* At Jikoji & On Zoom *
SUNDAY PROGRAM
This Sunday:
Poetry & Zen
with Paula Jones
Sunday, March 26th, 2023 - 10am-12:30pm
Zazen - Service - Dharma Talk
Our Dharma Talk this week will be by Paula Jones, one of Jikoji’s Guiding Teachers, and founder of Floating Zendo San Diego.
We ask for a $20 donation to cover the costs of our Sunday Program. Payment can be made via the donate button on our website or in person at our donation box.
Please bring a poem to share which has special meaning for you at this time. Consider finding a poem that relates to the prompt, "I am always close to this." The poem you find could also be a poem of your own.
Here are some poems to inspire:
This Anger, This Grief by Lucille Clifton
after the birth
of second daughter
Winnie mandela’s womb
prepared itself for son’s
this grief
this anger
some of this
is the sons of winnie
Mandela.
To My Magnanimous Mind by Angie Boissevain
You are so generous, you give away
everything, even our socks and shoes.
It’s not that I think withholding’s
the way to be, it’s just that now
there’s nothing left for either of us to give.
When you leave the retreat enveloped in rainbows
And lightfoot through the streets,
I’m left unclaimed, untended, and unfed.
Please come back to me. Open your beautiful
cupboard drawers and let me relish
what’s inside. Sing to me.
Remind me of paper whites,
of boats on the river,
of the awkward love
of shy parents for their beloved children.
Rumi from Birdsong, translated by Coleman Barks
I used to have fiery intensity,
and flowing sweetness.
The waters were illusion.
The flames, made of snow.
Was I dreaming then?
Am I awake now?
OUR SCHEDULE
10:00 a.m. zazen (sitting meditation)
10:40 kinhin (walking meditation)
10:50 zazen
11:20 service
11:40 talk
Paula Jones first became a student of Jikoji founder and teacher, Kobun Chino, when she attended the Santa Cruz Zendo in the mid-seventies. She and her young daughter soon moved into the residence with a changing group of caretakers and good friends, one of whom she later married. During that time she attended short sesshins at the Zendo as weeklong sessions at sponsored by the Santa Cruz Zendo and Haiku Zendo sesshins at Hidden Valley with Kobun’s students from Los Altos. This was where she first met Angie Boissevain. After finishing an MA in Creative Writing, she began teaching literature and writing classes, all of which included creative writing, part-time and full-time at Community Colleges. She began in Santa Cruz, moved to the Eastern Sierras and then to San Diego, where she taught private poetry workshops and workshops for organizations and schools. Her last teaching position was as an adjunct professor of English composition and literature classes. Poetry and poetry writing was included in all of her classes.
Paula was ordained and given transmission by the poet and teacher, Angie Boissevain, and is now one of the teachers at Floating Zendo San Jose and a Guiding Teacher at Jikoji who feels lucky to lead a monthly sharing of poems: Poetry and Zen.
ONLINE ZENDO ETIQUETTE
To help maintain as best we can the intimacy and integrity of an in-person gathering, we ask all who join us online to please observe the following practices.
- Sign in using real name.
- Keep microphone muted unless speaking during discussion periods.
- Maintain zendo silence during meditation periods and while waiting for discussion period to begin.
- Keep camera on and maintain facial visibility during discussion period.
- Anonymous participation online will not be permitted, as it would not be permitted in person.