Landmark Dogen Symposium this summer at Upaya Zen Center

Home The Americas US Southwest

Santa Fe, New Mexico -- This July at Upaya Zen Center, a team of renowned Buddhist teachers and scholars will lead a three-day exploration and celebration of the works of Eihei Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen.

During the Dogen Symposium, July 12 – 15, acclaimed artist and translator Kazuaki Tanahashi explores being a “clumsy student” of a great master through his passion for poetry, practice, and painting.

Taigen Dan Leighton, who has co-translated many Dogen fascicles with Tanahashi, offers his insights into the work of a teacher he has spent much of his life studying. Writer Natalie Goldberg invites us to sit, write, and walk in the spirit of Dogen. Poet and Zen teacher Peter Levitt touches the heart of practice through Zen Master Dogen's life and work.

Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, abbot of the Village Zendo in New York City, will share her love for Dogen’s works. Sensei Irene Kyojo Bakker, founder of ZenSpirit in the Netherlands, helps to lead practices. Shohaku Okumura Roshi, founder of the Sanshin Zen Community and world-renowned Dogen translator, will join the weekend as well.

Dogen (1200-1253), also known as Dogen Kigen or Dogen Zenji, was a Japanese Buddhist monk who may be best known for his collected written works, Shobogenzo, considered to be a masterpiece of the world's religious literature. His teachings and style of writing, characterized by paradox and subtlety, has been beloved by generations of Soto Zen students. One of the most famous passages from Dogen’s writing comes from Genjokoan:
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”
If you go

WHAT: Dogen Symposium

WHEN: July 12 – 15, 2012
WHERE: Upaya Zen Center, 1404 Cerro Gordo Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501

COST: $320 (plus lodging). CEUs for counselors, therapists and social workers are available.

INFO: http://www.upaya.org/programs/event.php?id=770

Tel: 505-986-8518 x12;

Email: registrar@upaya.org

ABOUT UPAYA

Upaya Zen Center is one of the most respected Buddhist centers in the world in the area of socially engaged Buddhism. Founded by Roshi Joan Halifax in 1990, Upaya is a place for new and seasoned practitioners to explore how the contemplative life forms a basis for social action and service.

View the original article here

Japan tsunami survivors pray in summer Buddhist rite

Home Asia Pacific North Asia Japan

OTSUCHICHO, Japan -- In a little room of a small hillside temple that barely survived Japan's tsunami five months ago, Yuko Kikuchi knelt down, quietly sobbing and gently caressing the boxes that hold the bones and ashes of her perished mother and sister-in-law.

"It's harder now," 57-year-old Kikuchi, who came back to her devastated hometown Otsuchicho, about 500 km (300 miles) northeast of Tokyo, on Sunday to observe "obon," a series of annual Buddhist ceremonies in mid-August to honor the spirits of the dead.

"In the beginning, there were so many things I had to do and my feelings were high. But now that things are gradually settling, it's hard and I remember many things that we used to do without thinking deeply ... It was just so sudden."

Many survivors of the magnitude 9 quake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan on March 11 are trying to take a step forward in their shattered lives with obon ceremonies, which involve gatherings of extended family members, welcoming back the spirits of ancestors to homes, and praying.

But residents of Otsuchicho, still surrounded by burned and melted buildings and other reminders of the disaster, know that the annual festive mood they have long embraced won't be back this year.

"We can't celebrate obon like we used to until last year. But even though we can't recognize them in a visible way now, I believe talking about them with everyone and doing our best would help honor them, so I'm trying to stay strong," Kikuchi said.

The March 11 disaster left more than 20,400 dead or missing in Japan, and triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

TIME AND SCARS

Kikuchi and her brother was in Dainenji, a Buddhist temple that survived the tsunami and fire that reached its gate. The temple is now temporarily housing cremated bones and ashes of more than 100 washed away by the tsunami and burned by the fire.

A big temple nearby burned down and heavy gravestones were knocked down all around, shattered by the force of the massive tsunami, which brought many followers of that temple to Dainenji.

Nearly 80 boxes containing remains of unidentified bodies lined up in the temple's hallway, while dozens more already identified rested in small rooms in the back of the temple, with relatives offering prayers in front of smiling portraits.

"We are sorry we could not find her until recently. At the weekend, we went around morgues many times. But we are relieved," said Shoetsu Kobayashi, 54, who came with his wife to honor his mother-in-law, identified last month with DNA testing.

A town of about 15,000 before the quake, Otsuchicho lost nearly 800 residents in the disaster, including its mayor, and more than 650 are still missing.

Rebuilding the town has not been easy. Five months on, many residents are still looking for jobs and the town is preparing for a mayoral election later this month so that reconstruction planning can go ahead.

Kobayashi and his wife Masako, who lost their mothers and their home, moved to temporary housing last month with their two sons. He was puzzled about how to prepare an obon altar -- an annual chore his mother took care of -- but said he was determined to observe the ceremonies as in the past.

"I only wish I'd done this before now," he said in front of the three-stage altar, where lilies and greens adorned his mother's photo, fruits and cakes were offered, and candles and incenses were lit. "But I think she would be happy in heaven."

View the original article here