Farm, Journal, MWA Newsletter, Zen, -  May 20, 2019

Monthly newsletters – and new news

Newsletters will be monthly! From now on, that is. Last week was supposed to be the monthly newsletter, but I forgot to tell you, and there is news anyway. So here we go.

First, schedules.

Zen retreats: Two changes.

• If you’re thinking of coming to the 5-day retreat at Hokyoji (southern Minnesota, June 12-17) please register right away. There’s a risk of cancellation. Decision will be made late Monday, May 27.
• There will be monthly 3-hour sits, 2-5 pm on the day of the potluck. You can sit indoors or outdoors, or walk, including walking in the woods or the fields – just to join us in practice. DATES: June 9, July 21, August 18, September 15, October 20, November 17, December 22. Usually the 3rd Sunday, occasionally 2nd or 4th, with intention to get settled on the 3rd next year. Send an email. The potluck starts at 5:30, and if you want to come tell us in the same email.
• Sesshin is usually the 4th weekend or the last weekend: June 28-30, July 26-28, August 23-25, September 27-29, October 25-27, and November-December combined in Rohatsu sesshin, 7 days beginning November 30 evening and ending December 8.

Monthly work days are changing slightly to include an optional monthly work retreat. This is a direct result of how much we liked the Land Care Retreat.

• For work, come at 9 am, work, have lunch with us at noon, work some more, and leave at 3 or 5.
• For a work retreat, come at 6 am, sit zazen one hour, then one hour of sitting or walking, inside or out, then breakfast together at 8. Donate food or a little money for breakfast. Stay for potluck supper at 5, 2 hours of sitting or walking meditation or quiet time in the evening. Silence before breakfast and after supper. You can arrange for a private talk with Shodo in the evening.
• If you’d like to sleep over Friday night or Saturday night, bring your stuff.
• FOR ALL OF THESE: LET US KNOW YOUR PLANS. Just send an email.

Dates: 2nd or 3rd Saturday: June 8, July 20, August 17, September 14, October 19, November 16, and maybe December 14.

Next land care retreat is August 9-11. My teacher, the respected scholar Shohaku Okumura, will give a talk Saturday evening. If the retreat doesn’t fill, there might be some spaces just for the talk. But please read below for what the May retreat was like. It felt much like the Sanshinji “Community-building Retreats” which include silent periods, Dharma talks, sitting, working together, and time to talk.

Thank you to donors. You know who you are.

Reflections on the weekend retreat.

Only three people were registered, and the weather was looking terrible – cold and rain. I nearly canceled; on Thursday I checked to see whether people were still planning to come. They were. And my morel-hunting teacher was up for it, rain or shine. So we met – three of us, Friday night – and planned a schedule that would respond to the weather, going outdoors when it was least likely to rain, scheduling sitting and talks when it looked bad.

We did zazen instruction Friday night, and some words setting a shared intention, and sat together. Saturday morning we

sat at 6 am, walked outside at 7 am down the old road in the woods, and I came back to make breakfast which we ate at 8 am. Instead of the planned sitting and Dharma talk, we did our work practice outdoors in the morning, beginning with some words by Martin Prechtel about how to honor the plants – right relationship, in Buddhist terms. Together we chose where to plant the ferns. We introduced them to the plants that were already there, and asked them to befriend each other (feeling just a little silly, I will admit), and we cooperatively put them in the ground in three chosen places. (There are a few left, and today I found where the others should go – the “island” near the big creek, where the ferns from some years ago are vigorous.

There was time for rest before Perry came (Perry Post, a permaculturist and landscape gardener, who does some projects here) to lead the mushroom expedition.

Me, I can be looking right at a morel and not see it. Angie, she saw them everywhere. Dave did about as badly as me, and Perry guided expertly with just a little personal success. Looking for food in the woods is a spiritual practice of its own. So of course we came back and cooked them for lunch, along with garden walking onions, hostas, and dandelions (and rice and tofu).

It was mid-afternoon, we were tired, and the schedule said Dharma talk plus sitting. So we did – and I don’t even know whether any of that sitting became sleeping or if they were out in the woods again.

Sunday we started again at 6; Doreen just slipped in quietly after driving from Minneapolis; we had more of a schedule because of the rain; I remembered to offer private interviews, and we did cleanup together.

So I had done this crazy thing, scheduling the “Declare Climate Emergency” meeting for 4:00 after closing the retreat at 3. The meeting had five of us, two had been at the retreat. The conversation went deep, and didn’t end on time. We talked of not using internet, phones, email, Skype, electronics to connect with each other, but finding another way. We talked of telepathy and intuition and old ways of connecting. We talked of spiritual working together. And then one of us said, “I do ritual at every new moon and full moon, you can connect with me then.” So it was said. No formal meetings, just a spider-web-like thing of “do this together, without being physically together.”

I’m not accustomed to being with people who understand this way of being. It felt very good. I invite you, too, at the new and full moon, within a day before or after, to offer your own prayer or chanting or ceremony on behalf of whatever moves you. We didn’t even say anything specific, but of course the official subject was climate change.

Something was said then that echoed in something I read today: in ancient cultures, a person with a disability was assumed to be a holy person; their community role was to predict or heal or whatever that might be. How different from this culture, and how different all our lives if we held that understanding.

So the potluck, because of various reasons, had just three of us, who had all been at that meeting. We did listen to a talk, going back to our beginning to Martin Prechtel’s “Grief and Praise,” part 3 but then another one until sleepiness won. Felt like family.

And here I am, not alone any more, with a spiritual community that recognizes mystery, that practices zazen, that is engaged with the world. People are coming here to sit and to engage with the land in a holy way. Mountains and Waters Alliance is.

Love,

Shodo