Washed by the Rain, Polished by the Wind

One of the characteristics of existence is impermanence, annica. Everything dies. What is gained is lost. That is how it is. Most religions teach that there is something everlasting to be had beyond death. Zen doesn’t deny that, but it also celebrates loss and regards it as something to embrace with open arms.

There is a Zen capping phrase, “Washed by the rain, polished by the wind.” A true person of no rank, to use Master Rinzai’s words, is someone who has been and is washed by the rain and polished by the wind. Great freedom comes from being willing to let that happen – to be sculpted by all that life throws at us.

Sensei

Buddha’s Enlightenment Ceremony

Celebrated on or near December 8, this ceremony commemorates “the reopening of the Way” by Shakyamuni, the Buddha of our world cycle. The story of the Buddha's Great Enlightenment is told, and passages from the sutras are read aloud as everyone chants a mantra in homage to Shakyamuni. Following the ceremony a special dessert of sweetened rice-milk (kheer) is served; the first nourishment that the Buddha took to gain strength after his period of extreme ascetic practice and before accomplishing anuttara samyak sambodhi.

The ceremony will be held next Tuesday, 11 December, following zazen. No dokusan will be offered that evening.

Sittings in December and January

The last sitting before the Christmas break will be on Tuesday 18 December, and the Centre will remain closed through 20 January, with the exception of New Year’s Eve (see below). It may also be possible to attend the sesshin teishos at the Friary, 6-12 January, if there is room. Call to check before sesshin starts.

The last dokusan for the year will be on Thursday 13 December, as Sensei and Richard will be away 17-23 December.

Dreaming of a Green Christmas

When Christmas approaches, the developed world is gripped by a frenzy of consumption and people’s resolve to be environmentally friendly can fall by the wayside. A fifth more waste is thrown out at Christmas than during the rest of the year. Some tips on enjoying a greener Christmas this year:

• Each year millions of trees are pulped to produce the paper used to gift-wrap presents. Look for recycled gift wrap, or be creative in decorating presents with ribbon, a flower, leaves, or coloured string. If you use wrap, use string rather than tape to fasten, so the wrap can be reused.

• Well over half of all toys are made in Southeast Asia, sometimes by children and often with little regard for workers’ health and wellbeing. Cheap plastic toys and gadgets soon break and add to the waste mountain. Pay attention to the gifts you buy – look for fair-trade toys and items that are made from materials that create little waste.

• Send e-cards (create your own with digital photos) rather than paper ones.

• Give gifts that are relatively waste-free, such as your time and energy, or food you have made yourself.

• Ask your friends and family to give you Oxfam Unwrapped gifts – no wrapping paper, no waste, no stuff you don’t want – instead someone gets a gift who really needs it. See www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz

New Year’s Eve Sitting and Ceremonies

On Monday 31 December, from 8 p.m. to about 12:30 a.m., we will bring in the New Year together. The evening begins with zazen, includes chanting, ceremonies and more zazen, and concludes with festive food and drink after midnight.

The last acts of the old year are a Repentance Ceremony (to lay to rest any defiling deeds from the past year that weigh heavily, and make a fresh start for the upcoming year) and a circumambulation of the Centre to chase out negative energies.

The first act of the New Year, held at the stroke of midnight, is an abbreviated Jukai (Taking the Precepts) Ceremony, followed by a special invocation for the well-being of the world. The precepts are a description of how a fully enlightened person behaves, and are taken with the understanding that although we will break them, the sincere aspiration to lead a life that not only does no harm but actually benefits others is essential to the process of actualizing Awakening in ourselves and in the world.

People are welcome to come for all or part of the evening. Please bring some festive food to share.

A word about New Year’s resolutions: keep them reasonably modest and then make an effort to stick to them. There will be two ways to make resolutions, verbally, as part of the Repentance Ceremony, or in written form, offered at the altar.

January Sesshin

This year’s summer 7-day sesshin is at the Franciscan Friary 5-12 January. The deadline for applications is 22 December – be sure to get your application and payment in the mail before then or drop them off at the Centre. Applications may also be emailed.

Help will be needed from 3 p.m. on the 5^th to pack up the zendo and move it to the Friary. Please e-mail Sensei if you will be able to help (aucklandzen@yahoo.com.au).

Next year the Friary is raising the daily fee it charges us by $5 a person. As our margins are very slim, we have had to pass on this increase by raising the sesshin fee from $55 to $60 a day for members (the non-member price has also risen by $5 a day).

Changes to Centre’s Schedule in 2008

Attendance at the “after work” early sitting on Thursday has been thin lately, so starting when the Centre reopens in January, the Thursday sitting will move to 7:00 pm, and will consist of three 35-minute rounds with dokusan. Sensei will no longer offer dokusan on Tuesday evenings; instead she will give group instruction in the middle round. Group instruction will be aimed at beginners but available to anyone who wishes to participate, and will cover such topics as posture, stretching exercises helpful for sitting, and zendo protocol, as well as answering people’s practice questions. Sensei will also start offering dokusan at the early morning sitting on Mondays.

Change to Membership Year

On the advice of our auditor, the trustees are moving the Auckland Zen Centre membership year to coincide with our financial year – 1 April to 31 March. This means that we won’t be sending out renewal notices until April, so everyone will automatically get an extra four months on their current subscription. Also, the trustees decided that after the first year the yearly subscription fee will be waived for members who continue making their regular donation.

