My Cancer Ango - 8 - What's A "Real" Zen Retreat?

[Byokan]

I see my Monty Python reference may have missed its mark [emoji38]

Simon
Sat

I got it.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat + lah

[Eishuu]

I got it.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat + lah

Me too!

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Onkai]

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH

[Geika]

I loved this! Good to see you.

Gassho, sat today, lah

[Heisoku]

Great to see you on form again Jundo.

I tried a home retreat once and managed 2 nights and three days in a shed at the bottom of the garden.
To be able to do 90 days is a joke if you are less priviledged in movements or have work or a family. Even a week is tricky and the costs can be really high.
So maybe setting up a way to deliver such an experience we can share can be a New Year's resolution?

I can only say that Treeleaf has changed my life for the better and that the kindness and love shared here has only gotten stronger over the years.
I am with Jundo, Jishin, Frankie and all of you on this.

Gassho
Heisok
S2D/ LAH

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Ryumon]

This whole thing just sounds like a lot of middle-aged white guys (and some women) wanting to keep things Just Exactly the Way They Think They Should Be. Don't get me wrong; I'm a middle-aged white guy, as is Jundo, but (AFAIK) he doesn't have the BMW (nor do I).

As others have said, what does it matter? Is it important that there be equivalency between some upper-middle class Zen association and the rest of those who practice?

Part of their motivation could be the fact that they see people in Treeleaf, or others who follow former punk rockers (no disrespect to Brad; I think what he does is great), or Zen teachers with tattoos, and think that the safe little world they have created for themselves is under attack from the great unwashed.

Is it just a #MZGA thing? (Make Zen Great Again)

Ten years I've been hanging around Treeleaf, and there seems to be more honesty here than in a lot of other groups of people.

Gassho,

Kirk

[Seishin]

Taken some time before watching the recording but so good to see you recovering. Being still relatively new to formal buddhist practice and the dharma, how these folk think they want to run "American Zen" with their rules, regulations and by the look of things outright discrimination is beyond me. What gives them the right in the first place ? Why does there need to be so much clamour to join thir club(s)? For that's what they look like to me, no different from the country club or golf club (boys especially in the UK!!). It reminds me a the Karate organisations in the UK, paper tigers, grabbing grades as quickly as possible to gravitate to positions of power, their lack of experience and knowledge diluting what the claim to protect. I walked away from my martial arts association, as I was being pressured to take my 4th dan but knew there were some katas I did not know and felt it would have been false of me to have taken that grading (which I was fully prepared for), so just walked away from the politics. And this is all this is politics.

Treeleaf proves that Zen (Soto whatever) can be all inclusive and open to all and that to me speaks volumes and because of my location and language barriers I would not be practicing if Jundo and Treeleaf had not been there. If these folks in the US want to play their power games all well and good but at the end of the day, places like Treeleaf can survive and grow without them. And to be honest these Associations by the sound of it would have me running in the opposite direction in the first place.

Rock the boat Jundo. Sometimes these people need to hear some hard facts and face reality (both sides) and not be so petty as to muzzle people like to with veiled threats.

My 2d - a currency popular when Sooty and Sweep were my heros!

STMIZ

[Myogan]

One of the folks from the "mainstream" wrote me (not about you, but about my doctor example), that folks in the medical profession take vacations all the time for weddings and conferences and such. I said that that is not always so ...

In case you are wondering, one example of "new rules" is the following ...

This would be a 3-week to 90-day period that involves a 24-hour schedule of continuous practice.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Do 80 hour weeks in pediatric residencies count? Sesshin’s got nothing on the pediatric intensive care unit!

Gassho
Sat

[Seishin]

Spooky.

Jundo I hope you don't mind me posting the rest of the article you quote above. Spooky as I was only just reading it again this morning and it was one of the many things that drew me to Treeleaf 16months ago. I would imagine there may be a few newer folk here who may not have seen it but I think it sits nicely with the Cancer Ango threads. And I believe it speaks volumes for what you and the Unsui are doing here.

http://sweepingzen.com/eight-ways-gudo-wafu-nishijima-will-help-change-zen-buddhism/

Humble apologizes if this is a little presumptuous.

SZIZTM