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Samu (Work Practice)

Bringing Zen Practice Out Of The Zendo

In addition to the tea ceremony, chanting and zazen, work practice is a very integral part of a complete Zen practice. During samu, Zen students work around the center - usually cleaning or maintaining the grounds. This formal work practice allows students to move the lessons of the zendo out a wider, yet still controlled environment - controlled in the sense that everyone doing wok practice is considerate of the need for a necessary silence.

Work practice is scheduled weekly - Saturday mornings from 8:15 to 9:15. As you can see, samu is set between the morning and mid-morning zendo sessions, and designed to allow you to combine a zendo session with the work practice. (Come for morning zendo and stay for work practice, or come early for work practice and stay for the mid-morning zendo.) If the Saturday work practice is not doable, you can arrange with either Seiju or Harriet for times that would work better.

Here's a partial list of tasks that need to be covered each week:

Clean:

Common area bathrooms
Shoji room
Meeting room
Zendo

Grounds Maintenance:

Street-side (sweep, pull weeds, pick up litter, maintain plants, bushes)
Parking lot (sweep, rake gravel, pick up litter, maintain plants and bushes)
Zen garden area (rake Zen garden, pull weeds, maintain plants and bushes)
Patio (sweep, maintain plants and bushes, repair patio as necessary)
Pond (weed, rake)

Miscellaneous:

Maintain library
Maintain indoor plants
Special projects

Come for work practice Saturdays and give your practice that needed new dimension. You do not need to call or sign up in advance, just be available for work at 8:15. Did we mention that there is coffee and bagels from 7:30 to 8:15? See you soon

Zen Classics

Daishin Patrick Vigil
Albuquerque Zen Center

Zen Master Ta Hui was born in 1080 in China. At the age of 16 he left home and became a Buddhist monk. On August 9, 1163 after showing signs of illness, he told the congregation of monks, nuns, and lay people, “Tomorrow I am going”. Towards the predawn hours, after he'd written his last bequests and the letter to the Emperor, the monk who was his attendant asked Ta Hui for a verse. In a serious voice Ta Hui said “without a verse, I couldn't die.” He took up the brush and wrote:

Birth is thus

Death is thus

Verse or no verse

What is the fuss?

this week at AZC ...

Book Review

Michaelene Wojtkowski

A recent addition to the library is The Heart Sutra, A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism by Kazuaki Tanahashi published by Shambhala, 2014. Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara describes the book as an introduction, history, toolbox, and treasure chest.

In part one, Roshi Joan Halifax and the author have teamed up to present a new translation to emphasize the “essential teaching of transcendence and freedom often obscured by seemingly pessimistic and nihilistic expressions”. The actual translation of the Heart Sutra itself is less than two pages long and is based on a 7^th century Chinese version.

Parts two through six cover the history, scholarly discussions, globalization of the sutra, and grammatical analysis of the Chinese, Sanskrit and Tibetan terms.

The book is an in-depth study well suited to a serious reader with linguistic expertise in Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit. That being said, this acquisition offers an opportunity to gain greater insight into the meaning of the Heart Sutra.

Would you like to help out with beginner's instruction?

We are looking for Zen Center members willing to help out with beginner's instruction. As most of you know, the first days in the zendo can be a bit bewildering. There is the newness of the environment, the challenge of sitting for extended periods and there is always the somewhat baffling zendo etiquette.

Currently, during the beginner's instruction on Thursdays Seiju gives a short introduction in the meeting room and then takes the newcomers to the zendo for some introductory sitting instruction. After some time in the zendo, the group comes back to the meeting room for a brief Q & A. At this point we'd like to have Seiju step out of the picture and turn the group over to a 'lay member' for 10 or 15 minutes. (The lay member would have been with the group throughout.)

The hope here is to give the newcomer's a slightly different point of view, perhaps a bit less authoritative perspective and more of a peer perspective At the end of the instruction, the lay member would then offer to somewhat mentor the group or individuals for their first couple times in the zendo - maybe offer some additional help with zazen practice and etiquette on the next Friday evening or the next Saturday morning.

Ideally we'd be looking for about 6 volunteers who would be willing to help out for one week out of every 6. If this sounds like something that you would be interested in please contact Seiju. Probably best to just e-mail him from here. As a mentor you do not have to be an 'expert' sitter. Enthusiasm, compassion and naturalness would be the ideal traits.