right here, right now
Zen helps us to dissolve negative habits of body and mind, live with clarity, and be of service to all beings.
Practice
Standing
We do a brief warm-up and spend about 10 minutes in standing meditation forms (zhan zhuang). These standing forms are excellent for getting us out of our heads and into our bodies, discovering our posture, and getting our ki flowing.
Sitting
We then do two 25-minute periods of zazen, or seated meditation, with a short walking meditation (kinhin) in-between. Beginners will receive instructions in correct posture and body usage, belly breathing (fukushiki kokyu) and unified breath counting (sussokukan).
Chanting
We end each session with about 10 minutes of practice with breathing and mantric vibration by chanting okyo (sutras and dharanis), followed by three full bows.
Instructor
Genryo Jones Osho was lucky enough to get a taste of traditional Rinzai Zen training in Japan in the late nineties, at Sogenji monastery with Shodo Harada Roshi, where he was ordained and trained for three and a half years. Recently, he has become a student of Meido Moore Roshi, abbot of Korinji in Wisconsin, and found a flavor of zen strikingly similar to what he experienced in Japan. His hope is to help make this flavor of Rinzai Zen training available locally for anyone with whom it might resonate, as it did for him. Iron City Rinzai is affiliated with the Korinji Rinzai Zen Community.
Join us
Practice sessions are held on Sunday mornings from 9 to 10:30am in room 205, upstairs at the Wilkins School Community Center in Pittsburgh. Newcomers are always welcome and instruction will be provided. For your first visit, please come 20-30 minutes early to allow for one-on-one instruction, if possible. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or to let us know you’re coming using the form below.
Wilkins School Community Center
7604 Charleston Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
USA
Send Us a Message
email genryojones@gmail.com
Donate
There is no fee required to participate, but a $5 donation per session is suggested to help defray the cost of renting our space ($150/month) paid to the WSCC. You can Venmo @ironcityrinzai (5532) directly or use the button below for Venmo, PayPal or credit card.
News
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Iron City Rinzai
Iron City Rinzai is a Zen practice group in Pittsburgh. We will soon be meeting in person at the Wil
This is a great talk and Q&A where Meido Moore Roshi makes some very important points about unified breath counting (sussokukan), it’s relation to koan work and other practices, as well as integration into daily life. I’d highly recommend it, especially for anyone who has received instruction with us at ICR as he makes clear many points we’ve touched on as they’ve come up on Sundays.
I’ve been enjoying reading “Sun at Midnight”, poems and letters of Muso Soseki (1275-1351). He was a designer of Zen gardens and founded several temples including Tenryuji where he was the first abbot. Really amazing!
A great opportunity for a first experience of a longer retreat, coming up soon!An ideal way to enter the path of practice. Join us!
I’m excited about this and wanted to share—I just discovered a great app-based food rescue service in Pittsburgh, “412 Food Rescue”. It basically works like a rideshare app, but you volunteer to go pick up food that would otherwise go to waste, and then drop it off at a service site that can use it. I tried it this morning—picked up what felt like 20 lbs of day old bagels at Bruegger’s and dropped them off at a residential addiction recovery treatment center. It took like 15-20 minutes extra when I was out running errands anyway, super easy! Whoever set it up is a genius.
When I was training at the monastery, almost every meal we ate included produce from a local grocer that was past prime and couldn’t be sold. Their name was Maruko-san. After every meal the tenzo announced each vegetable they had given that was used in that meal.
There’s also the traditional story (though I can’t remember the names) about a monk that was going to visit a master at a training temple. Alongside the road was a stream that flowed away from the temple. He noticed perfectly good whole spinach leaves floating down the stream away from the temple. He turned around and went away, not wanting to visit a place that wasted food.
And there are many many more stories and examples about the inherent value to our training in being intentional and deliberate about the use of food. And I’d add, another aspect I personally find motivating is that the scientists at Project Drawdown have identified reducing food waste as one of the top actions individuals can take to impact Climate Change.
So please check them out if it sounds interesting!
412foodrescue.org
”Chances are, all that leftover food from your office party or wedding might end up in a dumpster—and eventually the landfill. Unless a hero swoops in.