Welcome Rev. Isshin, it is a wonderful honor to have you with us!
Gassho,
Kelly/Jinmei
Gassho,
Kelly/Jinmei
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Thank you for taking the time to answer this Jundo. I do appreciate it.
Gassho
CGrateful for your practiceComment
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Hello and Welcome Rev. Isshin,
thank you for your generously sharing the Dharma with us here at Treeleaf!
Gassho,
Hans Chudo MongenComment
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Hi Ben,
I will save Isshin from answering, and do my best.
Zuise is a ceremony for Soto Priests in Japan (not those who did not train in Japan) where one is "Abbot for a Day" at the two Soto-shu Head Temples in Japan, Eiheiji and Sojiji. Muho, the German born Abbot of Japan's Antaiji Temple, has an interesting description of his Zuise ...
"Baika" is a lovely type of Buddhist religious hymm singing. My Dharma Granpa, Rempo Niwa Zenji, the former Abbot of Eiheiji, was a big Baika fellow. Here is an example. As to further details, you will have to ask Isshin as I do not know very much.If you thought that being "abbot for one night" means that Eiheiji's or Sôjiji's chauffeur is waiting for you with a limousine at the train station, you are wrong. You have to get to the temple gate by yourself until the appointed time in the afternoon. I went from Antaiji to Eiheiji in the summer of 2000 with our temple's offroad bike. The monk in charge looked surprised when I told him that I was "tonight's abbot" and looking for a parking lot. I had to change dress in a public toilet in fromt of the gate, as the "abbot for the night" is supposed turn up in koromo and rakusu, not the filthy samu-e I was wearing. After paying my 50.000 Yen at the front desk, I was shown to my room. Being the "abbot for one night", I expected to be shown to the best quarters in the temple compound. And the room I was led to was quite spacious, but to my surprised three other oshôs-to-be were already in there. Altogether, we were four abbots for the night. The rest of the day was spent rehearsing for the next mornings ceremony. Not only were we not giving the keys to the monastery, we did not even see the real abbot (who was - at the time - about 100 years old). Of course no-one was waiting for our orders, rather we were expected to follow what we were told. It turned out that being "abbot for one night" meant nothing but filling the space of dôshi at some of the next morning's ceremonial rituals. This turned out to be farely easy, because as the only foreigner I was placed last and just had to follow the movements of the three Japanese before me.
The biggest treat you get for your 50.000 Yen is the fancy meal following the ceremony in the morning. I hear that the unsui that work in Eiheiji's kitchen get up at one o' clock in the morning to prepare this meal for the "abbots". The whole affair ends with a photo session. Fortunately, my seniors at Antaiji had warned me that I would be billed another 50 dollars for the photographs, so I avoided having my pictures taken by the professional Eiheiji camera-man. If you bring your own camera, you can ask one of the unsui to take a snap shot of you.
and
http://antaiji.dogen-zen.de/eng/201007.shtml
Gassho, JundoALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Wow. And here I thought all of Japanese chanting/singing was monotone! Interestng, interesting! Thank you for sharing.Hi Ben,
I will save Isshin from answering, and do my best.
Zuise is a ceremony for Soto Priests in Japan (not those who did not train in Japan) where one is "Abbot for a Day" at the two Soto-shu Head Temples in Japan, Eiheiji and Sojiji. Muho, the German born Abbot of Japan's Antaiji Temple, has an interesting description of his Zuise ...
"Baika" is a lovely type of Buddhist religious hymm singing. My Dharma Granpa, Rempo Niwa Zenji, the former Abbot of Eiheiji, was a big Baika fellow. Here is an example. As to further details, you will have to ask Isshin as I do not know very much.
Gassho, Jundo
Gassho, BenGassho
BenComment
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Welcome, Rev. Isshin.
Gassho,
Myosha"Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"Comment
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Self-presentation:
Hello, members of Treeleaf Sangha. My Dharma name is Isshin (one heart-mind). I read my first books about Buddhism over 40 years ago, but it was only in 1996 that I finally had the opportunity to practice under a teacher who spoke a language I could understand (there has been a temple serving the Japanese immigrant community for over 50 years). I received monastic ordination in 1999 and went to Japan in 2000 to train at the women’s monastery (Aichi Senmon Nisodo) in Nagoya, after a 2-week stay at Hosshin-ji in Obama. I practiced for 4 years at Nisodo, then spent close to a year at Zen Center of Los Angeles and a short 2-week stay at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY before returning to Brazil, where I have lived since 1971 (I was born and raised in the US).
In 2007, I became the resident teacher of a small practice group in southern Brazil and have 2 novice monks (unsui) at present. We struggle with financial challenges, but I love this group deeply. I keep several blogs – in Portuguese, have Youtube channels (in Portuguese) and a Facebook page… . A search for “Monja Isshin” will take you to them, if any of you are interested. Google-garble translator helps – and, people who understand Spanish can follow a lot of Portuguese…
I have very little time for surfing Internet – I joined this forum because I enjoy seeing what other teachers are doing. When I can, I will try to contribute.
