Crooked River Zen Center

This week, Long time Sangha member Mark (Shinmon) Domann, shares what he is doing now that he has retired, to keep busy and engaged in his Buddhist practice in San Diego CA.

The topic of my talk will be happiness using as a launching point a statement from an essay I read this morning by a retired psychiatrist - "As a psychiatrist, I've seen how chasing happiness leads to misery."

This Thurs. we'll have our usual sitting at 7pm following which the dharma talk will continue our study of Dogen's Bendowa, picking up at pg. 105 of "The Wholehearted Way" with the section that begins "There is a path through which the Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi of all things returns..."

This Sat. at 9:30am we will have our next Jukai class where we are still early on with our study of "The Way of the Bodhisattva." We will pick up here with verse 20 in chapter 1. These classes are open to everyone.

We will have our usual sitting on Thurs. at 7pm when we will continue our study of Dogen's Bendowa

On Sat. we have the second of our current series of Jukai classes where we are beginning to study the classic Mahayana text by Shantideva, "The Way of the Bodhisattva." These classes are being led by Chris. We begin at 9:30am with a 30 minute sitting which is followed by the class. Attendance is open to everyone

The writings of Zen master Dogen are among the highest achievements not only of Japanese literature but of world literature. Dogen's writings are a near-perfect expression of truth, beautifully expressing the best of which the human race is capable. In this volume, Francis Cook presents ten selections from Dogen's masterwork, the Shobogenzo, as well as six of his own essays brilliantly illuminatin...

On Sat. we begin our next series of Jukai classes which are open to everyone, even if you're not currently sewing a rakusu in preparation for formally receiving the precepts. These classes will be led by Chris and the text that we'll be studying is "The Way of the Bodhisattva." These classes begin with one 30 minute sitting at 9:30am followed by the class.  

On Thurs. we will have our usual sitting at 7pm when our dharma talk will continue our study of Dogen's Bendowa.

 The dharma talk Thurs. will continue our study of Dogen's "Bendowa."

We have our usual Thurs. evening sitting this week at 7pm when our dharma talk following our sitting will continue to look at the last section of the introduction to "The Wholehearted Way" analyzing the important term which Dogen introduces in this work, jijuyu zanmai. Once we get through that we will begin looking at the Bendowa text itself along with Uchiyama's commentary on it.

Open discussion, We get started out with the subject of aliens and Buddhism.

This week we'll again be following our normal schedule with sittings on Thurs. at 7pm and Sat. at 9:30am. The dharma talk on Thurs. will primarily focus on Shohaku's analysis of Dogen's term "Jijuyu Zanmai" from his introduction to "The Wholehearted Way" which was recently re-published as "Master Dogen's Zazen Meditation Handbook." 

Open discussion, Dean gets started with an article from the Atlantic. Then continues with the environment.

 The service following our second sitting on Thurs. will be the full moon ceremony and the talk following that will be focused primarily on Shohaku Okumura's analysis of the very important terms "Bendowa" and "Jijuyu Zanmai" which is found in his introduction to the text we began studying last week, "Master Dogen's Zazen Meditation Handbook" aka "The Wholehearted Way."  

Open discussion from 7/08/2023

On Sat. we will have our July zazenkai. If you plan to attend any portion of this day of practice and have not yet informed me, please let me know by no later than Wed. to help with our preparation. I'm attaching a copy of the schedule we will be following. The dharma talk that morning will be "Zen, Jazz, and the Creative Art of Everyday Living."

On Sat. we will have our July zazenkai. If you plan to attend any portion of this day of practice and have not yet informed me, please let me know by no later than Wed. to help with our preparation. I'm attaching a copy of the schedule we will be following. The dharma talk that morning will be "Zen, Jazz, and the Creative Art of Everyday Living."

We will have our usual Thurs. evening sitting at 7pm followed by a dharma talk on the final chapter of the Lotus Sutra, chapter 28 "Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue."

Open discussion from the summer sesshin 2023 given by Dean Williams.

The dharma talk on Thurs. will be looking at the final two chapters of the Lotus Sutra, (No. 27 and 28 entitled "The Story of King Resplendent" and "Encouragement of the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue").

One time a monk inquired of him, “Reverend Monk, I have heard you say that the whole universe throughout all its ten directions is one bright pearl. How am I, as a trainee, to understand the meaning of this?”

We will have our usual Thurs. evening sitting this week at 7pm when the dharma talk will be on chapter 24 of the Lotus Sutra, "The Bodhisattva Wonder Sound." 

The dharma talk on Thurs. will look at chapters 22 (The Final Commission) and 23 (The Story of the Bodhisattva Medicine King) of the Lotus Sutra.  

We will be meeting this Thurs. at our usual time of 7pm. The dharma talk will be on chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra, "The Bodhisattva Never Despise."