Sunday Sit (Zazen for Peace) - Sunday, July 16th, 2023

[Meian]

Please Join Us as we continue to sit, offering our sincere efforts to peace, children, and the injured in Ukraine and around the world.

We will gather for the Sunday Sit on Sunday, July 16th, 2023, beginning at 6 am Los Angeles time, 9 am New York time, 2 pm in London, 3 pm in Paris, 4 pm Kyiv time, and 4 pm Moscow time.

You can check the Treeleaf Calendar for your local time here: https://www.treeleaf.org/now/#calendar

We meet in the Treeleaf Now Scheduled Sitting Room here: https://www.treeleaf.org/now/go.php?l=ssr

Livestream and "any-time" recording can be found here: https://youtube.com/live/g6z9_KeZ6NE?feature=share


The format of the sitting will be:

- Heart Sutra
- Zazen 40 minutes
- Verse of Atonement and the Four Vows

ALL are welcome! Please, join us! No prior experience is required -- just come sit with us.

Washin and "Zazen for Peace" team

[Jundo]

Explosions were heard in the city of Odesa in southern Ukraine early Tuesday, about 24 hours after an apparent Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Bridge that connects the annexed Crimean Peninsula with mainland Russia.

A CNN team on the ground heard air raid sirens around 2 a.m. local time and saw air defenses operating across the city, followed by four large explosions.

Searchlights were seen coming from the direction of Odesa's port. The crew captured an object falling out of the sky on fire.

Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said the Ukraine air defense was repelling a Russian air attack.

"Odesa: Air defense combat work is underway," Bratchuk said in a Telegram post Tuesday.

Oleh Kiper, head of Odesa's region's military administration, said Russia was using drones.

"Several waves of attacks are expected. There is also a missile threat!" Kiper added in a post on Telegram.
He urged residents to stay in shelters until the air raid sirens ended.

Some background: A Ukrainian security official on Monday claimed Kyiv's responsibility for an attack on the bridge, a vital supply line for Russia's war effort in Ukraine and a personal project for President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian president Monday described the strike as a "terrorist attack" and vowed Moscow would respond.

Shortly after midnight local time, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said travel had resumed on one lane on the bridge.
https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-...8033b9eb69fedf

Ukraine Activates Air Defences In Odesa Region
By AFP - Agence France Presse
July 17, 2023


Ukraine activated aerial defences in coastal Odesa early Tuesday, authorities said, hours after Russia refused to extend a deal allowing the safe export of grain from the region.

"Odesa. Air defence combat work continues," said Sergiy Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odessa military region, on Telegram.

The Odesa region in southern Ukraine is home to maritime terminals that were key to the expired grain export agreement between Moscow and Kyiv.

Russia was "attacking the south of Ukraine with attack drones," head of the Odesa region's military administration, Oleg Kiper, said on Telegram.

He warned residents to stay in shelters.

Ukraine's southern operations command said Russia was "attacking the southern regions with unmanned attack vehicles."

Air alerts were also announced in Mykolayiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Kirovograd, and Cherkasy.

Russia's invasion last year saw Ukraine's Black Sea ports blocked by warships until the agreement, signed in July 2022, allowed for the passage of critical grain exports.

The deal expired at midnight in Istanbul (2100 GMT) after Russia refused an extension, arguing that elements of the deal allowing the export of Russian food and fertilisers had not been honoured.

https://www.barrons.com/news/ukraine...egion-7677f730

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jishin]

Sitting zazen for peace in Ukraine doesn't directly address the region's complex issues. To achieve peace, concrete actions like diplomatic intervention and policy changes are crucial. I will skip the sit.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Kotei]

Sitting zazen for peace in Ukraine doesn't directly address the region's complex issues. To achieve peace, concrete actions like diplomatic intervention and policy changes are crucial. I will skip the sit.

I don't understand this as an "either ... or" situation.
Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.

[Jundo]

Sitting zazen for peace in Ukraine doesn't directly address the region's complex issues. To achieve peace, concrete actions like diplomatic intervention and policy changes are crucial. I will skip the sit.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

Yes, I am not sure of the either/or logic of it.

Sometimes one needs to sit for a time, putting even the war down, before one gets up, gets going, gets working and helping and picks the war and peace back up again.

In fact, just working and striving without the sitting and letting go ... maybe not as strong as if together.

Doesn't your sitting, Jishin, help you personally and help you help your patients with great centering and stillness than just focusing on your patients alone and their complex, sometimes unsolvable issues?

Gassho, J

stlah

[Bion]

Sitting zazen for peace in Ukraine doesn't directly address the region's complex issues. To achieve peace, concrete actions like diplomatic intervention and policy changes are crucial. I will skip the sit.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

Anything about this sit in particular, out of all the others held weekly since the war started, that prompted you to express your desire to skip it?

