Here is the link to join us via Zoom at 6:30am for morning practice. Lucy Turner will offer a Way Seeking Mind talk following a short period of zazen.

If you are asked for a password use this 471305

Please put your zoom in gallery mode, and keep your video link on while muting your mic until the end of the service – Feel welcome to face away from your device camera while keeping your presence visible in the frame for others in attendance to see and know you are there. Please refrain from moving your device around while others are sitting zazen with you.

Click below to see the order of service and chants.

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Tuesday, November 2: Dharma tea at 2pm led by Alex Langlinais.  Use this link to join.  If asked for a password use 897614 

For our tea discussion today, I thought it would be fun to talk about the music that inspires us to practice or that captures something about the dharma.  Although Buddhism has a rich musical tradition (see below), we don’t always talk expressly about music as a vehicle for awakening.  So I’m curious to hear what tracks occupy that space for you.  In advance of the tea, please think of one or two songs that you associate with practice or turn to for inspiration.  You should feel welcome to share during discussion or just drop your faves into the chat box.  Afterwards, I’ll assemble a playlist for the sangha with our picks!     Music gets incorporated into the tradition in so many ways.  Just to name a few:

• Of course, there is our Soto Zen chanting.  Check out Deshimaru Roshi’s iconic rendition of the Heart Sutra to get your blood pumping or Rev. Taihaku Priest’s touching instructions on the Enmei Jukku Kannon Gyo.
• From the Pure Land tradition, there’s the venerable and deeply peaceful practice of nembutsu chanting (most commonly in the form of “namo amituofo” or “namu amida butsu”).  Two great versions can be found here and here.
• From the Nichiren tradition, there’s the powerful Daimoku, reverent chanting of the name of the Lotus Sutra (“nam myoho renge kyo”).  You might have seen that the incomparable Tina Turner has many Daimoku tracks.
• On the instrumental side, there’s the introspective and (to me) heartbreaking practice of Honkyoku using the Shakuhaci flute.  Here’s a wonderful concerto by Alejandro Vazquez, a good friend of Shoryu’s who passed away last year.  
• There’s also the high energy and communal practice of Taiko drumming.  Here’s a recording of a group connected to the Ekoji Temple in Fairfax Station, VA.

And then there’s the ocean of pop music.  I’ll offer up Elvis Costello’s “Peace, Love, and Understanding” as an example, which reminds me that bodhicitta/way-seeking mind is a kind of throwing down the gauntlet on the side of, well, peace, love, and understanding!  From the video, you can also see just how far music videos have come since the early days.     Take a listen if you have a chance today.  I’ll play some of these to get us started, but more looking forward to hearing about the role music plays in your practice!     🙏 Alex

Here is the link to join us via Zoom at 6:30am for morning zazen practice.

If you are asked for a password use this 813097

Please put your zoom in gallery mode, and keep your video link on while muting your mic until the end of the service – Feel welcome to face away from your device camera while keeping your presence visible in the frame for others in attendance to see and know you are there. Please refrain from moving your device around while others are sitting zazen with you.

Click below to see the order of service and chants.

(more…)

Saturday, October 30, 2021: Book group discussion of Being-Time, 9:30am-11am, please read first half the of the book. Use this link to join. If asked for a password use 669414

Please use this link to join.  If asked use this password 118879 .

Thursday, October 28: Dharma talk “Ask the Stone Lantern” about how Dharma pervades all things by Rev. Konin Cardenas, Sensei,  in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.    Konin Sensei is also known as Ayya Dhammadīpā, as she became a fully ordained bhikkhuni in the Theravada tradition in recent years.      She writes that “Her shift to the Theravada tradition is a natural extension of her longtime metta practice and study of the Pali suttas”.  . In addition to English, Ayya teaches in Spanish, an expression of her Latin heritage. She is a trained interfaith chaplain, and has provided spiritual care in both hospital and hospice settings. Ayya Dhammadīpā is mother to a lovely adult daughter, and enjoys watercolor painting and sewing.

The Thursday practice will begin with 30 minutes of zazen, followed by Rev. Konin’s Dharma Talk.  We will conclude with chanting the refuges in Pali and have a brief check in for those schedules allow them to remain after the service

Please use this link to join.  If asked use this password 118879 .

Dharma Tea at 2pm – 2:45pm Eastern time  offered by Grace McClain on “Communicating with the eyes”.

Use this link to join.  If asked for a password use   897614.

The first five minutes are silent tea drinking.  We conclude the gathering at 2:45pm.

Saturday, October 23, 2021  : “Grieving Here: A reflection on grief, loss and living with the wholeness of life” Talk and discussion led by JiShin Susan Salek 2pm.  Use this link to join 

Jishin (Compassion Heart) Susan Salek has been a longtime and engaged member of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC (IMCW)’s LGBTQIA+ sangha, and she currently serves on the IMCW Board of Directors. She is committed to holding space and creating opportunities for the queer and trans community on this Buddhist path. Jishin is a graduate of the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher program taught by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. Her lived experience and bearing witness to this wild, difficult and beautiful life as a human being has motivated her to teach mindfulness meditation in particular as a support to women and the queer and transgender communities.

