Sunday, October 11: Meido Roshi Practice Session Invitation
Greetings,
Our upcoming Sunday group practice session will be offered from 10:00 to 11:15am Central Time. Following a brief period of zazen, a dharma talk will be offered that continues our early-fall series, "Vowing Like Your Life Depends On It."
This Sunday, the focus is Part 4: Continuous Practice. This week, Meido Moore Roshi, abbot of Korinji, will give a guest teacher talk.
Korinji Monastery | Meditation | WI, USA
KORINJI is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist training monastery, or sōdō, in rural Wisconsin, USA. Founded in 2013, it serves as the headquarters of RINZAI ZEN INTERNATIONAL, our worldwide sangha of affiliated practice groups. Rooted in traditional Rinzai Zen monastic training, Korinji is also a center for traditional fine arts and martial arts. Korinji additionally serves as a non-sectarian temple for the practice of other Japanese Buddhist traditions.
Please join us for this special offering.
We will use Torei Zenji's chapter "Faith and Practice" from his superlative classic, The Inexhaustible Lamp of the Zen School as the text. The full passage that Meido Roshi will comment on is below:
"If at this point your spirit and morale slacken, all the more rely on vow. If faith in mind is shallow and weak, all the more rely on this vow. If obstacles are many, all the more rely on this vow. If karmic habits are manifold, all the more rely on this vow. If intelligent and clever, all the more rely on this vow. If stupid and dull, all the more rely on this vow. If seeing true nature becomes fully clear, all the more rely on this vow. If insight and function become fully free, all the more rely on this vow. Right from the beginning, from the first aspiration of the mind to the final end, there is no time when you do not rely on the strength of this vow.
"Reciting the Four Great Vows, directing them from the mouth outwards, and inwardly ever holding them in the heart, invoking them as a prayer day by day and continuously pondering them, then just like a wondrous scent or an old strange custom, or like fine mist that yet drenches one's clothes, or as the smell of incense pervades and clings, so the awareness of Buddha and Ancestors will ripen of itself, and, benefitting oneself and others, everything will be accomplished."
"Reciting the Four Great Vows, directing them from the mouth outwards, and inwardly ever holding them in the heart, invoking them as a prayer day by day and continuously pondering them, then just like a wondrous scent or an old strange custom, or like fine mist that yet drenches one's clothes, or as the smell of incense pervades and clings, so the awareness of Buddha and Ancestors will ripen of itself, and, benefitting oneself and others, everything will be accomplished."
Note
Due to our upcoming Vine fall sesshin, there will be no group sessions on October 18 or 25. Our next Sunday practice session will be on November 1.
See the protocols and Zoom link below.