Morning Practice for October 13, 2021 6:30am Eastern Time

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

May All Beings Be Happy!

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.

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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

Category: Uncategorized

  • Morning Practice for March 28, 2025 6:30am Eastern

    Use this link to join. If asked for a password use 463913


    Photograph by Zen’etsu

    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 Morning Practice

    Robe Chant

    40 minute period of Zazen

    Four Great Vows

    Morning Service

    Morning Greetings

  • Evening Practice for March 27, 2025 7pm Eastern

    Here is the Zoom link to join in the cloud zendo, password if needed: 522050

    Tonight we will have a short service followed by two periods of Zazen with an interval of Kinhin (5 minutes of slow walking in between). We will have our monthly pass the feather sharing and conclude by chanting the refuges in Pali. Please feel welcome to stay on zoom if you are able to share greetings with the sangha.

    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 (text available at highlighted links)

    Greeting by the Kokyo

    Enmei Jukko Kannon Gyo

    Heart Sutra in Chinese

    25 Minute Zazen Period

    5 minutes of Kinhin (slow walking)

    25 Minute Zazen Period

    Four Great Vows

    Introductions and announcements

    Refuges in Pali

  • Evening Practice for March 20, 2025 7 pm Eastern

    Here is the Zoom link to join in the cloud zendo, password if needed: 522050

    Tonight we will have a short service followed by one period of Zazen with an interval of Kinhin (5 minutes of slow walking in between) and then our monthly Wellbeing Ceremony. We will conclude by chanting the refuges in Pali.

    Please feel welcome to stay on zoom if you are able to share greetings with the sangha.

    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

    Greeting by the Kokyo

    Evening Bell Chant

    Harmony of Difference and Equality

    25 Minute Zazen Period

    5 minutes of Kinhin (slow walking)

    Our monthly Wellbeing Ceremony

    Enmei Jukko Kannon Gyo

    Loving Kindness Meditation (call and response)

    Refuges in Pali

  • Monthly Book Discussion for March 10, 2025 6pm-7pm Eastern

    Monday March 10th, 2025 6:00-7:00pmABZS Book Club Online only– For the month of March, we will be reading ‘Inciting Joy’ by Ross Gay. Please join on March 10th to share and discuss! Here is the link to sign in. If asked for a password use 099118

  • Seiryū Paula Represents ABZS at the Feb 18th, 2025 Ireicho National Tour Event in Washington D.C.

    Seiryū says “The Ireicho event was well attended, with many persons of Japanese descent and their extended families.  100 year old Masaharu Ishii stamped his sister’s name in the Ireicho to officially kick off the national tour before I arrived.  After stamping the Ireicho, a journalist, Daisuke Nakai, from the major Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun asked if he could speak with me.  “Why I was present, do I have Japanese heritage & what is the meaning for me.  I replied that I was stamping the names of Rev Jiko Nakade’s grandfather & 2 Daifukuji priests from Kealakekua, HI who were rounded up, taken to Sand Island off of Oahu then shipped by boat to the mainland detention camps.  There were no Buddhists in robes or rakusus in the audience.  Publically Rev Duncan Williams is very approachable and humble.  After the event he greeted me warmly saying, “I look forward to being involved with All Beings Zen Sangha again.””

    The 1942 Executive Order 9066 authorized the US military to remove people deemed a threat to national security leading to the incarceration of Japanese Americans in violation of their civil liberties. To acknowledge and remember them, the Ireicho, a book of the names of over 125,000 incarcerated persons is touring 12 of the continental internment camp sites.  Ireichomeans” book consoling spirits.”

  • Dharma Tea on Tuesday for February 25, 2025 2-2:45pm Eastern

    Tuesday February 25th, 2025 – Dharma Tea on Tuesdays at 2 -2:45pm Tea led by Beata Stylianos on her “Experience of Meeting the Dalai Lama on a Roof in Cambridge, MA”. online only Use this link to join. If asked for a password use 024787

  • February Zazenkai Recap

    Sangha group pictures from our February Zazenkai — where for our afternoon tea discussion we read a passage from Ross Gay’s book ‘Inciting Joy’ … 

    In one section we read, 
    “What if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?”

    A very nourishing day of Zen practice..

    Also, please admire the beautiful flower arrangement that one of the attendees created during Samu (Work Practice).
  • Zazenkai for February 23, 2025 10-4 Eastern

    All Beings Zen Sangha Zen Meditation Retreat Schedule    10am-4pm. In person and online. To join via zoom use this link. If asked for a password use 338529

    10:00 Welcome and explanation of the Jundo and then people will begin the first period of Zazen

    10:10am Robe Chant (lead by Kokyo) 40 minute peirod of Zazen

    10:50am End of Zazen – beginning of Work Practice

    Work Practice leader will assign tasks

    12:00pm End of Work Practice/return to Zendo for Lunch

    12:15am Oryoki instruction

    12:30pm Lunch –Formal Oryoki

    1:30pm Lunch clean up/break

    1:40pm Outdoor walk (weather permiting) or Dharma study

    2:15 Tea and Cookies/Dharma Discussion

    3:10pm Kinhin (slow walking meditation)

    3:20pm 30 minute period of Zazen

    3:50pm Closing Chant 

    4:00 End of Zazenkai

  • Statement in Support of Compassion by Soto Zen Buddhist Association – February 2025

    Inryū Sensei our All Beings Zen Sangha Guiding Teacher and Resident Priest is a signatory on this document as well as our Associate Priest Seido David Sarpal

    Here is the Statement

    SZBA Statement in Support of Compassion
    Zen holds as a foundational truth that all beings are Buddha Nature; that we are interdependent and the suffering of one is suffering that affects us all. Viewing the world as a boundless and all-encompassing circle of connection, we realize that no one can be left out or left behind.

    We, the members of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, reject any attempt to oppress marginalized groups and treat them as outsiders who do not deserve the same rights, opportunities and respect as those in power.

    We are diverse in many ways–sex, gender expression, race, ability, religion–and this is our greatest strength, a strength that should be celebrated. Marginalization, oppression, and rejection are the antithesis of Zen practice, and we oppose any attempts to make such behaviors law or national policy. We oppose the creation of a culture that deliberately normalizes marginalization, isolation or oppression of any group. We call for compassionate treatment of those who are marginalized and living in fear.

    We must have compassion for all, and we must remember that compassion is wisdom in action, and compassion must never lead to apathy or passive acceptance. Therefore, we encourage opposition, not based in anger or fear or hatred but arising from our bodhisattva vows. We encourage everyone to bear witness to the cries of the world. We encourage people to march, write letters, and support organizations working to protect suffering beings. We support those who are in danger by building safe spaces or insisting that public institutions create those spaces and we encourage others to do the same. We offer emotional support and a calming presence to those who are in despair. And we offer the practice of Zen to all people as a way to cope with the world as it is.

  • Dharma Tea on Tuesday for February 18, 2025 2-2:45pm Eastern

    Tuesday February 18th, 2025 – Tuesday Tea at 2pm – Dharma Tea led by Zen’etsu Clay on “Baikaryu Eisanka (Plum Blossom Style Hymns)”. Online Only Use this link to join. If asked for a password use 024787