By Jian Zhi Peter Tolly, ZRS Board Secretary, excerpted from the October 2018 ZRS newsletter

Rumination

A sheer torrent
my need for story:
I can dredge for days
but was dead
in the flow
from the start

*          *          *

Dhyana

The unbeknownst pregnancy
of my angst giving birth to this
synthesis upon synthesis

*          *          *

Form & Emptiness

A flame clinging to a wick, my personality
flickers out in a moment of focus.

The people who entered the zendo
in stillness become cold candles

no different from dust-laden clutter
in an undisturbed attic—just dust actually

the indistinct shift of an endless dessert
nameless, faceless, on fire

In one sense, we come together as a Sangha to support the transformation of our mutual interest in salvation and cessation of suffering with the bodhisattva vow – with the taste of awakening… when all being(s) finally transformed, “I” too will pass through.

Gate, Gate, Para Gate, Parasam Gate, Bodi Swaha!

Reishin, with the help of many others in actualizing this vow, has given a tremendous gift to support our Sangha. She personally took on the mortgage and serves as our landlord. The mortgage contract she holds for the building where we practice together comes due in June of 2020. On June 7 this year, Reishin asked us to consider whether we are ready to assume this role as a Sangha. She sent the board of ZRS this simple and humble request:

“I would like to simplify my life and hope that ZRS can purchase the building by June 2020 when the current mortgage expires…If possible, I would like to know your decision by December 2019 so that I can figure out how to refinance the building, if necessary.”

And she has assured us this is not an ultimatum, she is willing to try to continue in her service to us as landlord, if this is needed.

As we have begun to announce in our meetings, we are planning to meet as a Sangha to consider this on November 3rd after our regular practice. In this article, I wanted to share this part of how I see our challenge. Sometimes we think of Sangha in terms of what we may offer the community as a place of refuge, and as a small group, we don’t do as much as some much larger groups we sometimes admire. Still, our practice is open to all who want to practice the vow of liberation for all being(s), and particularly for us in support of practice together, and even more particularly… “in our own minds.”

I don’t know if we will find that we are ready to assume the responsibility for the building, but I understand Reishin’s invitation through this lens, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to contemplate this with you.

With Love and Respect,

taiso

Wave-play

The way the world warps
on the slope of a breaker—

the movement of moon
through matter

unstoppable by the mind’s
graph paper:

only the bob of faces
on the surface will suffice.