EXPRESSING CREATIVITY: your zazen practice space

[Cooperix]

An interview with Ven. Tenzin Yignyen (Tibetan Buddhist) by Gail Birnbaum Shambala Publications..

Why have an altar?
A proper altar holds images or representations of the Buddha’s enlightened body, speech and mind which serve as reminders of the goal of Buddhist practice—to develop these qualities in oneself so as to be able to fully benefit all sentient beings.

Hello everyone.

We all have a special place to sit. And we want it to be a safe and a pleasing sanctuary. Not everyone can have a dedicated room/building for this personal ‘zendo’. But we each have a corner, tiny or spacious for our practice.

I am most fortunate. I have a nice sized room in my studio that doubles as a zendo and a gallery. I use the gallery to hang my own work to view but also… as a real gallery (called the ACOG- Anne Cooper Occasional Gallery) where we have exhibits 2-3 times a year of work from artists in the community. The exhibits are one evening, called pop-up shows, 2 hours only with refreshments, conversation and lots of celebration of creativity. Fun events. Of course, those are on hold until we have a vaccine. http://annecooperstudio.com/ACOG.html

But mostly the room serves as a zendo for my morning and afternoon sits.

Candles, incense, statuary, bells, flowers (I know now that there are remarkable gardens out there to bring into your personal mediation space)? How and where do you carve out your sacred space for sitting? Do you have an altar? What finds its way onto your altar? Any why? Is there an accompanying ritual when you enter the space to help set your mind free to be present for the sit? How do you care for it? Let us know how you realize your special and sacred space.

And now from Meitou.

Hello everyone and welcome to the second in our series about expressing creativity. When I first thought about a prompt for this subject, I had it in mind to keep it very simple and ask you to show where you sit, what kind of altar you have ( if any) , how you maintain it. Please feel free to do that. I thought to post some photos of various altars, from various Buddhist traditions, and other religions, ranging from the big elaborate public altars to small simple home spaces, and I will do so in my next post. But as I was researching altars, I came across some items that inspired me to make this into a practical project, for those of you who wish to join in.

I like making things out of found objects and using material which is readily accessible. Something else that I like is the world of miniatures – one of my big loves as a child was my dolls tea service and my dolls house. So when I found a picture of an altar made out of a shoebox, I was hooked immediately. I was fascinated to find that shoebox altars are a thing, as are altars in tins, and matchbox altars. I'm posting some examples for you to see, and you'll notice that some of the most delightful examples are dedicated to The Day of the Dead, with their bright hot colours and vibrant home made decorations. Some of these are designed to be displayed as they are, some are made to be used when a practitioner is travelling and wants to create a sacred space in a hotel room etc. The thing they all have in common is that they are portable.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make a portable altar, preferably using accessible household items -no need to go out and buy a fancy shmancy little butsudan if you have a cereal box, or a shoe box or an old tin with a lid etc. You can of course just post a pic of your own altar, but do consider having a play around with making a boxed Buddha – and of course, have fun!



Gassho
Anne and Meitou

we both sat today