| | Upcoming Retreats at Tassajara |
Upcoming Events at City Center and Green Gulch Farm
The Poetics of Awakening: An Evening with Poet Naomi Shihab Nye and Abbot Ryushin Paul Haller
Wednesday, May 26
City Center
Saturday, May 22
City Center
Yoga for Sitters™ Workshop
Shosan Victoria Austin
Saturday , May 22
Green Gulch Farm
Company Time: A Buddhist Retreat for People Working in the Business World
Marc Lesser
& Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Sunday, May 23
Green Gulch Farm
Zen Mind, Yoga Body Retreat
Robert Thomas
& Samantha Ostergaard
Saturday, May 29
Green Gulch Farm
One Day Sitting
Ed Brown
Saturday, May 29
City Center
Queer Dharma Group
Saturday, June 12
Green Gulch Farm
June New Moon Sitting
Eijun Linda Cutts
& Wendy Johnson
Dharma Talks
Wednesday, May 19
City Center
with Mark Lancaster
Wednesday, May 19
Green Gulch Farm
with Abbot Myogen
Steve Stücky
Saturday, May 22
City Center
with Jamie Howell
Sunday, May 23
Green Gulch Farm
with Fu Schroeder
Wednesday, May 26
City Center
with Naomi Shihab Nye
and Ryushin Paul Haller
Wednesday, May 26
Green Gulch Farm
with Shoho Kübast
Saturday, May 29
City Center
Queer Dharma
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| Opening the Gate
The summer guest season opened on April 30, marked by a beautiful gate-opening ceremony. Todd Merrifield, Guest Manager, made the following statement: "This is a good place to build a sanctuary. This valley, alongside this creek, in these mountains, is a good place to build a sanctuary. The Esselen knew this in centuries past. Suzuki Roshi knew it immediately. Now, after having labored intensively to maintain and improve this sanctuary, we open its gates. Soon, innumerable Bodhisattvas will pass through them, shake off the red dust of the world, and seek rest and renewal." Please come join us! Call 415.865.1899 for reservations.
Call for photos! We're planning to put up a new slide show for our next Tassajara newsletter, so please send any photos you'd like to share to tassrez@sfzc.org. Wildflower photos are especially welcome-they have been so lush and varied this spring, after unusually late rains. |
Letter from the Tanto
by Zenshin Greg Fain
Zenshin Greg Fain is the new Tassajara Tanto (Head ofPractice), responsible for supporting and guiding Zen practice at Tassajara. Greg writes:
Before moving to Tassajara on April 19, Abbot Paul Haller asked me, "When you get to Tassajara, what will you say about how people are practicing at City Center?" I responded, "We're all waking up together!" That evening in the Tassajara zendo, I said that what I really meant was not just City Center and Tassajara, but Green Gulch Farm, Spirit Rock, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Republicans, Democrats, EVERYBODY! This is the spirit of the Lotus Sutra, which is inspiring our summer practice period.
Already this summer there have been classes, talks and other offerings from the resident practice leaders and visiting teachers. Rev. Edward Brown came down during work period to work with the kitchen crew and guest cooks, then had a chance to utilize the new bread oven during his Zen of Baking retreat. Rev. Christina Lehnherr led two Sangha Weeks, where folks from smaller zen groups all across the U.S. get a chance to come to Tassajara and get a taste of practice life here. This week, Senior Dharma Teacher Linda Ruth Cutts is here leading a group of students participating in the year-long DEPP (Deepening Engagement in the Path of Practice) program, as well as Abbot Paul Haller, who is here to offer a workshop especially and exclusively for the summer work practice students, which will continue the rest of this week. I am very excited about us getting our practice off to such an auspicious start this summer. What we hope is that whatever merit may arise from our practice here be of benefit to a suffering world. May all beings be well, happy and peaceful.
Zenshin Greg Fain was ordained by Sojun Mel Weitsman in 2002, and was Shuso (head student) at Tassajara with Sojun in 2005. He will be co-leading the following retreats at Tassajara:
Replenishing the Well, May 31-June 4
with Deborah Donohue and Felicia Tomasko
Going for Refuge: A Zen and Yoga Retreat, July 30-Aug 1
with Darcy Lyon
The Power of Yoga and Zen-2, September 3-6
with Sherri Baptiste |
Returning to Our Senses
by Lee Klinger Lesser
 I was nineteen years old when I met Charlotte Selver. My mother handed me a brochure and said, "You should meet this woman. She can change your life." At which point, my mother turned away and walked out of the room. I was curious in spite of myself, because she had never said anything like that before. So I went to Mexico and studied Sensory Awareness with Charlotte, having no idea what the workshop was about or what was going to happen. But I felt at home right away, and it's been a home for me ever since.
As I worked with Charlotte, I was introduced to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Suzuki Roshi was very interested in Charlotte's work, and she led the first workshops at Tassajara. In those early days, workshops were held in the dining room; with tables being moved in and out three times a day. In 1985, Charlotte donated the Yurt to Tassajara and dedicated it to her teacher, Elsa Ginsler. And now with plans for a new retreat center, it looks like this may be the last season for the Yurt.
This question of "Are you doing anything extra?" has been a koan and ongoing theme for me for the last 37 years. I still constantly find myself doing something extra. Now, I am more familiar with the difference between doing something extra and allowing an experience... changes can happen more quickly when I notice my extra effort. I rely on the directness and immediacy of my sensations. My mother did give me a gift that changed my life. And it is a gift that I am committed to sharing with others.