Library Thing

Thanks to the efforts of Kathryn Argetsinger and Ann Duncan we now have a catalogue for the Centre’s library online. It will eventually contain all the books available for borrowing (about half have been entered at this stage) and all the talk recordings in our digital archive. Go to the AZC website and click on Library to view. Members may borrow books and talk recordings, and CDs of talks may also be ordered as either audio files or as Mp3s. See the website for details.

Digital Archive

Is there someone willing to take over the digital archive? This entails loading new talks, making copies for the library, and filling CD orders. E-mail Sensei at aucklandzen@yahoo.com.au if you can help.

Message from Oxfam: Be a Climate Bodhisattva

By tackling climate change in our daily lives, we can set a powerful example for our government and the rest of the world to follow.

Oxfam has joined forces with Greenpeace and Forest & Bird to launch Be the Change, a campaign to reduce New Zealand’s climate change impact. By joining the campaign online and pledging to take action in our own lives, we can be the change we want to see in the world. Check out the link: > Be The Change. Join the campaign.

Thank Yous

Many people have contributed to the running of the Zen Centre over the past year. Thank you to everyone who has donated money and supplies (tea, biscuits, toilet paper). The Centre runs on dana and your contributions are what sustain the zendo and the teaching, as well as enabling the trustees to plan for the future. Thank you as well to everyone who has donated time and energy: John Allen for much help with the accounts; Kathryn Argetsinger for all her work on Library Thing, the digital archives, t-shirt sales in the USA, and the many other things she accomplished during her winter stay; Mark Argetsinger for assistance in the purchase of an external hard drive (twice!); Laura Bradburn for taking on the role of treasurer and learning MYOB; Sue Burns (ACT Now Consulting) for giving Laura excellent free MYOB tuition; Brian Fitzgerald for property advice; Helen Fuller for regularly helping with workshops and planning and shopping for sesshin; Sam Hardwick for helping with the database and archive; Lou Anne Jaeger for continuing to be our webmaster; Peter Johnston for constructing a drum stand; Peter McQuarrie and Marie Christien Klientjes for always helping with sesshin setup and takedown; Jen Russell for administering the e-newsletter; Murray Russell for database assistance. Many thanks also to all the trustees, who have helped in many different ways and taken on the responsibility for the Centre’s secular affairs: Teresa Behrens, Peter Carafice, Bruce Christian, Ann Duncan, and Richard von Sturmer.

SANGHA BULLETIN BOARD

Looking for a Place to Live

Conny Krebs is looking for 1+ bedroom, preferably house/sleep-out, with whiteware, wooden floors, $250/wk, in a 'nice' (green space/water, safe), quiet(working shifts) area. All areas of Auckland considered. Contact Conny at 021 0592203 or conny.krebs@gmail.com.

In Vietnam Your Donation Goes a Long Way

When Celia Caughey was the New Zealand Trade Commissioner in Vietnam, she helped to found a small orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, called the Ba Chieu Home.

Here’s what Celia has to say about the home:

The girls come from a variety of backgrounds: some are orphans, but most have one parent dead or gone and the other too poor or sick to look after them, or they have been abandoned or maltreated by stepmothers. Many were found sleeping in the Ba Chieu market and selling lottery tickets for a living. Some were begging at railway stations or pagodas. Others were living on rubbish dumps, scavenging and recycling rubbish. Once they come to live in the Ba Chieu Home they have a roof over their heads and no longer need to worry about making their own living. They have three meals a day, a bed to sleep in, a safe environment with someone to look after them, and they can go to school. There are usually just over twenty girls in the home aged between 7 and 19. I tell the girls to dream their dream and we will try to make it happen. So they all have aspirations about what they want to do in life. They are encouraged to go on to tertiary training. Many of those who have been through the home have found good jobs and continue to study for a better future. It costs approximately US $500 a year to cover all costs for each girl (food, school fees, stationery, clothing, staff salaries, household expenses, medical and other expenses). If you would like to contribute to the home, sponsor a child, or find out more about it, please contact me: celia@primenz.com.

2008 CALENDAR

5-12 January Summer 7-Day Sesshin at Friary

22 January Centre Reopens

5 February Ceremony of Gratitude (in conjunction with Waitangi Day)

9 February Workshop

17 February All-Day Sitting

26 Feb. - 25 March Term Intensive

21-24 March Easter 3-Day Sesshin at Friary

12 April Workshop

20-25 April “Working Sesshin” at Pah Road

16-18 May May 2-Day Sesshin (dates and venue to be confirmed)

25 May Vesak

30 May - 2 June Queen’s Birthday Weekend – Centre Closed

7 June Workshop

8 June Matariki Jukai

28 June- 5 July Winter 7-Day Sesshin at Aio Wira

14 July Sensei to USA – Training at Chapin Mill

13-17 August 4-Day Sesshin in Madison, Wisconsin

20-24 August 4-Day Sesshin at Chapin Mill, New York

6 September Workshop

19-21 September Sept. 3-Day Sesshin (dates and venue to be confirmed)

7 October Bodhidharma Day

19 October All-Day Sitting

24-27 October Labour Day Weekend – Centre Closed

28 Oct. - 25 Nov. Term Intensive

1 November Workshop

20-23 November Nov. 3-Day Sesshin (dates and venue to be confirmed)

9 December Buddha’s Enlightenment Ceremony

20 December Workshop

24 December Christmas Break – Centre Closed

31 December New Year’s Eve Ceremonies

10-17 January, 2009 Summer 7-Day Sesshin (dates and venue to be confirmed)

20 January, 2009 Centre Reopens