SPECIAL EVENT this SUNDAY: ZAZENKAI led by Guest Teacher DAIHO HILBERT ROSHI

[Jundo]

Dear All,

NOTE: Due to circumstances, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SAME TIME, NEXT SUNDAY MARCH 30th!!! Remember Daylight Savings change in Europe that day. I will be confirming if anyone needs to drop out of attending that day.

Taigu and I are pleased to announce, and invite you all to join us for, a Special Zazenkai this Sunday 3/23 (netcast times below) to be led by the gifted Soto Zen Teacher and social activist HARVEY DAIHO HILBERT Roshi live from the Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

LET ME MENTION THAT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ABOUT 8 FOLKS WHO CAN COMMIT TO JOINING THE GOOGLE+ HANGOUT LIVE! Please post here, in this thread, if you can commit to that time.




The live netcast will be held Sunday morning 10am in New York, 7am in California, Sunday Afternoon 3pm in Paris and 2pm in London, 11pm in Japan. I HOPE TO OPEN THE HANGOUT ABOUT 10 to 15 minutes before. (Of course, those who cannot join the hangout can still watch live "one way" at the link I will post on that day, and others can watch and sit with us later, when they can). I anticipate that the even will take between 1 hour and 90 minutes, and will consist of the following:

- Rev. Daiho will lead a chant of the Heart Sutra (using Matsuoka-roshi’s translation), followed by 20 min. of Zazen, followed by a Dharma talk on Engaged Practice: Bearing Witness . We will conclude, after a Q & A, by chanting the Four Great Vows.

Now let me introduce Rev. Daiho. Early today, I posted a heartfelt recommendation of his latest, lovely book which I am currently reading.

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...rma-Living-Zen

As I said, Rev. Daiho is a very powerful and unique Soto Zen Teacher, a wounded Vietnam war veteran and social activist.

Harvey Daiho Hilbert (born February 13, 1947) woke up to Zen after being shot in the head in combat in Vietnam in 1966. In spite of the resulting disability, Daiho went on to obtain a Masters and PH.D degree in Social Work and spent nearly thirty years offering contemplative practices to his clients. Daiho took up formal training in 1998 at Dharma Mountain Zendo in Cloudcroft, NM. He was ordained in 2000 and was given Dharma Transmission in 2005 by Ken Hogaku Shozen McGuire roshi.

In 2000 he was installed as abbot of Daibutsuji Zen Temple and re-established the Zen Center of Las Cruces. In 2005, he retired from his clinical practice and left Daibutsuji to establish the Order of Clear Mind Zen. The Order is based at Clear Mind Zen Temple in Las Cruces, New Mexico and currently has affiliates in northern California and west Texas. His practice includes street practice, daily blog postings of his teaching, as well as a fulltime monastic practice. His Temple offers daily Zazen, monthly Zazenkai, and quarterly Sesshin. In addition, it offers many educational group activities, as well as selected workshops specifically focused on recovery from war and violent trauma. Daiho is in a loving relationship with Kathryn Soku Shin Masaryk are working to establish a monastic residence together.

Daiho is in the Lineage of another great (if not so often mentioned for some strange reason) Japanese Soto Priest very important to Soto Zen in America. Soyu Matsuoka Roshi (1912-1997). Daiho touches on some of the reasons he is not better known in this from Daiho's webpage. In a nutshell, although Matsuoka Roshi was sent here originally by Soto-shu, he was a reformer and critic who went out of the mainstream and somewhat turned his back on "back home" ... and the mainstream thus ignores him too. However, being "outside the mainstream" is often a good place to be (our Nishijima Roshi is also such a type) ...

Rev. Dr. Soyu Matsuoka-roshi (1912-1997) was a priest in a family of priests going back six centuries. He came to the United States in 1939 as an emissary of Sojiji Training Monastery first to Los Angeles, then to San Francisco. Matsuoka-roshi soon left San Francisco to go to New York where he worked with D T Suzuki at Columbia University. He then went to Chicago and established the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago in 1949.

Matsuoka taught everywhere he could: high schools, karate dojos, living rooms. He was relentless in his effort to bring the living Dharma to the United States. He wrote letters to newspapers, was a strong supporter of non-violence and de-segregation, and wrote letters in support of Rev. Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience.



Matsuoka-roshi taught Zazen. He taught basic forms. He chanted only the most essential sutras. He streamlined the training and progression of students so that they would have an opportunity to practice in roles and take on responsibilities they would not have been entitled to in an institutionalized context. His was a homegrown Zen, a practical Zen. He used Japanese terms sparingly and tried to make his Zen accessible to Americans.

Those who actually take the time to make a study of Matsuoka-roshi’s written record in two collections of his writings (“The Kyosaku” and “Moku-rai”) will soon discover the truth about this pioneer. He was a genuine Master and a fine teacher who held his students in higher esteem than they, themselves apparently did.

http://www.daihoroshi.org/rev-dr-soyu-matsuoka-roshi/

Here is Daiho's blog, and I hope you will also check out some of his beautiful and poignant commentary there ...

Daiho's Engaged Zen Blog
http://clearmindzen.blogspot.jp/

I hope you can sit with us!

Gassho, Jundo