July 21-22 Treeleaf Weekly Zazenkai - Cutting Grass, Pulling Weeds, Watering Flowers

[Jundo]

The kind of weeds and 'kuzu' we get in my back field ...

Dear All,

Please sit our Treeleaf Zazenkai for 90 minutes with Zazen, Heart Sutra and more:

10am Japan Saturday morning, NY 9pm, LA 6pm Friday night, London 2am and Paris 3am Saturday morning, or any time thereafter here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njmsV_Vcx_4

However, "one way" live sitters are encouraged to come into the Zoom sitting, and just leave the camera and microphone turned off: Join live (with or without a camera & microphone) on Zoom at: TREELEAF Now OR at DIRECT ZOOM LINK, password (if needed): dogen

00:00 – 00:15 CEREMONY (HEART SUTRA in English) and Dedication
00:15 – 00:45 ZAZEN
00:45 – 00:55 KINHIN
00:55 – 01:25 ZAZEN
01:25 – 01:30 VERSE OF ATONEMENT & FOUR VOWS
01:30 - 01:45(?) Informal Tea Time (All Welcome)

ATTENTION: Everyone, when rising for Kinhin or Ceremonies after Zazen, get up slowly, don't rush, hold something stable, you won't be "late," so TAKE YOUR TIME! Make sure you are careful getting up!

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLah



PS - There is no "wrong" or "right" in Zazen ... yet here is a little explanation of the "right" times to Bow (A Koan) ...

https://youtu.be/GR6POpsXh9Q

Chant Book is here for those who wish to join in: CHANT BOOK LINK

The other video I mention on Zendo decorum is this one, from our "Always Beginners" video Series:

Sit-a-Long with Jundo: Zazen for Beginners (12) - Basic Zendo Decorum At Home
https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...093#post189093

I also recommend a little Talk on why small rituals and procedures are so cherished in the Zendo:

SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Small Things in the Zendo
https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...s-in-the-Zendo

[Suuko]

Dear all,

This is the part I shared during tea time. When I first read it, it really struck me. It still provides a great insight to our Zen practice.

Self-Nourishment

When you get up early in the morning, by alarm, I think you don't feel so well. It is not so easy to come and sit; even after you started sitting, at first, you have to encourage yourself to sit well. Those are the waves of our mind -- just waves, and in pure zazen, there should not be any waves in our mind. But while you are sitting, those waves will, more and more, become smaller, and your effort will change into some subtle feeling. We say, "Pulling out the weeds we make nourishment of the plant." We pull the weed and bury the weed near the plant to make it nourishment of the plant. So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those weeds will help you. So we should not be bothered by the weeds you have in your mind. We should be grateful to the weeds you have in your mind, because eventually they will enrich your practice. If you have some experience how the weed you have in your mind will change into your mental nourishment in your practice, your practice makes remarkable progress. You feel the progress, you know. You can feel how it changes into the nourishment of yourself. Of course it is not so difficult to give some philosophical interpretation to our practice, but that is not enough. We must have actual experience about how our weeds change into the nourishment.

Strictly speaking, the effort we make is not good because that is a kind of waves of our mind, but it is impossible to attain absolute calmness of your mind without any effort. You must make some effort, but we must forget ourselves in the effort we make. In this kind of realm you have no subjectivity or objectivity. Your mind is just calm, without even any awareness. And in this unawareness every effort and every idea and thought will vanish. So it is necessary for us to encourage ourselves, and to make effort to the last minute where we have no effort -- continue our effort forever, and when we continue our effort we should not expect some stage when we will forget all about it. We should just try to keep our mind on our breathing. That is actual practice. And that effort will be refined, more and more, while you are sitting. At first the effort we make is quite rough and impure, but by the power of practice the effort will become more and more pure. When your effort becomes pure, your body and mind become pure. This is the way we practice Zen. This kind of practice is not possible by ordinary activity, but once you understand our innate power to purify ourselves and our surroundings you can act properly and you will learn with each other, and you will become friendly with each other. This is the merit of Zen practice. But the way of practice is just to be concentrated on your breathing with right posture and with pure, great effort. This is how we practice Zen. -Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Gassho,
Suuko.

[Jundo]

The Kuzu was Japan's accidental gift to the Southern USA and some other places ...

https://youtu.be/7Sw-Eei3MPo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRLeMseidmw

Gassho, J

stlah

[Suuko]

The Kuzu was Japan's accidental gift to the Southern USA and some other places ...

https://youtu.be/7Sw-Eei3MPo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRLeMseidmw

Gassho, J

stlah

I get the invading nature of Kuzu. In a sense, it teaches us resilience with the way it tries to survive. It also teaches us the other side which we want to avoid that is surviving while destroying others.

It's interesting how such attributes can be seen in people as well. We are all part of nature in a way.

Gassho,,
Suuko.


Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

[Bion]

I get the invading nature of Kuzu. In a sense, it teaches us resilience with the way it tries to survive. It also teaches us the other side which we want to avoid that is surviving while destroying others.

