovering from illness
• Rev. Les Kaye, Misha’s Zen teacher, who is recovering at home while undergoing chemotherapy
• Brendan, Kate Haimson’s son, who is recovering at home from surgery 
• Michael Tieri Ricaud, Dainuri Rott’s brother, who is suffering from MS

Wonderful links shared by sangha and friends:

• New tab on Zen Heart Sangha website with resources about COVID-19 (zenheartsangha.org)
• From our dharma sister, Misha, from Joffe Emergency Services: Cooking during COVID The page, Cooking at Home in the Time of Coronavirus takes pride in helping the at-home cook stir up something special with what is hidden in the pantry.
• From our dharma friend, Fumiko Arao, a beautiful video on the tea ceremony from the Asian Art Museum:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7r63iDfL0
• From our dharma sister, Alisa Tu, an article on grief:  
• https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief?fbclid=IwAR2f8ajEFn_MpazcdxvTj8MsuQZ7xlNtS44KG2b0NukPh6K012FWfGCdd8A
• From our dharma friend, Brian Dipert, for your amusement! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8A1dqsiNSI

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From our dharma teacher, Jill Kaplan, from her lecture during sesshin:  Incubation in Coronavirus Time

(Scroll at home zendo: Ichi ni Ichi go (One time, one meeting)

In Dogen’s Eihei Hosu Kotsuganmon, he says “Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we; we in the future shall be buddhas and ancestors”. Right now, we are the ancestors for the time that is to come; and ancestors of old were just like us, on the knife edge of the present moment, on the edge of uncertainty and not knowing. They might not have been in a pandemic, but maybe they were. The injunction to practice as though your hair is on fire is not unlike the injunction that the virus presents to us. Alive or dead? Our ancestors didn’t know, but they continued to rake and hoe like Zen-gen and bury their dead. 

Maya, the mother of the Buddha, has been much alive in me the past week. Her story is about the birth of the Buddha, but you may remember that it’s also a story of death. Alive or dead? The future buddha lives; his mother dies in childbirth. And I heard something this week, in a talk by Wendy Garling, who has a new book about the women in Buddha’s time. When Maya gave birth, her sister, Gotama, was right there. Gotama became Mahapajapati, our first woman ancestor. She raised the Buddha, nursed him as her own son. As Maya was dying she said to her sister, “Oh, my golden girl, do not stop”.  Here is born the buddha, in this moment between sisters, this awakening of compassion between them. “Oh, my golden girl, do not stop” – carry on with life, she is saying, right here in the midst of death. And her message is for us right now, too--oh, my golden friends, do not stop.

Maya’s womb crosses time and space and is always with us, always giving birth to the Buddha, to us, to awareness in us. Her womb is our time, this time of incubation, this time of new consciousness, new awareness, new birth, new death, new potential. Alive or dead? I can’t say. But I can ask myself, please ask yourselves, what is alive in this moment, moment after moment, and please don’t stop being in this moment, stay in this threshold of coronavirus time, incubate your grief and your hope and all your seeds. We are as the ancestors, just like Zen-gen and Dogen and Suzuki; we will be ancestors for the new times.

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Many thanks to those of you who are sending me articles to share, links to helpful information, and for making comments…it is a gift beyond measure. Please know that you can either leave a comment on the blog itself, or send something directly to me and I will be happy to paste it in.