Toledo Buddhist

One of the many gifts from the maha sangha teachers council meeting that happened earlier this summer was a deeper appreciation for the many ways in which folks reach out and make the Dharma accessible.  We've had the deep retreat focus since our beginning.  And then came the more 'congregational' or church kinda thing with the Sunday Services, Dharma school for youth, social outreach and so on. And now we come to the classes. I've lead classes here before, and they are usually quite well received.  In fact, many of our older members came from these 'Intro to Zen Practice' kind of classes.  And there has been the 'Encountering the Ancestors' series when we looked at Zen's Chinese heritage generation by generation from Bodhidharma up to Dogen. But they have more or less been on hold for the last year while we grew the Sunday Service into something real, but there has been a call for more of these classes to happen so now they will begin an...

So here is what I'll be doing with most Sunday afternoons for the rest of the year... Toledo Zen Center Fall/Winter Class and Retreat Schedule! by  Jay Rinsen Weik  on Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 3:18pm The Drinking Gourd/Toledo Zen Center Fall/Winter 2011 Class Schedule What the Buddha Taught: Foundational Teachings for Difficult Times with Rev. Rinsen and Rev. Do-on Dates: Three Sunday Afternoons from 2pm to 5pm Sept 4th, 11th and 18th at the Toledo Zen Center 6537 Angola Road, Holland OH, 43558. This class offers an in-depth exploration of core Buddhist teachings.  If you have been lurking in the Eastern Thought section of the bookstore for years or are newly curious, this class is the perfect opportunity for you to encounter the ancient wisdom of the Buddha freshly unpacked and made both assessable and relevant to life in the 21st Century by the ordained Buddhist p...

Over the past two days, I've had the great fortune to marry two wonderful couples, Hyeyoung and Bruce, and Ellie and Olman who are pictured here.   What an amazing act of divine foolishness this vow to walk the long path together is.  And how utterly grateful I am for this magnificent foolishness to be expressing in these times that are for so many in our world dark and broken.   In each new generations eyes an utterly unique and precious expression of the great dance of Yin and Yang,  and of the dance beyond Yin and Yang. And for me, what a joy to be able to be a part of the dance in this particular way.   Some in the Buddhist tradition feel that the Dharma has no use for ordained clergy, and I respectfully disagree.  To be sure there have been examples of priestly misconduct, and at times a false sense of entitlement or status, and a corrective is demanded.  But the moments of birth and reaching adulthood and marriage and death are deep and...

Time to shave the head and get ready to recieve the sangha for Sesshin!  There is some pretty intense weather on it's way, so some may wisely choose to opt-out, but for those who make it out I anticipate a memorable, deep snow retreat... The Zafu's are loaded...   Lovely, lovely...

I saw one of those enlightenment quotes on Facebook today: "When you are enlightened, you’ll realize that what you see and what you’ve been seeking to understand in the world is an illusion. There’s nothing to understand, nothing to gain, nothing to achieve. It’s just to be."  - Ratanjit S. Sondhe So I was compelled to write an 'enlightenment poem' in reply:  "That you three are Pugs  there is no mistake.  I give you my love,  and you piss me a lake." - Rev. Rinsen Time for me to clean up the mess...

This Dharma Talk was recorded during a Zazenkai at the Toledo Zen Center on October 25th, 2009.  Discusses the dark side of religion, Hitler, and Mass-Thinking. The Drinking Gourd Podcasts are made possible by listener donations.  Please visit thedrinkinggourd.org to make a contribution. http://thedrinkinggourd.org/becoming-the-buddha-of-you

"After one look at the peach blossoms, I have arrived directly at the present and have no further doubt." Listen Here Thu, 6 January 2011 Arriving Directly A Dharma Talk and discussion with Rinsen at the Toledo Zen Center on August 12th, 2009. For more information about the Toledo Zen Center, please visit  toledozencenter.org .

This Drinking Gourd podcast was recorded during James Ford Roshi's visit to the Toledo Zen Center on September 16th, 2009.  James Ford Roshi is a guiding teacher of the Boundless Way Zen Sangha.  For information about James Ford Roshi, please visit  http://monkeymindonline.blogspot.com  http://www.thedrinkinggourd.org/james-ford-roshi-s-visit-to-toledo-zen-center

PS: What truly small thing have you allowed to take over your feeling this day?

"All evil karma, ever committed by me since of old..." So began the invoking of the full moon ceremony last night at the Toledo Zen Center - even with the ice. It is so important for me to connect with the community of practitioners and particularly with regards to the practice of Compassion. Thank you for your practice Sangha!

This podcast was recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on June 3rd 2009.   In this Dharma Talk and discussion, Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik explores Shantideva's teachings about anger and the way of the Bodhisattva. Listen Here .

In my work as a University Lecturer I am in daily contact with young folk who are in that particular space that is the undergraduate experience, with all of its attendant challenges and joys. One of the particular questions that hopefully gets asked in a serious kind of way during this time is something like: "What do I want to be when I grow up? " and its a very very good question to be asking of oneself at such a time. In truth, I still ask it now and then myself, and find that the answers I have been coming to since I can remember asking the question as a much younger me still stand.  And like most people, I have had many occasions that bring this seemingly trite question right to the front of life - in all its glaring terror. These times come, ask for them or not. "Which school?"  "Which major?"  "Which person?" "What about money?" or just the straight up root of all these:  "What Now?" What Now indeed! I...