It's interesting how such attributes can be seen in people as well. We are all part of nature in a way.

Gaddo,
Suuko.


Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

We ARE nature. [emoji1]

[emoji1374] Sat

[Suuko]

We ARE nature. [emoji1]

[emoji1374] Sat

Indeed. We have the ability to give shape to our nature through practice though which plants and animals struggle with, I suppose. There's a great philosophical question on what's the essence of being human? To think, to be rational, to love, ...and the list goes on.

Gassho,
Suuko.

Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

[Tokan]

Thank you all

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Bion]

Indeed. We have the ability to give shape to our nature through practice though which plants and animals struggle with, I suppose. There's a great philosophical question on what's the essence of being human? To think, to be rational, to love, ...and the list goes on.

Gassho,
Suuko.

Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

I meant, we ARE LITERALLY nature.. The lump of elements that form this body is no different from the lump of elements that form a banana, or a dog’s poo, a tree or a flower. The water forming this body has moved from one being/thing to another since forever. There is no separation between this or that. That’s what I meant [emoji1]

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Jundo]

I meant, we ARE LITERALLY nature.. The lump of elements that form this body is no different from the lump of elements that form a banana, or a dog’s poo, a tree or a flower. The water forming this body has moved from one being/thing to another since forever. There is no separation between this or that. That’s what I meant [emoji1]

[emoji1374] Sat Today

I just posted this story today in this week's science news ...

Researchers discover stardust sprinkled on a nearby asteroid

Scientists have made a surprising discovery in a sample returned from an asteroid: Embedded in its rocks are grains of stardust.

The dust, which came from distant stars and drifted through space for millions or billions of years, could provide clues about how the solar system formed, according to Ann Nguyen, a cosmochemist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. ... Stars forged nearly all of the elements of the Universe. Many of the atoms that make up our bodies were themselves made inside of the core of a star somewhere else. That's because the high pressures and temperatures can fuse lightweight atomic nuclei into heavier elements. Think of these little grains as cosmic dust motes. Sometimes the star that formed these grains would explode, blowing them across the galaxy like dandelion seeds. Other times they would drift away on their own — traveling on the stellar wind into deep space. ...

"Probably a lot of them do get destroyed," Nguyen says, "but some of them survive and they make it to our region of the universe where our solar system formed."

The stardust swirled and clumped and eventually became part of the sun, and the planets, and even us. That idea led the astronomer Carl Sagan to famously remark that "We're made of star-stuff."

... Nguyen says the grains look different than the material from our own solar system, because different stars leave different nuclear signatures in the atoms.

"It kind of lights up like a Christmas tree light," she says. "Their isotopic signatures are just so different than the material that formed in our solar system or got homogenized in the solar system."

Nguyen says that the stardust grains provide some clues about the types of stars that contributed to our solar system. It also shows that exploding stars, or supernovae, probably contributed more of the dust than researchers had previously believed.

But above all, she says, these tiny grains are a reminder of the way in which we fit into the vast cosmos.

"It just shows us how rich our Universe is," she says. "These materials all played a part in our life here on Earth."

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/11878...nkled-asteroid

The Hayabusa vehicle, by the way, which retrieved all this was built and controlled here in Tsukuba ...

Gassho, J

stlah

[Bion]

I just posted this story today in this week's science news ...



The Hayabusa vehicle, by the way, which retrieved all this was built and controlled here in Tsukuba ...

Gassho, J

stlah

I LOOOVE THESE THINGS [emoji1] Also, all the great things apparently are in Tsukuba!

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Suuko]

I just posted this story today in this week's science news ...



The Hayabusa vehicle, by the way, which retrieved all this was built and controlled here in Tsukuba ...

Gassho, J

stlah

Thanks Jundo. I read the full article and shared it with our Physics teachers.

Gassho,
Suuko.

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[Houzan]

Sat with you all on this one just now. Thank you, TL[emoji120]

Gassho, Michael
Satlah

[Jundo]

Thanks Jundo. I read the full article and shared it with our Physics teachers.

Gassho,
Suuko.

Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

Oh, please read some of the other AMAZING science announcements just from this past week. I post them weekly in this thread. Some are mindboggling ... literally ...

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?13248-The-Zen-of-Technology-Scientific-Discovery%21-%28-Robots%29&p=327033&viewfull=1#post327033

Gassho, J

stlah

[Tairin]

Thank you everyone. I sat with you this morning


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Kaitan]

I visited the botanical garden of Shanghai today and found this very interesting plant.

Plant strangler
Strangler is a cruel and spectacular phenomenon in the rain forest. Most stranglers are members of the ficus family.
The seeds are spread by birds or other animals to branches near the tree crown. They start their lives as epiphytes. They produce long roots and growing downward, ultimately decent around the trunk of the supporting tree and root into the soil. Once this occurs, the expanding leafy crown of the strangler starts to shade the crown of the support. Due to the lack of light, water and nutrients, the supporting tree eventually dies.

Gasshō

SatToday
Bernal