Bodhi Oak Zen Sangha

http://www2.sfzc.org//c318f91ce4a30117a346e54cf2262e640242 San Francisco Zen Center statement

Dear friends, Sojun Roshi is in the last phase of his life, which is deeply sad to all of us. Two weeks ago he began hospice care and started to receive oxygen...; during our Rohatsu this last weekend he shifted again, and is now confined to a hospital bed, receiving oxygen. Sojun has been eating and drinking very little, and is continuing to weaken. There is no way to know when his death will come, but most likely it will be before the end of the year. Please keep Sojun, Liz, and their son Daniel in your hearts. Each of us can do a private service of wellbeing and gratitude in our homes. We will notify you about further developments and about opportunities for us to share love and grief together. In light of this, we made the decision this week to postpone the Mountain Seat Ceremony in order to fully attend to the changes in Sojun’s condition. We are rescheduling it to Sunday January 31, 2021 (instead of this coming Monday, Dec. 28). Today, December 26th, our usual talk (at 10:15am Pacific) given this week by Mary Duryee, will be preceded by a short wellbeing ceremony for Sojun Roshi, followed by an open forum for the BZC community. Please attend if you can. The proximal sangha has begun sitting with him, and we invite his wider sangha to sit with him in spirit. Gassho, Mary Duryee, BZC President Hozan Alan Senauke Acting Head Priest *** A few ways you might offer your loving presence during this tender time. Post in the comments offerings of words or images or music. Come to one of our online gatherings. (click on "Enter the zendo" at berkeleyzencenter.org) Offer a brief wellbeing service. As Hozan Sensei invites: "Here is a brief wellbeing service we can do daily at home. Feel free to shape this accordingly. Set up a home altar with candle, flowers, offering bowl for blossoms or incense, photograph of Sojun. Do three or nine bows towards the altar. Chant the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo/The Ten Phrase Kannon Sutra for Protecting Life either nine or thirty-three times. The text in Sino-Japanese and English is below. Dedicate the merit of offering and chanting to Hakuryu Sojun Roshi (and anyone else you wish to include), using your own words. Close with three bows. Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo Kan ze on na mu butsu yo butsu u in yo butsu u en bup po so en jo raku ga jo cho nen kan ze on bo nen kan ze on nen nen ju shin ki nen nen fu ri shin *** Kanzeon! I venerate the Buddha Buddha is my source Buddha is my affinity Affinity with Buddha, Dharma, Sangha Constancy, ease, assurance, purity Morning, my thought is Kanzeon Evening, my thought is Kanzeon Thought after thought arises in the mind Thought after thought is not separate from mind

Someone wrote me to say that they cannot trust life. Like most of us, they worry about what tomorrow will bring, whether their dreams and desires will turn out, or turn to ashes. They asked if Shikantaza Zazen is a deep trust in 'things as they are.'

HAPPY ROHATSU TO ALL BEINGSHAPPY ROHATSU TO ALL BEINGS

Abolish the Death Penalty and Halt All U.S. Federal Executions I vow not to kill. Not killing life, the Buddha seed grows. Transmit the life of Buddha and do not kill Eihei Dogen Zenji...Continue reading

https://docs.google.com//2PACX-1vRt5G5dIs2cWQM7fnS_hKF/pub From Everyday Zen

BREATHE ~ Each Breath; a letting go, a letting be, and a coming home... Breathe and you know that you are alive. Breathe and you know that all is helping you.... Breathe and you know that you are the world. Breathe and you know that the flower is breathing too. Breathe for yourself and you breathe for the world. Breathe in compassion and breathe out joy. Breathe and be one with the air that you breathe. Breathe and be one with the river that flows. Breathe and be one with the earth you tread. Breathe and be one with the fire that glows. Breathe and you break the thought of birth and death. Breathe and you see that impermanence is life. Breathe for your joy to be steady and calm. Breathe for your sorrow to flow away. Breathe to renew every cell in your blood. Breathe to renew the depths of consciousness. Breathe and you dwell in the here and now. Breathe and all you touch is new and real... ~ Thich Nhat Hanh. with .

