Hi all
Just a quick note to say that we will be continuing to meet on Monday evenings over the Xmas/New Year period for zazen as usual. Please feel free to join us! Details on the "When & Where" page.
While I'm putting this up, though, please accept my very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year for you and yours. May you have a warm and loving holiday season, and your 2025 bring you joy! (And plenty of zazen!)
Gassho,
Alasdair
Just a quick note to say that I'll be away on sesshin at Fell End this coming week, so no zazen on Monday 21st. We'll meet again as per usual the following Monday, 28th.
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| Fell End (left) near Penrith |
Haven't posted anything in a while, apologies! Came across this quote from Roshi Joan Halifax that I thought might resonate with folk. It's from her 1997 book Being With Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death.
Compassion coupled with strength sustains our work with sickness, loss, and all the forms of suffering encountered in the experience of dying. Compassion is not an idealized state. It is the profound realization that we are not separate from one another, and it requires the ability to feel another’s suffering. Like loving-kindness, it is fundamentally interactive and ultimately has no subject and no object. Loving-kindness and compassion are the perfume of interconnectedness, the fragrance of nonduality.
Just a quick note to share a link to a feature article about our founder, Keizan Roshi, from the Liverpool Echo, which glories in the title of, "I co-founded one of Liverpool's most missed venues and now I'm a Zen Master." Hope you find it interesting...!
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/real-lives/co-founded-one-liverpools-most-29674119
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As my father was dying, the phrase, "Life and death are one," repeatedly arose in my thoughts. One hears these sorts of things when reading around Zen, but to consider this when sitting next to the corpse of a loved one brings it into sharp relief. At that moment, looking at his face, I thought it over and over again like a mantra. It made an intuitive sense to me that I've struggled to explain to myself in the ten days since then.
In the Shobogenzo is a fascicle called "Shoji" or "Life and death". It's short, but here's an excerpt:
To understand that we move from birth to death is a mistake. Birth is a state at one moment; it already has a past and will have a future. For this reason, it is said in the Buddha-Dharma that appearance is just non-appearance. Extinction also is a state at one moment; it too has a past and a future. This is why it is said that disappearance is just non-disappearance. In the time called life, there is nothing besides life. In the time called death, there is nothing besides death. Thus, when life comes it is just life, and when death comes it is just death; do not say, confronting them, that you will serve them, and do not wish for them.
This life-and-death is just the sacred life of buddha... There is a very easy way to become buddha. Not committing wrongs; being without attachment to life-and-death; showing deep compassion for all living beings, venerating those above and pitying those below; being free of the mind that dislikes the ten thousand things and free of the mind that desires them; the mind being without thought and without grief: this is called buddha. Look for nothing else. (Trans. Nishijima & Cross)
When dying comes, it is just dying, and does not belong to the realm of living. Dying is complete on its own. To be non-attached is not to be empty of grief or other emotions; when grief comes, it is just grief. And when we sit round the table and tell silly stories about dad's life, laughter comes and it is just laughter. We have thrown ourselves into these moments.
I miss you, dad.
Hi all - sadly my father died last week. We've arranged for his memorial to be held in Johannesburg next week, so I'm extending my trip here for a bit.
I'm afraid we won't be meeting on 8th July as promised, the next zazen will be held on Monday 15th July.
Hi all
Just a quick note about our regular Monday zazen. This upcoming Monday (June 17th), we will meet as usual at 7.30pm.
However, due to a family situation that requires my presence out of the country, I will be unable to host the group for the following two Mondays (June 24th and July 1st). During this time, we will unfortunately need to take a short break.
Sorry for stepping away on such short notice... I appreciate your understanding. We will resume our weekly zazen on Monday, July 8th. I look forward to sitting with you all again soon.
I wish you all a peaceful couple of weeks!
All the best,
Alasdair
