by Karen Spicher, MRO
On Sunday, February 28, we began Spring Ango, a period of intensified practice during the months of March, April, and May. An Ango Opening Sesshin extended from Friday evening through Sunday morning, when sangha members and visitors filled the zendo for the Sunday program. Hojin Osho officiated service, followed by a period of zazen and the Ango Entering Ceremony. Shoan served as liturgist, voicing formal ango participants’ commitment to practice for this training period and request for guidance in our training. As Kyosho sounded the densho, Shoan read the name of each Ango participant, while those present offered incense and entered the zendo with clear intention.
Read more post by Suzanne Taikyo Gilman, MRO; photos by David McNamara, MRO
The zendo at the monastery was overflowing on Sunday, November 22nd, when the sangha celebrated the Shuso Hossen ceremony with chief disciple Richard Ryoha Dunworth, MRO, marking the culmination of three months of intensive ango study and training.
Read more October 22nd-25th marked the second annual Wild Grasses Sesshin at the Monastery—a meditation intensive for women led by Hojin Osho. By Friday evening, eighty women sat together in the zendo, in long, curving rows. Amid preparations on Thursday morning, Hojin Osho envisioned a zendo set-up that dispensed with the usual straight rows in favor of a more spacious layout.
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post by Theresa Braine
“Wild Grasses. We are all wild grasses.”
With these words, Hojin Osho opened the second all-woman Zazenkai at Fire Lotus Temple, the Zen Center of New York City. Nearly 30 of us gathered, sitting in a circle, the room divided into four quarters for daisan purposes. The poetry of Otagaki Rengetsu, “Field of Wild Grasses,” set the scene and the tone:
Read more by Jeffrey Gyokudo Roberts, MRO
Amidst birdsong and blue sky, our 2015 Spring Ango Intensive training period came to its end on Sunday, May 24th, and the sangha returned to harbor from the journey we set out on together during the snowy days of March.
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