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All you hungry spirits in the Ten Directions, please gather
here. Sharing your distress, I offer you this food, hoping it resolves
your thirsts and hungers. Gate of Sweet Nectar
The Montague Farm Zendo, led by Sensei Eve Myonen Marko, offers Zen
meditation, liturgy, study, and retreats. There is private study with a
teacher, liturgical training, as well as group study and circle
processes. As the sangha comes together, we also hope to become
involved in social action. The Montague Farm Zendo is the zendo of the
Mother House of the Zen Peacemakers Sangha, founded by Roshi Bernie
Glassman. It's also part of the White Plum Sangha, founded by Taizan
Hakuyu Maezumi Roshi.
Sensei
Eve Marko
November 1, 2008
Dear Friend,
Our harvest time of vegetables and fruit has passed. Now we are
harvesting red and yellow leaves, the long shadows of a more distant
sun, and the ash left by burnt firewood.
Come sit a round at the Montague Farm Zendo. The Main Hall is warm
even in the early morning as we watch the sun rise and the world
awaken.
As the year edges to a close and we experience more instability and
uncertainty, let's focus once again on the things that matter--the
value of practice, the generosity of teachings, the strength of our
backs and the openness of our hearts.
May our life and practice be renewed for the benefit of all
beings.
Eve Myonen Marko
Monday, Thursday, Friday: Sitting meditation: 6:45-8:00 am
Saturday 8:30-11:00 Sitting meditation: 8:30
Study: 9:30 11/15, Reflection on
Precepts
Gate of Sweet Nectar: 10:30
Tuesday:
Beginning Instruction for Zen Meditation: 7:00 pm (Please call
ahead of time) Sitting Meditation: 7:30-8:30 pm Study: 8:30-9:30
pm 11/4: Special Election Day schedule:
Meditation and study: 7:30-9:00 pm: Voting and Practice: Living With the Results. A
Zen perspective on elections and participation in political life.
11/18, 12/23: Meditation, Five Buddha Family Study
11/25: Sitting meditation, Council and Tea 12/16:
Meditation, Renewal of Vows
Introduction to Zen Practice--Sunday, Nov. 2, 1-4 pm Led
by Eve Myonen Marko Introduction to meditation, basic zendo
etiquette, and circle/Q&A on Zen practice and everyday life. Please
pre-register. No fee; donation appreciated.
See below: Introduction to Zen Practice
Enlightenment Sesshin, 12/4-7 The retreat begins at 7:30
pm on Thursday, December 4, and ends at noon on Sunday, December 7, and
includes meditation, dharma talks, study with Eve Myonen Marko, body
practice, and all oryoki meals from Friday through Sunday
breakfast. Dana will be requested on behalf of Sensei. No regular
Saturday schedule. Please pre-register. Fee: $225
See
below: Enlightenment Sesshin
There Will Be No Zendo
Schedule on November 8, 27-30, and December 24-January 1.
UPCOMING EVENTS OF THE MONTAGUE
FARM ZENDO
INTRODUCTION TO ZEN
PRACTICE November 2 An
Introduction to Zen Practice, led by Eve Myonen Marko, will take place
on Sunday, November 2, 1-4 pm. The session will include instruction to
Zen meditation (focusing on body, mind and breath), two brief
meditation sessions, and basic zendo etiquette. We will also have
questions and answers, as well as a circle discussion of meditation
practice and its benefits for everyday life. No fee, but a donation is
appreciated. Please let us know ahead of time that you're
coming by contacting Seiki: seiki@zenpeacemakers.org,
413-367-2080 x 3#.
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ENLIGHTENMENT
SESSHIN December 4 The retreat
begins at 7:30 pm on Thursday, December 4, and ends at noon on Sunday,
December 7. It will comprise meditation, dharma talks, study with
Sensei Eve Myonen Marko, body practice, and all meals (oryoki) from
Friday through Sunday breakfast. Dana will be requested on behalf of
Sensei. Limited on-site accommodation for an additional fee. Fee:
$225.
For registration information, please email: seiki@zenpeacemakers.org, or
413-367-2080 x 3#.
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| FALL
STUDY Delusions of Practice
We continue with our study of delusions and confusion we have
around terms and topics relating to the dharma. Using koans and
stories from Zen literature, but depending mostly on our own
experiences with practice, we have gone deeply into topics such as
silence, service, delusion and enlightenment, and letting go. In the
next two months we will study emptiness, self and no-self, and
transmission of dharma, as well as issues relating to koan study and
teacher-student relationships.
