I am pleased to announce that MUHO NOELKE, Abbot of Antaiji temple and training center in Japan, will be offering a very special Zazenkai and Talk NEXT SUNDAY JANUARY 25th, LIVE from his temple and Treeleeaf Tsukuba. For those who do not know, Antaiji is the temple of the great Shikantaza teachers, 'Homeless' Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama Roshis.
Muho has an interesting story himself, as a German born monk, one of the few (only?) foreign monks to head a Soto Zen temple and training center in Japan. Before that, he trained at monasteries in Japan, then lived for many months as a homeless monk in a park in central Osaka, Japan, where he led a zazen group. (Other noted Teachers associated with the Sawaki-Uchiyama line have been known to lead such groups living in public parks). Since 2002, he has been the Abbot of Antaiji, where hundreds of foreigners and Japanese, seeking hard and dedicated practice, have come through the years. Practice at Antaiji, snowed in part of the year in distant Hyogo Prefecture, is not easy, and the temple is famous for its long hours of Zazen sitting, farm labor in the vegetable fields, and more sitting, with little emphasis on ceremony, talk and the like. A typical sitting schedule during their 9 days of monthly Sesshin looks like this (with 45 minute sittings of Zazen punctuated with 15 minutes of Kinhin) ...
4am to 9am Zazen
9am Breakfast
10am to 3pm Zazen
3pm Lunch
4pm to 9pm Zazen
9pm Lights out
http://antaiji.org/?page_id=4877&lang=en
9am Breakfast
10am to 3pm Zazen
3pm Lunch
4pm to 9pm Zazen
9pm Lights out
http://antaiji.org/?page_id=4877&lang=en
Now, our Treeleaf Zazenkai will be, well, just a little bit easier than that. Our sitting schedule will look like this ... perhaps 30 minutes of Zazen, a little Kinhin, a Talk by Muho for 25 minutes or so, and some Questions from our participants. I anticipate the the event will be about 90 minutes or so.
The festivities will begin at 9pm Japan time Sunday (that is New York 7am, Los Angeles 4am, London Noon and Paris 1pm, all Sunday January, 25th). Muho and I apologize that the hour is a bit early for those on the North American West Coast (you will also need to rise before 4am), but I could not ask a man who gets about at 3:30am every morning to lose more sleep. He is already very generous to schedule this in what is really the middle of the night for him!
If you would like to read more about Muho, here is a good interview with him ...
To get up 3:30 clock to sit motionless to 13 hours on a pillow, hard work outdoors, in hot and humid summer and cold winter: Is this hell? Is it luck? It is every day life – for Muho, the German abbot of the Japanese Zen monastery Antaiji ... Antaiji means temple of peace. But who looks here for a peace that rests in idle contemplation, will not find it. “Our Zen practice follows the motto: “A day without work is a day without food”, writes Muho, the abbot of the monastery, and continues: “For us it’s not a question of first change the world around us: we must begin with the revolution within ourselves.
This means hard work of plowing in spring, mowing in the heat of summer, harvest in the rain and mud of fall and lots of snow in winter, which cuts off the temple from the outside world. This is no form of asceticism, but the plain, original form of Zen life”, writes Muho, “However, self sufficiency is for us no goal in itself: it only serves to support our practice of Zazen.”
http://maymagazine.eu/en/happiness-2...-to-happiness/
This means hard work of plowing in spring, mowing in the heat of summer, harvest in the rain and mud of fall and lots of snow in winter, which cuts off the temple from the outside world. This is no form of asceticism, but the plain, original form of Zen life”, writes Muho, “However, self sufficiency is for us no goal in itself: it only serves to support our practice of Zazen.”
http://maymagazine.eu/en/happiness-2...-to-happiness/
Gassho, Jundo
PS - They live almost exclusively by donations at Antaiji, no small expense in maintaining such a place. So, I am going to ask all our Treeleaf members who benefit from Muho's visit (not only the folks joining live, but those who will sit later or just listen to his words), to offer a donation for their upkeep there (if you can afford) It is a special place. Here is the link.
http://antaiji.org/?page_id=8418&lang=en
Comment