Hi everyone,
This past weekend I helped facilitate the Gathering's first weekend Buddhist retreat. It was fabulous. As Byrd wrote - the food was incredible, the company was awesome, the house was very nice, and it was the most cushy retreat I have ever led or been to. I got to play pool until midnight, we had a movie night and watched Shakyamuni Buddha's Excellent Adventure (aka The Little Buddha) and we had a wonderful outing to the beach complete with a BBQ.
It was not all fun and games and playing at the beach though. We got a lot of practice time in. I think Byrd will be providing a play by play, but basically from Friday night until Sunday at noon we did lots of recitations of the Lotus Sutra (in Sino-Japanese and English), lots of Odaimoku (with drums including the taiko drum I was able to buy thanks to a donation - thanks Kris!), a few sessions of Shodaigyo meditation, walking meditation in rhythm with Odaimoku, Shakyo (the meditative copying of the Odaimoku), a memorial service for Greg Dilley (aka FWP's late great Rev. Greg), and a couple of Dharma talks and times for group discussion. Everyone really showed their enthusiasm and it was wonderful to chant with a roomful of faithful and sincere practitioners.
I especially want to thank Bill and Jean Anker for making it all possible and letting us use their new house down by the beach and for arranging for the great food. Specifically Bill said that Jean was responsible for all the hard work while he was responsible for taking all the credit.
I also want to thank Terry (I hope that is the correct spelling of her name) who led us all in an invigorating session of kundalini yoga (which meshed very well with the emphasis on practicing from the tanden that we emphasize in Nichiren Shu, or at least at the San Jose Temple). It was really wonderful of her to share her skills and training in what is a very special form of yoga practice (this was not simply stretching and excercise).
But really I have to thank everyone who took the time to come down and attend and add their energy and dedication to making it such a great opportunity to experience a deeper practice in the context of Sangha. I certainly came away from the retreat feeling refreshed and even recharged.
Doing such vigorous practice together and building Sangha is not about getting something (buddhahood) that we don't already have. But it is about expressing what is there fully and in community with each other and all beings. That is what such retreats are all about and this retreat was exactly that - people bringing their buddhahood together and expressing it through their faith in and practice of the Lotus Sutra as a Sangha. This is the ceremony of the air in real life, and in this we all meet the Original Buddha as a living presence at the heart of our faith and practice.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
And thanks so much to you, Michael, for facilitating the retreat. Next time, we'll have butlers with white gloves ;)
I wrote a bit about the drums at my site, and I'm still waiting for pictures from Michele and Bill - as soon as I get those, I'll be able to illustrate my discussions.
I dug the Shakyo practice so much, but I felt like everybody else did a "better job" at it than I did - like they were bolder with their tracings than I was or something.
Is there a way we can scan those Shakyo tracing sheets online, or is that sort of a no-no? I think it's such a cool practice, and I do have to concentrate pretty hard in order to do it.
Well, thanks again - Wahzoh
Posted by: Byrd in LA at July 1, 2008 01:22 PMWow! I hope this sort of thing happens again, and wish I could have been there. It sounds like it would have been very worthwhile.
If I may be so bold, some Shakyo tracing sheets can be found at the North Carolina Nichiren Shu site:
http://www.myoshoji.org/_Media/1a_odaimoku_-_shakyo_sheet.pdf
or:
Now I shall have to go read more about the retreat. I am so pleased for all who attended, and three cheers to the Ankers and those folks who arranged it.
Namu Myo Ho Renge Kyo,
Kris
Hi Ryuei,
What a great expression of the joy we all felt to practice together last weekend. For Jean and I, the greatest thing we got out of it was seeing so many people encouraged by you and by each other, and to see how much you in particulal enjoyed facilitating the retreat.
One of the things you've talked about is the 4 types of practice. I don't remember them all but one is building on one's strengths. I've found over the years that I'm very good at taking the credit for other people's hard work, so I've built on that through my practice. At the end of the retreat, when so many people attributed everything to me when in fact I did almost nothing, I could see clearly how this practice has helped me to nurture one of my core strengths. And just last night Jean brought it home to again by telling me how amazing she found it that she could have done all the work and I could take all the credit.
Anyway, we look forward to doing it again and hopefully meeting some new people.
Hope you're having a great weekend. BTW, I've been practicing my pool game, so don't think you're gonna have such an easy time of it next time. Who woulda thunk a buddhist minister would be such a hustler!
Bill
Posted by: Bill Anker at July 6, 2008 02:51 PM