Thank you for the warm welcome!
Dharma Combat in Japan – My Personal Experience
An officially recognized temple in Japan can have no more than 2 Dharma combat ceremonies per year (2 training angos), so it was quite an honor for me to be able to do my own Dharma Combat at the Aichi Senmon Nisodo (women’s training monastery) in Nagoya, under the guidance of Shundo Aoyama Roshi.
Memorizing those strange near meaningless phrases was difficult. Fortunately, I received a lot of help from fellow trainees. The general rehearsal was a complete disaster. But something happened during the ceremony itself – somehow the words simply came out of my mouth… So, I got through the ceremony without embarrassment.
Because there were two Americans practicing at the monastery at the time, I had the opportunity to experience the two versions of Dharma Combat – the formal, memorized ritualized version and the free question version.
And I see definite advantages to both versions – to the point where I hope to be able to require my own students to do a couple of memorized, ritualized questions themaselves – in Japanese (!). We are presently trying to schedule Dharma combat for one of my students and plan to request 2 memorized questions in Japanese if we are able to do his ceremony where there will be Japanese monks helping.
Because the memorized questions and answers are in old, classical Japanese, not even the Japanese monks and nuns truly understand what is actually being said (although the opening and closing parts of the ceremony are in modern Japanese, as I recall). So, my own situation (barely speaking Japanese) ended up not being all that different from the situation of the Japanese themselves.
I found the ritualized, memorized part to be a genuine “energy combat” from the Hara which I also believe prepared me for dealing with “energy” here with my work with our ceremonies, retreats and student’s issues. It’s hard to describe and verbalize, so I don’t know how much sense this makes to any of you.
Many of us cannot handle forceful - perhaps even angry - exchanges without getting flusterd and confused, so it was good training.
Free questions, on the other hand, seemed to have less “energy” being thrown back and forth, and appeared, in some ways, to be more intellectual, with less Hara. Since then, I’ve had the same impression of free question Dharma combats that I have seen – less “energy” and more intellectual quick-wittedness… Some ceremonies I have seen here in the West seem to be more like “enjoyable chit-chats” and “a walk in the park” with quick, witty - even funny - exchanges instead of being any kind of “combat”.
Many Buddhist traditions, such as Tibetan and True Pure Land, practice debating and the debates can get quite dramatic. So I think our Dharma combat is supposed to be our version of these debates. As I understand it, the concept behind Dharma combat would be for the other trainees to be "testing" the new shuso (leader of the novices), and that this testing should be forceful and energetic - which it was at Nisodo.
I found it a deeply moving experience – when I see a video of a Dharma combat, I still feel deep emotion even now. It was hard, but it was a genuine rite of passage and an important part of my training, for which I am extremely grateful. Deep bows of gratitude to Aoyama Roshi and to the fellow trainees who helped me prepare – and who then “fought the good combat” with me in the ceremony.
Gassho
IsshinComment
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Dear Rev. Isshin,
thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences regarding dharma combat with us.
Gassho,
Hans Chudo MongenComment
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Yes, Baika is wonderful - and Japanese "Shomyo" (ritual chanting) is incredible when it is done well.
You can see Baika being part of the ceremonial entrance for ceremonies, as part of the ceremonies celebrating 50 years’ anniversary of the Busshinji temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is the South American headquarters for Soto Zen and is where I began my practice.
You can hear a beautiful example of a version of Shomyo-style chanting in this video, starting at 5:20. It is being sung by my Dharma Transmission teacher, Onoda Roshi, who was Ino for this ceremony and is a Master Baika Teacher. The ceremony is called Manto Kuyo (Ten thousand candles memorial service) and during this part of the ceremony, pieces of wood with the names of deceased persons written on them are being read and then burned (although I suspect that there was no actual fire in that “box” there at the moment – I imagine they were burned later in a safer way, but I can’t really say for sure). While the other monks are chanting the names in monotone-stye, Onoda Roshi is “singing” them in Shomyo style.
This was also part of the 50 year anniversary ceremonies at Busshinji temple.
These cerimonies are beautiful and can mean a lot to the public.
Gassho,
IsshinComment
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Welcome Rev Isshin
Gassho,
DaidoComment
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Thank you for sharing this, Rev Isshin, and welcome!
Gassho,
VincentOngen (音源) - Sound SourceComment
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Wonderful videos Rev Isshin, thank you. =)
Gassho
ShingenComment
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Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. Great source of knowledge for a newly ordained priest like me.
Deep bows,
KyoninHondō Kyōnin
奔道 協忍Comment
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Thank you Monja Isshin for sharing your experiences. I very much appreciate it.
Gassho ClarkGrateful for your practiceComment
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