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin... Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. ~ Emily Dickinson Photo:https://pin.it/vs7uwttmzac7ee See more

Thank you, Baika Andrea Heaton

With practice, we can see that our wounded child is not only us. Our wounded child may represent several generations. Our mother may have suffered throughout her life. Our father may have suffered. Perhaps our parents weren’t able to look after the wounded child in themselves. So when we’re embracing the wounded child in us, we are embracing all the wounded child in our past generations. This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless generations of ancestors and descendants. Thich Nhat Hanh art | Christian Schloe

With thanks to Renshin Bunce A Message from Space Everything that happens is the message:... you read an event and be one and wait, like breasting a wave, all the while knowing by living, though not knowing how to live. Or workers built an antenna -- a dish aimed at stars -- and they themselves are its message, crawling in and out, being worlds that loom, dot-dash, and sirens, and sustaining beams. And sometimes no one is calling but we turn up eye and ear -- suddenly we fall into sound before it begins, the breathing so still it waits there under the breath -- And then the green of leaves calls out, hills where they wait or turn, clouds in their frenzied stillness unfolding their careful words: "Everything counts. The message is the world." ~ William Stafford ~

With thanks to Renshin Bunce You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyoneany person or any forcedampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates...Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of... good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don't be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself. ~ John Lewis from Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

To appear on Everyday Zen website: The bodhisattva vow commits us to caring for everyone’s short term and long term physical and spiritual benefit. Having done our best to cultivate this vow, and to continue to practice to strengthen and extend it, we feel deeply connected to the dramatic events now taking place in the streets of our cities. We at Everyday Zen stand with the protestors who have been expressing their (our) grief and dismay over the death of George Floyd, an i...nnocent man, in Minneapolis last week, yet another in a sorrowful and horrifying American lineage, centuries long, of black deaths at the hands of white people. Racism and white supremacy have been baked into American institutions since the establishment of the Constitution. The time is soon coming when all of us will finally find this so intolerable and morally repugnant that it will have to end. These protests are a major event toward that day. We are heartened that white people are, at long last, finally standing side by side with their black brothers and sisters, and, to the best of their ability, sharing their feeling of anguish at this injustice. As are many law enforcement officials, many of whom are speaking out. It is perhaps unsurprising that this moment occurs at a time when we have a President who expresses the worst in us with maximum force, encouraging, as a natural reflex of his personality, the divisiveness, racism, and violence that has long been part of our national character. As we stand with the protestors we stand against our President’s incendiary language and actions, and we hope and pray that the next election cycle will express a hearty repudiation of the rhetoric and mean-spirited policies that have been in force in our country since mid-January 2017. It has been humbling and frightening to recognize that this is us. We look forward to the full-throated expression of the other side of our character our love, our sense of justice, and our energetic pursuit of the common good. Norman Fischer

In memoriam: George Floyd. (and also Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, David Dungay, Jr., Adama Traoré, and precious, countless others whose lives wer...e taken so cruelly and needlessly. ) (c/o Mike Baillie of Avaaz.org) These are the last words of George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died as a US police officer pinned him down, kneeling on his neck for seven minutes, until he suffocated: "It's my face man I didn't do nothing serious man please please please I can't breathe please man please somebody please man I can't breathe I can't breathe please (inaudible) man can't breathe, my face just get up I can't breathe please (inaudible) I can't breathe sh*t I will I can't move mama mama I can't my knee my nuts I'm through I'm through I'm claustrophobic my stomach hurt my neck hurts everything hurts some water or something please please I can't breathe officer don't kill me they gon' kill me man come on man I cannot breathe I cannot breathe they gon' kill me they gon' kill me I can't breathe I can't breathe please sir please please please I can't breathe" Then his eyes shut and the pleas stop. George Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after.

A poem suited to our times....(am grateful to Whitney Pacanowski for sharing this). How the Light Comes Jan Richardson... I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain. That it has a fondness for the body, for finding its way toward flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart. I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does. That it will. That it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you, though it may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee. And so may we this day turn ourselves toward it. May we lift our faces to let it find us. May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes.

Gary Snyder's birthday yesterday. 90th birthday Steady, They Say Clambering up the rocks of a dry wash gully,... warped sandstone, by the San Juan River, look north to stony mountains shifting clouds and rain -despair at how the human world goes down Consult my old advisors Steady they say today

Thank you, Baika Andrea Pratt