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.
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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In this drifting, wandering world,
it is very difficult to cut off our human ties.
Now I cast them away, and enter true activity.
It is in this way that I express my gratitude.
As I shave my head, I vow to live a life of
simplicity, service, stability, selflessness
and to accomplish the Buddha’s Way.
May I manifest my life with wisdom and compassion
and realize the Tathagata’s true teaching.
Welcome to Zen Mountain Monastery. This weekend in the Zen training workshop we’ll be looking at the basis of Zen training. We’ll be discussing the philosophy, the underlying theories. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions and answers, but by far the most critical thing that will be happening is the experiential aspect of the training. Each part of the day is scheduled and everything that you experience this weekend will be poin ing to the same place. The whole point of Zen training, all of the eighty-four thousand subtle gestures that we do, have one point and one point only, and that is the realization of the self.
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