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Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago

March 2018 Newsletter
founded 1949 by Soyu Matsuoka, Roshi
608 Dempster
Evanston, IL
www.ZBTC.org  -  Info@zbtc.org
847-272-2070

 

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The Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago was founded by Soyu Matsuoka, Roshi in 1949.  We relocated from Chicago's Lincoln Park to Evanston in 1988 and we have been offering Soto Zen Meditation instruction in the Chicago area for 69 years.

The Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago is a Soto Zen Center dedicated to helping practitioners realize their true nature through Zazen, seated meditation.

Zen holds that all living beings are pure Buddha nature that seems to be obscured by the workings of the discursive mind, fueled by the pressures of modern life. Through daily practice of seated meditation, we allow the discursive mind to settle, and let this true nature be expressed in our daily life. 

Buddhism is non-theistic. The historical Buddha is not worshipped as a deity, but rather serves as an example of the realization that is expressed through our Zazen practice. Practitioners of other faiths may cultivate themselves through Zazen, supplementing their existing spiritual practice.
 


 

The Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago has been offering Zazen instruction since 1949 and we are one of the oldest continuously operating Soto Zen centers in the US.  We are dependent solely on your generosity to help us continue.  If your circumstances permit, please help us [we are a 501c3 non profit organization and donations to us are tax deductible].

Donate Here


Also, Amazon has a program wherein a very small percentage of purchases thru their AmazonSmile program benefit us.

 
A collection of audio talks by our late abbot Kongo Langlois, Roshi is now available at Northwestern University Libraries

Haiku

A long time ago
This one moment a glimmer
Now in Buddha's mind

Jim Matson

 

The Paradox of Suffering

       by Brook Ziporyn, Phd

Professor of Ancient & Medievel Chinese Religion and Philosophy - University of Chicago
                         @brookziporyn

The book from which this excerpt is taken "Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism" traces the development of Buddhist thought from the Four Noble Truths to Emptiness to the Buddha-Nature to the Lotus Sutra and finally to the doctrine of omnipresent interfusion of all realities in Tiantai [Tendai] Buddhism.  It all begins with the "Paradox of Suffering":

Reprinted with permission. Available through Amazon


Buddhism begins and ends with the problem of suffering. More specifically, Buddhism begins with the Four Noble Truths. The treatment of suffering there seems at first glance disappointingly simple, almost simplistic. The First Noble Truth tells us that all experiences necessarily involve suffering. The Second tells us why this is: this suffering is caused by desire, or craving, and attachment to desire. The Third asserts that the end of this cause (desire), and hence of this effect (suffering), is attainable. The Fourth tells us how.

Often this formula is understood in a very straightforward way: we suffer when things don’t go the way we want them to. Suffering happens when we desire what is not the case. Usually when this happens, we try to make “what is the case” conform to our desire: we try to get what we want. The Buddha, on this interpretation, makes the surprise move of approaching the dissonance between desire and reality from the opposite side: instead of changing the reality, change your desire.

But this way of understanding the problem may strike many as wildly unsatisfactory. For one thing, can we really change what we desire? The traditional answer is yes, for the Fourth Noble Truth outlines how this can be done: by following the Eighfold Path of discipline, meditation and insight. It is a question, ultimately, of enlightened self-interest. For this process involves coming to see clearly that all experience involves suffering, and thus that our desire for certain experiences was based on a false belief—namely, that these desired experiences would actually save us from suffering. Our desire for something other than what is the case was based on a misconception. We come to see, in this process, that it is unreasonable, and not in our own interest, to desire what is not the case.

Note however that this still means promoting our most basic desire: to avoid suffering. All our endeavors were aimed at maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering, in more or less complex or indirect ways. It’s just that we were doing it in an unskillful, self-defeating way. But for any of our experiences to be any good—even the experience of the end of suffering—this desire to avoid suffering at least must remain in place. If we really “eliminated” desire, there would be no desire there to receive, appreciate, enjoy the end of suffering when we attained it. But in that case, the end of suffering would be in no way preferable to suffering—for what makes either one worth anything is simply that it gives us something we want.

This brings up a more searching problem in this understanding of the Four Noble Truths: isn’t this “ending of desire” in order to end the suffering it entails kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face? Or, more forcefully, a bit like cutting off your head to cure a headache? Just to pile on the clichés, it seems to be a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As Nietzsche said, we do not much admire a dentist who cures toothaches only by extracting the tooth entirely—this seems a crude, somewhat fanatical, almost violent way to solve a problem that requires a more nuanced solution. Do we really want to want nothing, to take no joy in things, to passively accept whatever happens and have no opinion about it at all, no will, no initiative, no desire?

Of course, this is a crude caricature of the Buddhist position. But it is one that sometimes lurks in the background even of relatively sophisticated presentations of Buddhist thought and practice. Even a perfunctory experience of Buddhist practice, however, reveals that something is wrong with it—for the end of desire turns out to be a profoundly joyful experience, in a way that is not easy to describe or analyze within the terms of experiences of joy premised on desire in the more ordinary sense. One finds, to one’s surprise, that this acceptance of things exactly as they are produces an intense happiness, as intense as if one had attained something one had been fervently desiring without realizing it. It causes one to re-evaluate what one meant by desire, what one meant by pleasure, even what one meant by experience.

To try and get at why this is so, we must note that the Four Noble Truths actually present a profound paradox. Look at the logic:

It is by ending desire that suffering is ended.

But desire, by definition, is the attempt to get away from some suffering. Desire is the desire to end suffering.

Therefore: it is by ending the desire to end suffering that suffering can be ended!

Let’s put that another way: suffering can only be ended by no longer trying to end suffering!

It is the acceptance of suffering, the recognition of suffering, the full realization of suffering, that ends suffering. What can this mean? How is this done? That is the adventure that the subsequent two and a half millenia of Buddhist thought open up for us.


 
March

2018
Events

March 3rd    April 7th

 
One Day Zen Meditation Retreat in Evanston
 
We invite you to join us for a one day intensive Zen Meditation retreat.  Please note we have changed our times for these retreats.  We will start at 11:00AM and finish at 8:00PM.  While we encourage you to join us for the entire day, we welcome you for whatever portion your schedule allows.  A donation of $50 for the entire day is suggested.  Pre-registration is not required.
Sunday 10AM to 12PM
March 25th


Ohigan Celebration


Please join us for a special service celebrating the Buddhist holiday of Ohigan.  Ohigan is a celebration of the Spring equinox - the first day of spring.  As it represents the balance of day and night the equinox likewise points to the balance available to all of us that is actualized in our practice of Zen Meditation.

All are welcome.  A Dharma talk will be presented and after the service, please join us for lunch at a local restaurant.

Please note that the 2PM service on this day only will be cancelled.

 
 

Sunday 2PM to 4PM
March 18th     April 15th


Introduction to Zen Meditation Workshop

While we welcome newcomers to all of our regular services, and instructions are given at each, once every month [typically the 3rd Sunday] we offer a introductory workshop for those who prefer a more structured exposition of our practice.  All Are welcome. 
 
A donation of $20.00 is suggested..
 

Regular Services

Three Regularly Scheduled Services are held in Evanston each week.

All are welcome to attend our regular Zen Meditation Services.  Instructions are given at each.
Sunday
10:00AM to 12:00PM
2:00PM to 4:00PM
Wednesday
7:00PM to 9:00PM

Copyright © 2018 Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago, All rights reserved.


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