From sitting Zazen, we somehow come to know that the solid self we normatively identify with is not quite so solid as we first felt it to be. It's not that the 'self' isn't there, but its how its there that's the rub. Feelings arise, thoughts arise, perceptions come and go - but what is at the center of all this? Is there a center to all this? In some way, the whole thing hinges on perceptions based on a sense of possession and ownership - a fundamental sense of 'having' something. Like feeling that you are in the midst of your day. Or like feeling that you're having your  feelings, your thoughts, your perceptions, which leads straight away to labeling them as good feelings or bad feelings, attractive and repulsive situations, people, things. So now its a good day, or a bad day, and for most that depends on how much we can stack our perceptions over on the pleasure side one of the equation.  Or not. But it's not any use to think that ...

"Which one is the true Rev. Rinsen?" 10-31-2010 - Rev. Jay Rinsen Weik Dharma Talk

Yesterday, we held our first hungry ghost liturgy at the Toledo Zen Center .  The kids were all dressed up in costumes, and presented a skit to the adult sangha. It went something like this: One older kid and a parent dressed up as ghosts and went about the zendo trying to eat everything unsuccessfully. The kids sat in zazen with sake cups in their mudras, filling them up with the "merit of their practice."  One by one then, the kids went and offered this merit to the ghosts, who by the by were able to practice zazen, and eventually take off their masks to reveal their true face. Cool, eh? For the liturgy, we chanted the Emmei Juku Kannon Gyo and one by one everyone came up and used a pine bow to bathe a buddha statue that was covered in a white towel with ghost eyes drawn on it.  At the end the covering was removed and revealed the Buddha. Cool again I'd say! After this, did our three bows and sung the bodhisattva vows together - yes, we have a sung versio...

Recently, Rev. Do-on has been involved in a local effort to save trees in a rare local habitat called an Oak Savannah   at our local treasure, the Oak Openings park . As it happens, we live smack in the midst of this great natural preserve, and Rev. Do-on has a deep heart and body connection to the Ki and feeling of the place. In fact, most days she can be found on the trails for at least some time. But then, of course, things happen. In this case, it was a tornado that back on June 5th decided to take a chunk of our treasured forest along with it. So tornado's happen, of that there is not doubt.  The question then becomes what to do with the aftermath. Kind of like my mind. No, exactly like my mind. And as one of the local community members that responded with such passion, care and intention, I found Rev. Do-on's efforts to be a great inspiration and model of how to engage the world of form as a priest of emptiness (in the pics above she is talking with ...

I was talking with some of the sangha after evening practice last night, and we were all still basking in the glow of last weekends sesshin  which as you may be able to deduce from this pic happened in our family's living room this time around - but that's another story... There is something both utterly mysterious and radically dependable in the practice of sesshin, and the rhythm of joining sesshin, re-emerging into the karmic unfoldings of my life's many up's and down's and then plunging back into sesshin again over and over has in many ways been the root of my spiritual path. At once, it is the place of ease and repose, and it is a intentional holding oneself in what truly is the furnace of deep practice - melting us down over and over as David Sensei so perfectly put it. But any form, any way of practice is no guarantee of anything in and of itself - not even my beloved sesshin retreats. The whole thing, it seems to me, turns (or doesn't) on one...

Yun-Men's Staff of Shallow and Deep Recorded at the Toledo Zen Center on May 20th 2009, this Dharma Talk and discussion explores the Zen teaching of Yun-Men with Jay Rinsen Weik, and gets into a discussion of the role of the teacher in Zen training.

 For me, one of the great joys of being a Zen priest has been the empowerment to really go out and catalyse the creation of contexts for the spreading of the Dharma where it did not exist before.  Many dedicated sangha members have worked together to help create the content and shape the format of the Toledo Zen Center Dharma School, and pictured at left is David Rynick Sensei, Abbot of the Boundless Way visiting with some of the Dharma School kids and their families after last weeks Sunday service. For me, finding a way that is meaningful, relevant and fun for members of the next generation to enounter the teachings of wisdom and compassion simply has to be one of the main missions of the modern American zen landscape. Time passes swiftly, and before we know it these now young folks will be living in a world they inherited from us, so lets take up the koan of how to leave them something worthy of their scutiny.  The seriousness of the imperative is c...

Brad, Shari, Rev. Rinsen, John and Mae. Since I can remember, I have often felt the pull of living as a Monk and in my youth I visited many monasteries in the Catholic tradition I was born into.  It was eventually a Zen monastery that would catalyze my entry into the Dharma. Today, I am so happy that I live in the world - that I did not choose to become a single monastic living in the cloister, but rather have followed the bodhisattvha path through the market place (kicking and screaming at some points to be sure) with a wife and kid and job and mortgage, directly working with the culture in ways that make sense to me and that I largely enjoy. Of course, I am at the same time an ordained Zen Buddhist Priest - the same ordination that some would refer to as a monastic one, though for me the title priest fits much more the vocation I live. And also I'm teaching Jazz at a western university, and universities are the direct heir to the western monastic tradition of learning, a...