April 2, 2020

Special bows for today:

• Please offer bows for Jackie Little, Jim Little’s aunt, who is currently in hospital after testing positive for COVID-19
• 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:
• Lisa McCrossen, Dainuri Rott’s niece, who is recovering from COVID-19
• Carmen Ibanez, Lidia Luna’s mother, who is recovering from surgery for sciatica
• Rev. Les Kaye, Misha’s Zen teacher, who is undergoing chemotherapy for bladder cancer
• Brendan, Kate Haimson’s son, who is recovering from surgery for a brain aneurism
• Lilith Armitage, Shannon Bergman’s daughter who is recovering from knee surgery
• Michael Tieri Ricaud, Dainuri Rott’s brother, who is suffering from MS

Our new 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

Wonderful links shared by sangha and friends:

• New from Zen Heart Sangha: a new tab on our website with resources about COVID-19: zenheartsangha.org
• From our dharma sister, Diane Comey: a tour of Hakone Gardens during cherry blossom time https://youtu.be/cJ09GLc-cek
• From a friend of Misha’s for sheer joy, music, and amazing birds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMXD4h5w8D
• From our dharma sister, Kat Haimson:  inspiring stories of women in their 70’s: 70candles.com

Many years ago at San Francisco Zen Center there was a wonderful and unusual gallery exhibition.  It was composed of dozens of photographed pages as well as complete books of Suzuki Roshi’s masterpiece, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.  Each book belonged to a Zen practitioner, each photographed page was taken from someone’s personal copy.  And in each book or page different sentences or paragraphs or whole pages were annotated in some way: underlined or highlighted, with turned down corners and handwritten notes in the margins.  It was a delightful exhibit for so many reasons--each book or photograph was labeled with the owner’s name so that you knew what had spoken to that particular person; you could read their notes which were mini-treatises on Zen practice (rather like commentary on the Torah); and the truly amazing thing was that some part of the entire book had been chosen by someone as being worthy of note. 

Only afterwards did I realize that my own original copy of this book, purchased almost 35 years ago, looked much the same…with underlines and exclamation points and ‘notes to self’.  I never dated my comments, so sometimes when I am leafing through the book (as I did tonight), I am surprised by what touched my Buddha mind in the past…and what touches it now.  This evening I wanted to see what Suzuki Roshi had to say about mistakes, so I went to the talk entitled ‘Mistakes in Practice’.  As usual, I found exactly the encouragement I needed right now as I seem to be making one mistake after another during this crazy crisis.  He wrote, “It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it.  So you should be grateful that you have a sign or warning signal [like being tired of sitting or feeling disgusted with your practice] to show you the weak point in your practice.  At that time, forgetting all about your mistake and renewing your way, you can resume your original practice.”  I realize that my discouragement with myself (and the mistakes I am unhappy about) are a sign that my practice needs a little strengthening right now and that perhaps my routine of zazen has not been as regular as it should be.

We are all going to make mistakes right now.  There are too many new things to know, too many new and unusual routines to which to adjust, too much isolation from the very thing that would give us comfort: each other’s arms.  So just decide right now: forgive yourself for the many mistakes you have already made or will be making in the next few months, and accept that, as Suzuki Roshi said, “Whether you have difficulties in your practice or not, as long as you continue it, you have pure practice in its true sense.  Even when you are not aware of it, you have it.”

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Many thanks to those of you who are sending links and 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.  Here is a quick video on how to comment; it's from 2017, but should work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4RflO5Wgg

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