Dear friends
POPLAR GROVE NEWSLETTER: JANUARY 2021
PRACTICE NOTE
Since our last newsletter and programme, change and insecurity have remained with us in such an obvious way. This is our life – whatever we may think of it. How will we respond? That is our koan. I cannot help but look back at the early history of the Zen tradition in China, where the most dynamic and creative periods took place during times of extraordinary turbulence. On Poplar Grove we have been led to a simplified and natural kind of Zen practice; it is not a process we have designed or driven but rather one that has appeared on our shoulder as we sat and listened. In many ways, it feels like the embodiment of Stoep Zen – fully inhabiting our zendo, veld and grove. When you come you will find us sitting here; when you go, you will leave us sitting here. Come and join us.
Poplar Grove Veld Zen consists of three main threads; practising in the place we find ourselves, support from the host teachers, and taking responsibility for our own practice.
Practising where we find ourselves means that we do our Zen here with the stones, hills, poplars and buzzards, under these night skies, inside these winds – in small numbers and far from the bright lights. Our buildings are made of rock and earth, our energy comes from the sun and our water from the wind. Our Zen practice is the natural expression of our gratitude for being here.
The support given to retreatants happens in the twice-daily communal formal zazen periods in the zendo (an activity that may be increased by arrangement if the retreat is more intensive), as well as in the access to instruction, interviews and teaching on request.
Taking responsibility for our own practice means that, outside of the formal zendo sessions, it is up to each person how they will spend their day. It means not relying on a teacher or a formal retreat schedule. While Zen is essentially about our inseparable togetherness with everything, this intimacy is realized for each of us in the way we bow at the zendo door and in lifting a spade when a spade is needed. And it is out of love for this world that we tie our shoelaces before we set out for the sheltering grove. Every moment is precious, each moment is the whole of our Zen practice. Taking responsibility in this way is already freedom itself.
DANA
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“Generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving kindness.” Dalai Lama
Although there is no charge for spiritual teaching in our tradition, people have responded to what is offered in the Zen practice at Poplar Grove with great appreciation – in money or in kind, regularly or occasionally, by name and anonymously. We have been humbled and moved to action through the generosity of our Sangha and we bow deeply to you all. Through these open-hearted gestures we have, despite no income from our work or retreats for most of 2020, been able to:
- Feed a community of “karretjie-mense” on the outskirts of our town, consisting of twenty-one adults and twenty-four children with food every month since March 2020
- Assist unemployed members of the extended farm family with meat and vegetables
- Clothe the above families and others in need with winter clothes, hats and shoes from donations given by sangha friends - including the many bags of clothing from Cecille Yazbek's group in Australia
- Provide home-made cloth masks that are durable and functional to the above families
- Assist a retired couple who were not able to access their pension for six months and who had grandchildren to feed
- Provide food and take-away meals to street children and homeless adults
- Provide clothing, gifts and food at Christmas to over sixty adults and children
- Alter and extend our accommodation into four self-catering units in order to make retreats possible for small groups to continue throughout the threat of Covid-19 since September 2020 and beyond.
WEBSITE ALTERATIONS
Changes are soon to be made to the StoepZen website that will reflect the topics discussed in this newsletter. These include a description of the new Veld Zen practice style at Poplar Grove; the extended self-catering accommodation arrangements; a more artistic version of the 2021 Retreat Programme (with thanks to David Collett); additional Dharma Talks by Antony Dae Chong, Osho; and a subscription button, which is already available, on the Contact page for those who wish to be included in the Poplar Grove newsletter.
2021 RETREAT PROGRAMME
Introduction
As you will know, retreat activity at Poplar Grove has been either cancelled or curtailed during this past year in line with national lockdown regulations. After taking conservative medical advice, we opened for a limited number of visitors again from September 2020 and this has proved to be wonderfully successful – letting Margie and myself know that the adapted style of retreat practice is both possible and also filling a deep need. This will be the style of Zen here at Poplar Grove for the foreseeable future. The new PGZ retreat programme has been set out in a way that takes into account the present ongoing Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, the health and safety of every person, the likelihood that further changes will take place before Corona is done, the natural falling into place of a true Veld & Stoep Zen style of practice, and the circumstances of the resident teachers.
The essential feature of the new practice style is that it is a return to a simple and elegant mode of Zen practice that mirrors its home - the remote Karoo veld. The number of retreatants is limited to those who can be accommodated in the four self-catering hermitages; retreatants are responsible for their own food and catering; they are responsible for the quality and details of their own retreat and for taking care of their surroundings; and there is formal retreat support in the shape of traditional daily zendo practice as well as meetings with a teacher. All accommodations are self-catering and solitude, social distance and silence are encouraged at all times. This is Poplar Grove Zen.
Essentially, aside from certain months when Poplar Grove is closed to visitors, the place is open for supported individual or small-group retreat practice, as described above. This means that individuals, or small groups of friends/family consisting up to six persons, can arrange to do a retreat of their own design. The total number of persons staying and practising at Poplar Grove at any one time is limited to six – though this number may change as circumstances permit.
Note: Those persons that have rolled over their bookings from cancelled retreats in 2020 will be accommodated as small groups at times set aside by Margie Tae Ja in consultation with them; most of these have already been arranged and PGZ is therefore already full at those times during March 2021 (as set out in the programme below). For the rest of the year, people are invited to approach Margie to do a supported self-catering retreat on their own or with friends for a suitable period of time.
Poplar Grove Retreat Programme 2021
| January |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
6 January 2021 Zoom Zen |
| February |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
7 February 2021 Zoom Zen |
| March |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice (Already fully booked 6-13 & 20-27 March 2021)
7 March 2021 Zoom Zen |
| April |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice (Bookings still being finalized for the week of 10-17 April 2021)
4 April 2021 Zoom Zen |
| May |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
2 May 2021 Zoom Zen |
| June |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
6 June 2021 Zoom Zen |
| July |
Closed
4 July 2021 Zoom Zen |
| August |
Closed
8 August 2021 Zoom Zen |
| September |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
5 September 2021 Zoom Zen |
| October |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
3 October 2021 Zoom Zen |
| November |
Individual & Small-Group Supported Retreat Practice
7 November 2021 Zoom Zen |
| December |
Closed
5 December 2021 Zoom Zen |
Tariff & Bookings: The daily tariff is R500 pp/per day. (Discounts are available for couples, students and pensioners, on request). Retreat visits are confirmed by the filling in of a booking form and the payment of a 50% deposit. Enquiries and bookings can be made through Margie Osler, with details on the Contact page of the website.
Teacher’s Dana: The daily tariff does not include a charge for teaching. In accordance with Buddhist tradition, teachers are reliant on students for a donation, known as dana. There is no fixed amount of dana expected from students but it is a gesture of appreciation to value the time, skill, experience and generosity of the teacher.
Zoom Zen: On the first Sunday morning of each month there is a Zoom Zen meeting. The event is hosted by Christine Butsukei Nachmann who can be contacted at cnachmann@gmail.com and at most of these meetings a Dharma talk is delivered by Antony Dae Chong, Osho.
"You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy."
Shakyamuni Buddha
With best wishes and deep affection to you all,
Antony and Margie Osler
Dae Chong and Tae Ja Do, Osho
18 January 2021
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