ANNOUNCING...the Zennies!

1st Annual Victoria Zen Centre Awards -- Call for Nominations

The Zennies are an opportunity for VZC members to honour and thank the many people who have contributed time, money, skills, and love to our zen centre in the last year.

These are awards where you get to choose both who wins and why: choose the nominee and the category! The rules:

• You can nominate anyone, whether they are a member of the VZC or not,
• You can nominate the same person for multiple reasons,
• You can nominate as many people as you want to, and
• Your nomination has to be true.
  

The awards will be presented at the VZC's Harvest Potluck (Nov 27th).

DEADLINE = Sunday, November 14th
Email nominations to Ekō at jgoldberg@shaw.ca

A hole in the sidewalk

I’ve been reflecting on my practice lately, now that I’m sitting again (after bounce number…3?). I came across a story that resonated pretty strongly with me and my relationship to practice.

The story was about a woman that encounters a hole in the sidewalk and falls into it. It’s a very deep hole and it takes her a while to climb back out.

The next time she is walking down the same street she encounters the hole again, but is oddly attracted to it, she gets curious of it and once again falls in. But this time she manages to climb back out a little quicker.

The next time she walks down the same street, she encounters the same hole again. But this time she is certain she can jump clean over the hole, but when she tries she falls back in.

The next time she is walking down the same street she knows there is a deep hole, but is curious about it. She carefully walks up to the hole and peers in, thinking “Damn, that’s a really deep hole”. Then she carefully walks around it…

Finally, she chooses to walk down a different street entirely and decides not to walk down that same street anymore because she knows there’s a great big hole there!

I’m not sure exactly where in this process I am. But I’m hopeful that the next time I encounter a big, black, gaping hole in the sidewalk I’ll turn around and take a totally different street. The hole isn’t that interesting to me anymore.

Cory.

Four Gardensattva Vows

Oddly, as I killed thousands of sentient beings over the course of the day in weeding the garden this came to mind:

All berries without number
I vow to masticate
Endless bindweed plants
I vow to uproot
The fallen down arbour
I vow to levitate
The great veggie garden
I vow to maintain.

(with thanks to Reese for his help adapting the Four Bodhisattva Vows)

Warning: Administrator has prohibited access

Yesterday my computer warned me : "Administrator has prohibited access to CD/DVD ROM drives"

Suddenly I could no longer use the DVD player which has become our entertainment centre here on Roseberry. It's also the backbone of my language studies now that the Greater Victoria Public Library has such a great foreign film collection on DVD.

Doshu and I had recently vacuumed inches of dust out of the computer, had this dislodged a wire? Also, Doshu had upgraded his computer which is networked with mine. Had he done this to me? Lots of opportunity for practice! I'd like to think that because of meditation the situation was a little lighter than it could have been. (Doshu says MUCH lighter-but maybe he's being his usual kind self)

The fix, after I googled the warning message, was to uninstall a desktop driver, reboot and reinstall it. Apparently the Intel Desktop Utilities program that helps us monitor the cpu temperature, and has access to the motherboard, was interfering with a patch, or an upgrade, or a virus?? that was also trying to access the same area of the motherboard?? Result: no dvd capabilities and a weird warning message.

What came home to me was how very, very little I understand the workings of this computer. How the hell does it do what it does?

When I apply that sense of wonder to my own programming and wiring, I see how little I know about myself, and how simple and insignificant core beliefs like "being too tired is a valid excuse", or "I'm entitled to this" or "what I am is real and lasting" can have huge and unforeseen effects in my life.

Similarly, what if meditation, which seems too simple (breathe), too easy (just be present), too gentle (I don't feel any different...) to change 50+ years of habit, what if meditation really is the "simple fix" that can have deep and unexpected results in my life?

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for making last weekend so special. It really does take an entire sangha to do Jukai! We have a remarkable community and the strength of love and support was tremendous. Everyone's contributions in setting up and taking down the room, the strength of your voices in chanting, your kindness to Reese and to my parents in making them feel truly welcomed as part of the sangha, the delight of having kids at the reception, and all the thoughtful emails and cards from those of you who couldn't be there in person are much appreciated.

A special thank you to Kozan (Nori) and Seishin for their patience, good humour, generosity, and unflagging support, and to Ven. Eshu and the Practice Council for their guidance and example.

I hope that we have many more excuses to celebrate together! :)

- Eko

Bear Zen

From Sonja de Wit

A couple of nights ago, I was on the deck at our cliff, doing a sit. We live an hour west of Victoria on the ocean. There is a steep cliff, 200 ft, down to the water, where humans can’t go. We have a deck at the edge of the cliff with benches and a table. The house is well back, far enough that your spouse probably won’t hear if you shout.
It was evening but not dark yet. I was just getting into the sit when I heard something in the bushes, and then a very small black bear walked past. Uh-oh. I wanted the bears to know I was there so I said to the baby bear, “Go back to your mother!” I did know it probably didn’t understand English, but I didn’t want to be between mother and cub. This freaked the little guy out so much that he ran away, but away from the mother, and he half-scrambled, half-fell down the cliff. (There is a ledge below the top, so he wouldn’t have fallen more than eight or ten feet, probably into some bushes, and bears are pretty good at falling: here on the road we get lots of evidence of that when it’s apples season.) The mother meanwhile was snorting and huffing and peering through the bushes on my other side.
What could I do? I got up on the picnic table and stood up and said to the mother bear, “Your baby went that way.” She was quite upset herself. After a minute or so, she did go past me, she kind of had to. She was a beautiful glossy black, not big. She started up the path to the house, then came back. Sonja still on the table. Then she stood up and sniffed in classic bear pose and obviously picked up her cub’s scent. She charged through the salal to the edge of the cliff in the direction the cub had gone, and went crashing down below. After a minute or two I got down off the table and went to tell Alan what he’d missed!
What I wonder is whether you experienced sitters would have kept your Zen cool and stayed in your lotus, and just let it all happen around you.

(Posted by Sean because Sonja's on a slow dial-up connection, poor dear.)

Retreat in Auschwitz

Hey there folks - I have written a blog post about my experiences on the Auschwitz retreat. It is a little long, so I didn't want to post it here. If you are interested, you can see it at:

http://sei-inremyjordan.blogspot.com/2010/06/bearing-witness-retreat-in-auschwitz.html

Sei-in

Pancakes & Links

This is what it looks like after pancakes, hole-in-ones, joviality & companionship.

Satisifaction. Whole In One.

No comment. Except that I love Robert Crumb.

Response to Sei-In's Comment

I think of this Calvin & Hobbes strip whenever I'm creating a test or exam.