"Be ready in any moment to bow before what becomes important." - Charlotte Selver
Lee Klinger Lesser has been leading workshops in Sensory Awareness in English and Spanish for over 30 years. She studied and led workshops together with Charlotte Selver, including during the last year of Charlotte's life at 102 years old. Join Lee as she leads Returning to Our Senses, a July 18-23 retreat at Tassajara.
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Letting Go, Finding Ease
by Larry Yang
 When I came to spiritual practice, I had already done some letting go - enough at least to know that I did not know anything, especially about life. With that perspective, practice supported me. Practice supported me, not in giving me skills in understanding and controlling life, but rather in teaching me how to relate to it...Practice has changed my relationship to the unfolding stories of my life...
As I sit in meditation or hold an asana, the awareness of the nature of my reality (as much as I can intuit and discern) is a template for my overall experience. The recognition that even the easiest yoga postures create discomfort over time - and that the most comfortable sitting positions create suffering - has revealed how I might hold the twists and turns of the mental and emotional asanas that emerge moment to moment. The micro-opportunities to let go and become more aware in a physical pose have helped me unravel the mental contortions that happen in my mind.
Likewise, in meditation, noting sensation after sensation - not needing to become involved in the sensations or to interpret them, but simply to be aware - strengthens my awareness, and I experience a growing capacity to let go of each sensation as a new one arises. Letting go of the previous sensation allows the next sensation to emerge. Holding on to the previous sensation creates obstructions to experiencing the next moment fully. Holding on to previous moments becomes living in the past, even if for a few microseconds; anticipating the next moment becomes living in the future.
When there is a letting go, there is permission for the present experience to fill my awareness fully. There is a peace and ease of mind regardless of the circumstances or story that I am living. And as my mind begins to ease, so does my life. Amazing...that it is so simple, but of course it's not so easy to execute.
From Will Yoga and Mediation Really Change My Life. Edited by Stephen Cope, Storey Publishing, 2003.
Larry Yang is a psychotherapist and meditation teacher specializing in diverse communities and leader of the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland. Join Larry as he co-leads Taking Refuge: A Weekend for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Communities, a July 2-5 retreat at Tassajara. |
Yoga, the Foundation for Zen
by Shosan Victoria Austin
 Outside the studio door and monastery gate, I hear many questions that might well be addressed inside:
"Ow! How do I sit full lotus?"
"Maintaining a regular practice is too hard for me; what do I do?"
"Is this pain helping me or hurting me?"
"How possible is it to practice with my own or my loved one's condition, such as detox, menopause, boredom or overwork?"
Although Zen in the West is often taught as a "stand-alone" discipline, it is a development of a yogic tradition that was already ancient when the Buddha first decided to study awakening. The word "Zen" itself comes from "channa," the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit term "dhyana," or meditative concentration. Ashtanga Yoga, the eightfold path of yoga, is designed to build the physical, physiological and emotional foundation for dhyana. Asanas, or yoga poses, train practitioners to enter meditation through gates of many forms. Temple life is structured to provide a quiet, supportive space to stabilize concentration so practice can come to fruition.
At a Zen and Yoga retreat, the two disciplines are presented so that these connections are clear. Practitioners of both disciplines can integrate the foundational skills that mature physical posture into the noble meditation poses of awakening: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down.
Shosan Victoria Austin is a Soto Zen priest and Iyengar yoga teacher with decades of teaching experience in both traditions. Join Victoria, as she co-leads
Just Zen and Yoga, a June 10-13 retreat at Tassajara. |
Finding Freedom From Suffering
by Darlene Cohen
 If we cultivate awareness of our actual experience, without reference to any preconceived idea, then we don't prefer any particular state of mind. Intimacy with our activity and the objects around us connects us deeply to our lives. This connection --- to the earth, our bodies, our sense impressions, our creative energies, our feelings, to other people -- is the only way I know of to alleviate suffering. To me our awareness of these things without preference is a meditation that synchronizes body and mind. This synchronization, the experience of deep integrity, of being all of a piece, is a very deep healing. It is unconventional to value such a subtle experience. It is not encouraged in our culture. We're much more apt to strive to feel special, uniquely talented, particularly loved. It's extraordinary to be willing to live an ordinary life, to be fully alive for the laundry, to be present for the dishes. We overlook these everyday connections to our lives, waiting for The Event.
A client of mine was very annoyed and scolded her husband for coming in and telling me a joke while I was massaging her at her house. When I asked her why she minded so much, she said to me, "He was using up my time with you." She was not in a state of mind that could be satisfied by simply listening to the sound of her husband's voice as he told a joke, of feeling my fingers on her body, of sensing the animal presence of the three of us sharing the room. She didn't even examine the starved, jealous mind that resented his brief interruption.
Paradoxically, noticing this kind of small-mindedness can actually add rich texture to the weave of your life. When you include the shadow in your perceptions, your conscious life begins to be shaded and textured by your anguish and your petty little snits. Sanitizing your thoughts and your preoccupations not only squanders vital energy that would be better spent in your creative endeavors, but your not-so-presentable life can be enormously enriching and provide the compost for the development of compassion.
-- Excerpted from Being Bodies essay by Darlene Cohen
Surei Darlene Cohen, M.A. is a Zen teacher and author specializing in living with pain. Join Darlene as she leads, Kshanti Paramita: Dealing Creatively with the Wrongs Life and Other People Do Us, a June 10-13 at Tassajara.
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