Use this link to join. If asked use this password 493323
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.
40 minute period of Zazen
Morning Service
Morning Greetings
The All Beings Zen Sangha welcomes and affirms all who come here to seek the Way, and who will work toward respectful acceptance of others across our many differences, harmonizing the one and the many.
Using the button or QR code below, you can make a one-time donation or set up a recurring monthly donation.
We now accept donations through Venmo. Get the app and search for “All Beings Zen Sangha.”
Checks can be mailed to:
All Beings Zen Sangha
27290 Woodburn Hill Road
Mechanicsville, MD 20659
or to:
All Beings Zen Sangha
C/O Rev. Inryū Ponce-Barger,
2801 Adams Mill Road NW 402
Washington DC 20009
All Beings Sangha Guest speaker, Baiko Eleanor Graves will give a Way Seeking Mind Talk to include poetry and a little something about Zen Master Dogen.
Baiko Eleanor Graves has been studying and practicing zazen since 1993, including four years at Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, a traditional Zen Buddhist monastery in the Los Padres National Forest near Carmel Valley, California. She also spent one year at Green Gulch Farm and three months at No Abode Hermitage, both in Marin County. Eleanor recently earned a Masters of Interior Design at the Corcoran College of Art + Design and works at Amicus Green Building Center. In her free time, she hikes with her dogs in Rock Creek Park and writes poetry.
7pm opening service
7:10 Zazen
7:25 Baiko Eleanor Graves Talk
8:00 Period for questions
Today our book club met. We had a good discussion on the introduction to Shunryu Suzuki’s Sandokai lecture series. The book is called Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness. The intro was really inspiring a whole host of thoughts and reactions, and members took the opportunity to talk not only about the text, but other thoughts, ideas, and personal experiences. We always have a good chat.
For next time, we’ll talk about the first six lectures in the book. These chapters / lectures each cover a couplet of the original Sandokai text, and are rich without being over-wrought or showy.
Anyways, please join us if you can.
March 16th, 8 to 10 am, at All Beings Zendo in Adams Morgan.
– All Beings Book Club Folks
This week Reigen Danny Parker Sensei is visiting the DC area. He will being offering a Dharma Talk for All Beings Sangha during our regular Thursday evening practice. His talk is inspired by the teachings of Kobun Chino Roshi on “practicing enlightenment”.
7pm opening service
7:10 Zazen
7:25 Sensei Reigen’s Talk
8:00 Period for questions
Due to todays weather and the expectation of more snow this evening we will not be have the evening practice in Adams Morgan tonight 2/13/14.Our guest speaker Eleanor Graves has agreed to reschedule her Dharma Talk for March 13th, 2014.Our Sunday Half Day on 2/16 is still “on”.
Greetings All –
We’ve put a few upcoming events on the events page. A Dharma Talk, a guest speaker, a half day sit, and book club discussion. Check them out, and we hope you can come.
Stay warm, everyone!
– All Beings
Hey everyone –
Just yesterday, the reading group finished our third and final session discussing Red Pine’s Lankatavara Sutra. I think we all agreed it was a tough read, but a good text to come back to periodically. You can read paragraph after paragraph and be totally confused, but then stumble across a passage that really resonates. Amazing for a text as old as it is, and Red Pine’s notes and presentation are, as always, just top notch.
Next we’re going to read the Fukan zazengi, Dogen’s classic, short pronouncment/manifesto ‘Recommending Zazen to All People’. It’s short, practical, and very beautiful.
There are numerous translations of this text. Here are a few on the open internet for your reading pleasure:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/sztp3/translations/gongyo_seiten/translations/part_3/fukan_zazengi.html
http://www.berkeleyzencenter.org/Texts/fukanzazengi.shtml
http://www.sfzc.org/sp_download/liturgy/21_Fukanzazengi.pdf
Again, it’s very short, folks – most translations clock in at under three pages.
We’ll meet on Sunday, January 19th to talk about this text. Hope you can make it!
Sam
2013 Fall Practice Period Lankatavara Sutra Tea
Despite not being able to listen to Dairyu’s Dharma talk mid-day, it seemed that we had a very useful discussion during that break period in sitting. Later in the day we were able to Skype with Dragons Leap to participate in the Shosan Ceremony before closing our Sesshin with chanting the refuges.
Many thanks to Lane and Ilaria for sharing Tenzo duty on Sunday and nourishing our practice with healthy, delicious food! Thanks also to Carlos for baking cookies for and managing the afternoon tea.
This year, All Beings Zen Sangha will be participating in a Fall Practice Period beginning on September 29th. Practice period is a tradition in Buddhism allowing for more time dedicated to focused practice, and in the Japanese Zen tradition, it is known as “ango” or “peaceful dwelling”. This traditional period is an opportunity to clarify spiritual intentions, deepen understanding and more fully integrate practice with life circumstances. It is said that participating in practice period is not only a way of returning to the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but also of upholding and revitalizing the entire community.
Below are details of the offerings at All Beings during this period:
Two main opportunities for deepening practice period will be in the areas of zazen (including sesshin) and dharma study as described below. Note that for Dharma study we will be reading and discussing the Lankatavara Sutra. This is the famous text Bodhidharma gave to his successor right before he vanished, saying something to the effect of, “Everything you need is in this book.” It is a classic Zen text.
Zazen.
– Full-Day Retreats (one): Sept. 29th
– Half-Day Retreats (three): Oct. 20th, Nov. 16th, Nov 17th
– Regular sittings: Thursday evenings at 7pm, Monday and Friday mornings at 6:30am
– 5 Day Sesshin (at conclusion): Starting Tuesday December 3rd, Ending Saturday December 7th
Dharma Study & Talks:
– The Practice Period will open with a Dharma talk offered by long time All Beings member Ja Shin Elizabeth Bourne on the topic of “Quotes that inspire my zen practice”. The talk will be given following one period of zazen on Thursday September 26th.
– Three Sunday Morning Teas will be offered to discuss the Lankatavara Sutra on these dates; October 13, October 27 and November 10th. 8am- 9:30am. The first morning we will read the introduction together and decide upon topics for the following two study discussions.
– Other Dharmas Talks, provided by Dairyu Michael Wenger of Dragons Leap Temple in San Francisco California via audio broadcast during full-day sittings and sesshin and by Inryu Bobbi Ponce-Barger our All Beings Sangha Resident Teacher.
Here is a draft sample of the next half day schedule .
– October 20th, 2013-
9am – Zazen
9:30 – Kinhin
9:40 – Zazen
10:10 – Service Heart Sutra
10:20 – Break/Walk
10:50 – Zazen
11:20 – Kinhin
11:30 – Zazen
12:00 Oryoki Lunch
12:45 – Break
1:15 – Dharma Talk
2:00 – Refuges and Closing
The efforts of many hands bring forth the Dharma. If you are in a position to support the Sangha financially through a donation it is most welcome. Donation envelopes can be found near the door of the zendo.
