SUNDAY PROGRAM ONLINE
* On Zoom *
Sunday, November 15 - 10am-12:30pm
Zazen - Service - Dharma Talk
Jikoji remains closed for now, but our Sunday Program is going online. Join us from wherever you are, in our virtual zendo, for a morning of meditation, service, and a Dharma Talk.
Our Dharma Talk this week will be by Jundo Cohen, author of The Zen Master's Dance - A Guide to Understanding Dōgen and Who You Are in the Universe.
Jundo’s talk will be centered on this text from Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji:
Once, Yaoshan asked Mazu, “I have digested all the teachings [and] scriptures, but what was the ancestral master Bodhidharma’s intention in coming to China from India in the West?” Thus questioned, Mazu responded, “Sometimes I make him raise an eyebrow or wink an eye, and sometimes I do not make him raise an eyebrow or wink an eye. Sometimes to make him raise an eyebrow or wink an eye is what’s right, sometimes to make him raise an eyebrow or wink an eye is not right.” ...
[Dōgen comments:] [Mazu's] “eyebrows” and “eyes” are the mountains and oceans, because the mountains and oceans are his “eyebrows” and “eyes.” In his “make him raise an eyebrow” he is to see the mountains, and “make him wink” is to understand the seas. The “right” answer truly is his, and he is actualized by having him raise the eyebrows and wink. But neither does “not right” mean not having him raise the eyebrows and wink, and to not have him raise the eyebrows and wink does not mean “not right.” All are equally the being-time. The mountains are time, and the oceans are time. Without time, the mountains and oceans could never exist, so we should not deny that time is existing in the mountains and oceans right here and now. If time were annihilated, the mountains and oceans would be annihilated, but as time is not annihilated, thus are the mountains and oceans preserved. This being so, the morning star appears, the Buddha Tathāgata appears, the eye appears and raising up a flower appears. Each is time and, were there no time, it could not be thus.
Jundo Cohen is a Zen teacher and founder of the Treeleaf Zendo, a Sōtō Zen community using visual media to link Zen practitioners around the world. Treeleaf serves those who cannot easily commute to a Zen center due to health concerns; age or disability; living in remote areas; or work, childcare, or family needs; and provides zazen sittings, retreats, discussion, interaction with a teacher, and all other activities of a Zen Buddhist sangha, all fully online without thought of location or distance. Jundo was born and raised in the United States but has lived in Japan for more than half his life. He was ordained and subsequently received Dharma transmission from Master Gudo Wafu Nishijima and is a member of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist Association.
In The Zen Master’s Dance, Jundo Cohen takes us deep into the mind of Master Dōgen—and shows us how to join in the great and intimate dance of the universe. Through fresh translations and sparkling teaching, Cohen opens up for us a new way to read one of Buddhism’s most remarkable spiritual geniuses.
OUR SCHEDULE
10:00 a.m. zazen (sitting meditation)
10:40 kinhin (walking meditation)
10:50 zazen
11:20 service
11:40 talk
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.