[emoji1374] Sat today

[Jishin]

Yes, I am not sure of the either/or logic of it.

Sometimes one needs to sit for a time, putting even the war down, before one gets up, gets going, gets working and helping and picks the war and peace back up again.

In fact, just working and striving without the sitting and letting go ... maybe not as strong as if together.

Doesn't your sitting, Jishin, help you personally and help you help your patients with great centering and stillness than just focusing on your patients alone and their complex, sometimes unsolvable issues?

Gassho, J

stlah

I sit because I sit, not because I want peace. If I want peace, then it’s a different department.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jundo]

I sit because I sit, not because I want peace. If I want peace, then it’s a different department.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

Okay, but nothing wrong with helping folks or working for ending a war, then sitting, then getting up and helping folks and ending the war again ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Reported tonight ... the violence goes on and on ...

Russia claims strikes on Odesa were in retaliation for Crimea bridge attack

Moscow launched a barrage of drones and missiles at the Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight in retaliation to Kyiv's attack on the Crimea bridge earlier this week, the Russian Defense ministry said Tuesday.

“Tonight the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a group retaliation strike with precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats, as well as the place where they were being manufactured at a ship repair plant near the city of Odessa,” the ministry said, using the Russian spelling for the southern city.

It is unclear whether those strikes indeed reached their targets as claimed. The Ukrainian Air Force said it intercepted all six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles launched at Odesa, as well as “the vast majority” of Iran-made Shahed attack drones.

The Russian government said Monday that two Ukrainian seaborne drones were responsible for the attack on the bridge linking the annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland. A source in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) also told CNN the attack was a joint operation of the SBU and Ukraine’s naval forces.

The nearly 12-mile crossing, also known as the Kerch Bridge, is the longest in Europe and holds huge strategic and symbolic importance for Moscow. Monday’s attack on the bridge was the second since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, after a fuel tanker exploded while driving over it in October.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-...-23/index.html

[Jishin]

Okay, but nothing wrong with helping folks or working for ending a war, then sitting, then getting up and helping folks and ending the war again ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[emoji106]

Not 1, not 2.

1=sitting.

2=doing something.

1 is always good but less effective tool in war.

That’s my argument.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jundo]

.

Russia launches air strikes on Odesa for a second night in a row

Russia launched an attack on Odesa early Wednesday, the second night in a row the southern port city has been targeted.

Ukraine's air defenses were repelling a Russian attack, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Odesa military administration said.

"More Kalibr (cruise missile) launches have been documented from the Black Sea," spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk said on Telegram.
A CNN team in Odesa witnessed a sustained barrage from the air defense near the direction of the port. The team also heard at least three large bangs.

Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa region's military administration, urged people not to come close to windows.

"Do not approach the windows, do not film or show the work of air defense forces," Kiper said on his Telegram page Wednesday. "All residents of Odesa Oblast take shelter!"
Russian forces launched airstrikes on Odesa on Tuesday in retaliation for Kyiv's attack Monday on the strategic and symbolic Crimean bridge linking the annexed peninsula to the Russian mainland.

https://us.cnn.com/europe/live-news/...-23/index.html

[Jundo]

Russia strikes Ukraine’s Odesa port in ‘hellish’ attack after Moscow vowed payback for Crimea bridge

Russia launched a massive air attack on the Ukrainian port of Odesa for a second night in row, which one Ukrainian official on Wednesday described as “hellish,” but authorities vowed not be intimidated and to continue work to export grain.

The attack was “very powerful, truly massive,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said in a voice message on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.“

“It was a hellish night,” he said, adding that details on damage and casualties would come later.

The attacks on Odesa, one of Ukraine’s main ports for exporting grain, followed a pledge of retaliation by Russia after a blast on a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula on Monday that Moscow blamed on Ukraine.

Shortly after the bridge was hit on Monday, Moscow withdrew from a year-old Black Sea grain agreement that allowed for the safe export of Ukraine’s grain, a move the United Nations said risked creating hunger around the world.

“(They) are trying to scare the whole world, especially those who want to work for the grain corridor ... Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations,” said Bratchuk.

“But I think that all normal, rational people will look and say: Odesa was not afraid, is not afraid and will not be afraid — we will work.”

Most of Ukraine was under air raid alerts on and off starting soon after midnight on Wednesday, with Russia striking other places, including a drone attack on Kyiv.

“A difficult night of air attacks for all of Ukraine, especially in the south, in Odesa,” Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv’s city military administration, said on the Telegram channel.

He said Kyiv was attacked and according to preliminary information there was some damage or casualties.

Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 37 out of 63 targets in the southern Odesa region, including 23 suicide drones and 14 cruise missiles targeting critical infrastructure and military facilities. It was a much lower success rate than Ukraine usually reports for countering Russian air attacks.

...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/r...imea-rcna95051

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