She is a student of grief from her own experience of companioning friends, family and other beings thru illness, dying and death as well as a volunteer with Capital Caring Hospice. She recently taught a half-day workshop on Grief and Gratitude for the LGBTQIA+ community through IMCW. She expects to graduate from the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center in March 2022. Jishin currently works as a Business Director for 3M and shares a home with her two cats in Maryland.

 

Tuesday, October 19: Dharma Tea at 2pm offered by former shusō Seidō David Sarpal, “Something about the moment: Reflections on photography and Zen”  Use this link to join.

Friday, October 15th, at 6:30am Eastern Time Kōryū (Bright Dragon) Naomi will offer a Way Seeking Mind talk.  We will have 10 minutes of zazen and then Koryu will offer her talk..  Please use this link to join. If you are asked for a password use 947537

Here is the link to join us via Zoom at 6:30am for morning zazen practice.

If you are asked for a password use this 656470

Please put your zoom in gallery mode, and keep your video link on while muting your mic until the end of the service – Feel welcome to face away from your device camera while keeping your presence visible in the frame for others in attendance to see and know you are there. Please refrain from moving your device around while others are sitting zazen with you.

Order of Service

Robe Chant before zazen.

Forty minute period of zazen

After zazen: Four Great Vows

Hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom

Heart Sutra in English

Shosaimyo Kichijo Dharani (Dharani for avoiding calamity) chanted 3 times

If your schedule allows please stay on the zoom call to do a brief check-in after the service is concluded.

ROBE CHANT

DAI SAI GE DA PU KU

MUSO FUKU DEN E

HI BU NYORAI KYO

KO DO SHOSHU JO

Great robe of liberation

Field far beyond form and emptiness

Wearing the Tathagata’s teaching

Saving all beings.

After Zazen

The Four Great Vows

Beings are numberless; I vow to save them.

Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.

Dharma Gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.

Buddha’s way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it.

After Koan reading

Dharana for avoiding calamity

Hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom

Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the lovely, the holy.

The Perfection of Wisdom gives light. Unstained, the entire

world cannot stain her. She is the source of light, and from

everyone in the triple world she removes darkness.

Most excellent are her works. She brings light so that all

fear and distress may be forsaken, and disperses the gloom

and darkness of delusion. She herself is an organ of vision.

She has a clear knowledge of the own-being of all dharmas,

for she does not stray away from it. The Perfection of Wisdom

of the Buddhas sets in motion the Wheel of Dharma.

Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva,

when deeply practicing prajña paramita,⨀

clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty

and thus relieved all suffering.

Shariputra,

form does not differ from emptiness,

emptiness does not differ from form.

Form itself is emptiness,

emptiness itself form.

Sensations, perceptions, formations,

and consciousness are also like this.

Shariputra,

all dharmas are marked by emptiness;

they neither arise nor cease,

are neither defiled nor pure,

neither increase nor decrease.

Therefore, given emptiness, there is

no form, no sensation, no perception,

no formation no consciousness;

no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue,

no body, no mind;

no sight, no sound, no smell, no taste,

no touch, no object of mind;

no realm of sight… no realm of mind consciousness

There is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance…

neither old age and death,

nor extinction of old age and death;

no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path;

no knowledge and no attainment.

With nothing to attain,

a bodhisattva relies on prajña paramita,⨀

and thus the mind is without hindrance.

Without hindrance, there is no fear.

Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana.

All buddhas of past, present, and future

rely on prajña paramita ⨀ and thereby attain

unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

Therefore, know the prajña paramita ⨀ as

the great miraculous mantra,

the great bright mantra,

the supreme mantra,

the incomparable mantra,

which removes all suffering

and is true, not false.

Therefore we proclaim the prajña paramita ⨀ mantra,

the mantra that says:

“Gate Gate ⨀ Paragate ⨀ Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.” ∅

Shosaimyo Kichijo Dharani

(Auspicious Dharani or Spell For Averting Calamity)

NO MO SAN MAN DA

MOTO NAN

OHA RA CHI KOTO SHA

SONO NAN TO JI TO

EN GYA GYA

GYA KI GYA KI

UN NUN SHIFU RA SHIFU RA

HARA SHIFU RA HARA SHIFU RA

CHISHU SA CHISHU SA

CHISHU RI CHISHU RI

SOHA JA SOHA JA

SEN CHI GYA

SHIRI EI SO MO KO

All Buddhas

All Buddhas, ten directions,

Three times

All Honored Ones, Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas

Wisdom beyond wisdom

Maha Prajna Paramita