Days of Wonder

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Yesterday’s morning Zazen was particularly still. I had spent much of my early morning repairing a very old mokugyo that was damaged by someone using a drumstick on its surface. A mokugyo is a hollowed out wooden block made to look a bit like a fish with bulging eyes and is used to keep time in chanting. This one was scratched, pitted, and pitiful. For several days, I have been oiling it with lemon oil, as it was so dry it was like tinder.

Anyway, I took out fine sandpaper and sanded and sanded and sanded. Then I scraped out the red paint some prior owner had painted in its face and oiled some more. Time got away from me and I suddenly realized my samue (black work clothes) were full of sanding dust. I barely got to the park on time.

There is something about this particular mokugyo that has caught my heart. Maybe it is that it is just so pitiful, maybe because its small, or even that I traded it with the Both Sides/No Sides Zen community for the larger mokugyo I had in my Zendo. They had purchased the beat-up little gal off the Internet for about four dollars I understand.
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Everything needs a home; everything needs love. I have grown fond of this mokugyo (I am naming, Harriet) because it is just my size and reminds me of myself. I am inviting Harriet to help me bring my body, speech, and mind together each morning as we chant: kan ji zai bo satsu gyo jin hannya hara mita ji sho ken go on kai ku do issai ku yaku…

In the afternoon, we visited two people, one a homeless man in the hospital for pneumonia. The other is an elder who craves company. He lives in a nursing home. With the former, we listened, with the latter we talked out under a tree and listened to birds and the flow of water from a fountain.


April 13, 2010
This morning, a new day, Clear Mind Zendo, in conjunction with Temple Beth El, will host 5 bicycle riders of a group of some 25 riders who are riding across America for World Health. I have several air mattresses and will make sure everything is in good shape for them.
Yesterday two benefactors offered very substantial donations to the Order of Clear Mind Zen. I am considering how best to use this money and believe a part should be used to purchase new zabutons and zafus. Purchase of student supplies should be next; things such as rakusu rings, jizu beads, and the like, since we offer these to students without charge. Yesterday we did purchase a small standing Buddha for Hannamatsuri ceremonies, as well as a wall hanging expressing a teaching of the Buddha, a small button that asks, “What would Buddha Do?” and a small “Co-Exist” window sticker The balance will be held in savings.

We are grateful for these and other recent offerings of dana. Surely we are beneficiaries of very generous hearts,

Be well.