Five Buddha Families Our study of the Five Buddha
Families continues with a monthly practice of one energy family, led
and organized by sangha members embodying that energy. Buddha Family
study will take place on Tuesday, November 18, and Padma Family study
on Tuesday, December 23, which will also include a year-end
celebration. All are welcome!
Precepts Study
Precepts study is taking place on
consecutive Sunday afternoons this fall and is led by Jim Ryudo Bastien
and John Genyo Sprague, and assisted by Steve Kanji Ruehl. This study
can lead to a Ceremony for Receiving Precepts on January 25,
2009.
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Membership in Montague Farm
Zendo Please consider making a monthly
financial commitment of $35.00 to the Montague Farm Zendo. These funds
will help to support its teacher, Sensei Eve Myonen Marko, and
will also pay for basic zendo supplies. You can also do service in
lieu of some of the membership fee.
As a member, you will
receive a bi-monthly newsletter as well as reductions in retreat
prices. You will receive a discount on programs given at the Maezumi
Institute. Most important, you will be supporting the flowering of the
sangha's practice.
For more information, please contact Seiki: seiki@zenpeacemakers.org,
413-367-2080x3#.
Letting
Go
(From a talk given by Eve Myonen Marko on September 27 as part
of the Zendo study series entitled Delusions of
Practice.)
I would like to evoke the fifth of the Ox-Herding Pictures to
discuss the nature of letting go. The Ox-Herding Pictures is a set of
pictures describing the process of waking up. In the third picture,
entitled Finding the Ox, the herdswoman actually sees the ox, or
rather its hind quarters, implying that she has a glimpse of life as it
is and experiences some shift. In Picture 4, Catching the Ox,
she cultivates sufficient depth and concentration to have a bigger realization of her True
Nature, and especially to see that thoughts and concepts have nothing
to do with it. But her mind and awareness can still go elsewhere, so
her practice must continue meticulously.
Finally, we're at the 5th picture, Gentling the Ox. The
picture shows the ox following the herdsman, a rope between them. The
poem below the picture reads:
If but one thought arises, then another and another
follows in an endless round. Through awakening, everything becomes
truth; through delusion, it becomes error. Things do not come into
being depending on circumstances but arise from the herdsman's own
heart. Hold the rein tight and do not allow any
wavering.
Things arise from the herdsman's own heart. We think that our
feelings come up for a reason, triggered or caused by an event or
person. Is that true? That might only be our thought and story about
it. We carry a lot of pain that is unaccounted for by our regular life.
I believe that since the world is one, the pain of all living beings,
past, present and future, leaves its mark on our life. Everything
affects us.
Hold the rein tight and do not allow any wavering. Is this
any way to gentle anything? The only way to gentle this mind, this
consciousness that is eternally looking out for distraction and
explanation, is to let go of the attachment to those mental constructs
and definitions. How do we do that, especially as the poem has already
informed us: If but one thought arises, then another and another
follows in an endless round. What do we do with thoughts and
feelings that come up endlessly? Some say we must cut through them.
That may be easy with a small thought, such as what are we having for
dinner. But can we do it with a strong thought or emotion? And even
if we can, for what reason? Is the goal here to be thoughtless or
emotionless, to experience peace simply as absence?
Through awakening, everything becomes truth. What is Buddha?
What is the essence? Tozan said it was three pounds of flax. What
would a young mother say? A doctor? A vagrant on the corner? What do
you say? If your answer is that all is Buddha, then you are still in
the realm of delusion. How do you respond so that everything
becomes truth? Let go of the concept--and answer. What is Buddha
this moment? Whatever it is, it's already something else the next
moment, and something else the moment after that. Buddha is always
Now. Within that eternal Now, the content changes. As we bear witness
to the content changing, we can enjoy it without identifying with
it.
Annie Dillard wrote: The present is a freely given canvas. That
it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without
saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. What's to deny or chop off?
Why aspire towards some empty canvas, with no thought or color, no hue
or emotion, unless we're afraid of the shattering, of being shattered.
Yet it is out of that shattering that the realization of oneness
arises. When we can lean into it, like leaning into the skid on the ski
slopes, then we're nothing but our frozen cheeks, the snow falling, the
wind howling at our back.
I invite you to read more about the Zen Peacemakers
and/or to
explore their three main areas of activities by linking to them below:
For more information please contact: Zen
Peacemakers Office email: Program Information
call: 413 367-2080 ext. 3#
or Montague Farm
Zendo email Seiki: seiki@zenpeacemakers.org,
413-367-2080x3#. To be removed from this mailing list respond with
the word remove and your name and e-mail address within the body of
your e-mail. To be added to our mailing list and/or to see more
mailing list options please link here.
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