Denko-e Sesshin 2019
Sesshin is underway, but it’s not too late to join us for Denko-e, Jikoji’s traditional fall dharma teaching week of practice and study. This fall the study topic is Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. This is one of our usual chants, a poem from our ancestor Dongshan Liangjie, that with multiple metaphors explores the meaning of “suchness.” Teachers of the Phoenix Cloud lineage will be sharing the teaching. We will be working with Dan Leighton’s book “Just This is It” and other texts.
As with all Jikoji sesshins, you may attend part-time, but please register (below) to sign-up for meals and overnight accommodations. Further contact details are below. We look forward to practicing with you.
Cost:
The full sesshin – 7-days (Monday - Sunday), 6-nights – is $360, including all meals and overnight accommodations. For those staying only a portion, it is $60/per overnight, and $25/per day for daytime visits (no overnights.)
Meals
All food is vegetarian and prepared by the head of kitchen known as the Tenzo. Meals during sesshin will be served oryoki-style in the dining hall of the Jikoji Community Building. Oryoki is an integral part of the sesshin experience and an extension of our Zendo forms. If you need to learn oryoki instructions please indicate so on the registration form. Instructions will be provided Tuesday morning before our first Oryoki meal. You can also learn the basics by watching a video and reading instructions supplied here: www.jikoji.org/oryoki. For a complete list of meal times please see the schedule. Oryoki instruction will also be offered on arrival day, an hour before the evening meal, and by arrangement with the Sesshin Ino.
Accommodations
Jikoji offers separate female and male dormitory style beds with shared bathrooms. If you have any special needs please let us know through the registration form. Bedding and linens are provided, but you are encouraged to bring a sleeping bag/extra blankets and pillow if taking the "campsite" option.
What to bring
Comfortable loose-fitting clothes good for sitting for long hours (ideally without logos and slogans)
A warm sweater and other warm layers (mornings and evenings can be chilly)
A warm, rain resistant coat
Shoes that you can work in
Shoes/footwear that are easy to remove after walking between buildings
A change of clothes to work outside (weather permitting)
Umbrella
Flashlight
Toiletries
An open mind
Questions?
Please feel free to call Jikoji 408-741-9562 or email our Shika (Guest Manager) at shika@jikoji.org
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Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi
The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors.
Since you already have it, please keep it well.
Filling a silver bowl with snow,
hiding a heron in the moonlight –
Though taken as similar they are not the same;
when you align them, you know what they are.
The meaning is not in the words,
yet it responds to an inquiring impulse.
Move toward it and you are trapped;
back away and you fall into doubt and vacillation.
Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like intensive fire.
Even to depict it in literary form
is to stain it with defilement.
Though appearing bright at midnight, it will not be noticed at dawn.
It will act as a guide for beings,
and its use removes suffering.
Although it is not fabricated,
it is not without speech.
It is like facing a jewel mirror;
form and image behold each other –
You are not it,
but it is completely you.
Like a baby in the world
with its five aspects complete;
It neither goes nor comes, neither rises nor stands,
Saying “baba wawa”
but is there anything said or not?
Ultimately it need not apprehend anything because speech is not yet formed.
It is like the six lines of the illumination hexagram where the relative and ultimate are joined.
Compiled, they make three,
the complete transformation makes five.
It is all the tastes of the five-flavored herb, it is like the diamond thunderbolt.
Subtly included within the true
inquiry and response come up together.
When communing with the source, when traveling the pathways embrace the territory and treasure the road.
Respecting this is fortunate; do not neglect it.
Being naturally real yet inconceivable,
it is neither in the province of delusion nor enlightenment.
With causal conditions, time and season, quiescently it shines bright.
In its fineness it fits into spacelessness,
in it greatness it is utterly beyond location.
A hairsbreadth’s deviation
will fail to accord with proper attunement.
In both sudden and gradual paths
the various teachings and approaches arise,
and once basic approaches are distinguished then there are guiding rules.
But even though a basis is reached or approach comprehended, true eternity still flows.
Outwardly still while inwardly moving, like a tethered colt, a trapped rat –
The ancient sages had sympathy and bestowed the teachings.
With the capacity of delusion
even black could be known as white,
But when erroneous imaginations cease the acquiescent mind realizes itself. If you want to conform to the ancient way,
please observe the teaching of former times. When about to fulfill the way of buddhahood,
one gazed at the tree for ten eons Like a battle-scarred tiger,
like a horse with shanks gone gray. Because there is the common
there are jewel pedestals, fine clothing. Because there is the startlingly different
there are house, cat, and cow. Yi with his archer’s skill
could hit a target at a hundred paces, But when the arrow-points meet head on,
what has this to do with the power of skill? When the wooden man begins to sing
the stone woman gets up dancing.
It’s not within the realm of feeling or discrimination
so how could it admit of consideration in thought? Ministers serve their lords,
and children obey their parents; Not obeying is not filial
and not serving is no help. Practice secretly, working within,
like a fool, like an idiot. Just to continue in this way
is called the host within the host.
OUR SCHEDULE
MONDAY
4:00 PM Registration
6:00 PM Dinner
7:30 PM Zazen
8:10 PM Opening Remarks
8:45 PM Silence begins
9:30 PM Lights Out
TUESDAY - SATURDAY
5:30 AM Wakeup Bell
6:00 AM Zazen
6:40 AM Kinhin
6:50 AM Zazen
7:20 AM Service
7:30 AM Breakfast
8:15 AM Samu (Work Period)
8:30 AM End of Samu
9:15 AM Zazen
9:55 AM Outdoor Kinhin
10:30 AM Zazen
11:10 AM Kinhin
11:20 AM Zazen
12:00 PM Lunch
12:40 PM Break and Clean up
1:40 PM Work Practice
2:45 PM Kinhin
3:00 PM Tea
4:15 PM Kinhin and get to yoga
4:25 PM Yoga, Tai Chi (small zendo)
5:10 PM Zazen
5:50 PM Kinhin
6:00 PM dinner
6:30 PM Dinner Cleanup and Break
7:15 PM Zazen
7:55 PM kinhin
8:05 PM Zazen
8:45 PM Bows and Three Refuges
9:30 PM Lights Out
SUNDAY
5:30 AM Wakeup Bell
6:00 AM Zazen
6:40 AM Kinhin
6:50 AM Zazen
7:20 AM Service
7:30 AM Breakfast
8:10 AM Break
10:00 AM Zazen
10:40 AM Kinhin
10:50 AM Zazen
11:20 AM Service
11:40 AM Dharma Talk
12:30 PM Sangha Lunch
2:00 PM Gentle Walk