Look for schedule details here and on our website soon!
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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 19th at the age of 34 from COVID-19
- Please continue to offer bows of well-being for:
- Jackie Little, Jim Little’s aunt, who is currently in hospital after testing positive for COVID-19
- 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
- From our dharma sister, Jill Kaplan: Jack Kornfield's Bodhisattva Response to the Virus: https://jackkornfield.com/the-bodhisattva-response-to-the-virus/
- From our dharma sister, Diane Comey: a tour of Hakone Gardens during cherry blossom time https://youtu.be/cJ09GLc-cek
- And if you need to remember how to laugh, from our dharma sister, Alisa Tu: https://pvcycling.wordpress.
com/2020/04/01/groundhog-day/ - From our dharma brother, Brian Dipert, in Colorado about faith in troubled times: https://www.denverpost.com/2020/04/05/colorado-coronavirus-religion-faith/
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From our ZHS sangha teacher, Jill Kaplan:
Dear Dharma Friends,
I’ve been thinking a lot
about resilience in the past few weeks. In the days of my training as a
psychotherapist, I worked in a program in schools as a “resiliency consultant”
and it was always a mystery to me what I was meant to do. Resiliency is related
to many factors, such as temperament, significant others who believe in you,
life circumstances. It’s almost seemed to me a little like grace, in that two
people can go through the same difficulties, even be raised in the same
dysfunctional family, and one weathers it well and one does not. Resilience is also
what zazen develops in us, as we sit with ourselves moment after moment and
surrender to what is. I find myself hugely grateful for the day I found Zen
practice, because sitting alone with my wild mind has encouraged and supported
my own resilience. I hope yours as well.
I’ve had several
conversations this week with colleagues and students, and want to share with
everyone what I have gleaned about developing resilience and shoring up our
resources during this time of enforced isolation. Many of us are alone, or with
one or two others, and the only other human contact we’re getting is over the
phone, on Zoom, passing people with many feet of distance, avoiding people if
we’re still going out to the grocery store. As humans, as social animals, we
need human contact, human touch, and it’s denied to us by this tiny virus, who
cares nothing about us, only cares about reproducing itself. Which it does,
ironically, through human touch and contact.
So, as one person
recommended to me today, we have to identify for ourselves our resources, know
when we are thin, know when we’re spiralling down with anxiety or depression.
We need to name these resources to ourselves before we get there, so I am
encouraging myself and everyone to make a list, mental or even written down, of
what to do and where to go at the first signs of stress. How do I know the signs
of this spiral? For me it’s a pain in my gut, a feeling of dread, crankiness,
restlessness. And what are my
resources, what do I go to when I notice? - taking a walk, digging in the dirt,
calling a friend, zazen (of course!), reading a novel, journaling, creating or
calling upon an image, practicing gratitude - these are my best companions at
those times.
A friend observed that
he is noticing that all our habits have to change, and it is a time of
discernment about what works, and what doesn’t. Running out to the store cannot
serve as a distraction, it’s too risky. Getting together with friends is not an
option. Going swimming or to the gym are not options. We are so close now to
the teachings we’ve been studying, some of us for decades: impermanence, no
separation, suffering of course.
Shantideva writes: “If
you can find a solution, what’s the point of being upset? And if you can’t find
a solution, what’s the point of being upset?”
Our lives have changed
completely. Time has changed for me in very interesting ways, maybe for you
too. This new time feels more intimately REAL than ever before, so close to the
edge. It is calling on our practice, our creativity, our imagination of what is
and of what might be. We are thrown upon ourselves as never before, and the
gift can be found in calling upon our inner resources, developing more deeply
our compassion and love for ourselves, which we can return and dedicate to all
beings.
Many bows of gratitude, Jill Kakushin
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