Subject: the opening of the Zen Fellowship of Dayton
Pop culture has adopted Zen as a buzz-word to sell everything from tea to air freshener. Promising ‘balance’, ‘inner peace’, ‘clarity’, and ‘deep relaxation’…in some ways, it’s tempting to co-opt some of Madison Avenue’s hard work to draw a bigger audience to our fledgling Zen Center. Many people are drawn into spiritual practice by the hope of some sort of tangible improvement in their situation. And situations can improve, but are we really ever satisfied? Spiritual inquiry usually doesn’t end in the same self-satisfaction we see in advertisements. From experience, the things I personally hoped to gain from Zen when I first started practice have become less important, or at least more transparent. A line from the Heart Sutra describes this as: ‘no attainment, with nothing to attain…’ In truth, there is nothing to buy; no ideas we can sell that will make us better than we originally are. So the idea of selling people on the benefits of taking up a Zen practice is a bit ridiculous. Gratefully, there are those that do maintain this way. The hope is that in creating a place for this practice in Dayton, we can be of service to those who have been drawn to investigate and sustain the Zen path. -Abbot Steve VanEtten Zen Practice? Zen practice simply means "meditation." It is the practice of inquiry, the act of studying the self, of looking into the matter of our lives, of investigating the fundamental questions that arise from our sentience: Who are we? Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What is our correct role in this world and our correct relationship with others? How can we truly help? Zen Training? Zen training involves the traditions and forms of Zen practice. Zazen (sitting meditation), chanting, bowing, and walking are often difficult for beginners to get comfortable with on both a physical and mental level. This difficulty is often called “the first gate of practice.” These forms come to us with thousands of years of Asian tradition and mystique. Though many changes are continually being made to the format, it is most practical to continue using the tools perfected and passed to us by our predecessors. Zen teaching and Koan practice: The common thread to all Zen tradition is the role of the Teacher or Zen Master. The history of Zen is, in actuality, the record of interactions between student and teacher, master and master. Thousands of these exchanges have been collected as examples of particular insight. These are called koans (Japanese) or kong-ans (Korean). In ancient China, legal records were duplicated and then stamped with a unique seal across both pages. One could verify the authenticity by laying the two side by side and seeing if the stamp matched, so koan literally means public case or public record. So the intent with koan practice is to see if your mind matches your teacher's and by extension, the ancestors in our tradition. One can get a taste of this by reading these ancient exchanges, but to really experience the intent requires that we take up the koan as our practice. Talks and Interviews: Teachers customarily give talks and conduct interviews with students. Since most Zen practice is conducted in silence, these talks offer encouragement on specific points of practice or training to the group. Interviews are a private time to discuss your individual practice with the teacher. These may involve the teacher assigning or working on a Koan with a student if they wish, but it is not mandatory. Our Guiding Teacher: Zen Master Dae Gak is the Founder, Abbot and Guiding Teacher of Furnace Mountain. He has practiced Zen for almost forty years, and received Dharma transmission from the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn in 1994. Before becoming a student of Zen Master Seung Sahn, he studied extensively with other teachers in Japanese lineages. Since his recognition as a teacher Zen Master Dae Gak has directed his life toward supporting people in their efforts to realize their original nature of fearless immediacy and unbounded compassion, following the clear teaching of the Zen Ancestors and his own realization that the practice of spiritual inquiry cannot be fixed, organized or institutionalized. The ZFD’s resident teacher: Zen Master Dae Gak gave Inka (permission to teach) to the ZFD’s resident teacher, Myogetsu Osho (Mark Davis) in February 2008. Myogetsu has been studying with Dae Gak since 1994, lives in Cincinnati, and is the resident teacher also of the Cincinnati and Hamilton Zen Centers. He will be attending Dayton meetings about once a month. Where: The Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship has made space available to us in their facility at 8690 Yankee Street in Centerville. We are grateful for their compassion and generosity. When: Starting Tuesday December 23rd and every Tuesday following at 6:30 pm. Contact: Abbot Steve VanEtten Website: cincinnatizencenter.org/zfd.html |