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Registration is open for the Fall 2024 Retreat with Stillpoint. Attendees will arrive the evening of November 7th and the retreat will end mid-afternoon on November 10th. We are once again staying at the Villa Maria Education and Spirituality Center, located approximately one hour north of Pittsburgh.

Many options were considered after the retirement of Roshi Shohaku Okumura, who had taught at these retreats for the past few decades. Stillpoint decided to make the retreat community driven rather than bring in an out-of-town teacher. This allows them to keep the retreat affordable and keeps the retreat open to Zen practitioners of all disciplines and schools.

A proper schedule will follow, but the basic structure is that of a formal Sesshin, where we sit, eat, and contemplate in silence through the duration of the event. There will be two talks each day on Friday and Saturday, each lead by one of our four rotating practice leaders:

• Kevin Dole – Stillpoint
• Jay Hershey – Stillpoint
• Genryo Jones – Iron City Rinzai
• Catherine Gammon – Neighborhood Zen

Prices for attendees this year are:

• Commuter (No room, all meals still provided) – $195
• Double Room, per person – $275
• Single Room – $350

To sign up for the retreat there are two steps:

1. Sign up on our Signup Google Form
2. Pay:
   • Via Stripe Online (preferred)
   • Mailing a check to Stillpoint Zen, 137 41st Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201.

If you have any questions about the retreat please email sit@stillpointzen.org .

Signup is open! We look forward to seeing you at another great retreat!

It’s been awhile since our last update, but pausing to reflect—there has been a lot going on! First, the group I volunteer with at the jail has finally been able to re-establish a regular men’s Buddhist meditation group. We’re meeting every Thursday evening in the jail’s chapel space. There was a group before Covid, but since then we’ve only been allowed to do individual visits on the cell blocks. It’s great to be able to offer a safe, quiet space for them to meet and practice together.

And thank you for all the book donations! Dozens of books have arrived. I’m sorry I don’t know exactly how many, as a number have already been distributed as more are arriving—or from who since the jail staff aren’t able to keep a list. But thank you all for your generous support!

We held our second half-day retreat this past Saturday. Two participants arrived the night before, and after setting up we did yaza on the back deck till midnight and then slept out on the deck. Three more arrived early for do-in-ho, choka, zazen and a formal breakfast. The rest of the morning included 3 hours of zazen and kinhin, a half hour outdoor walk down to the riverfront trail, more do-in-ho, and a short chanting service.

And lastly we had our first social hour a few weeks ago. After Monday night zazen we walked a few blocks to a local watering hole and stayed up past bedtime enjoying conversation and camaraderie. The plan is to make this a monthly occurrence.

I kept forgetting to take photos, both at the half-day retreat and the social hour. But we had a good group for Monday night zazen last night and I snuck a quick photo.

We/ve set the date for our half-day retreat on Saturday, August 3rd. The spring half-day retreat was a great success, and we’ll be keeping the same format and schedule. Partial attendance is allowed and you may arrive or leave as needed from 8:15am on, but please do so only during kinhin and break times. Pre-registration is not required for the practice periods from 8:30am on.

8:30 zazen

8:55 kinhin

9:00 zazen

9:25 kinhin

9:30 zazen

9:55 break

10:10 kinhin walk to riverfront

10:40 chi-kung/stretching

11:00 zazen

11:25 kinhin

11:30 zazen

11:55 kinhin

12:00 zazen

12:25 chanting/prostrations

We are also offering an additional early morning practice experience using some of the monastic forms. There is the option of arriving the night before, doing yaza (informal night sitting) and sleeping in the zendo, or arriving from home by 6:20am. Please email (genryojones@gmail.com) to pre-register for the early-morning or for overnight as we’ll need to know the number of attendees to plan for the baito tea and okayu (rice porridge) breakfast.

6:00 kaijo (wake up)

6:20 do-in-ho (movement)/baito sarei (pickled plum tea in zendo)

6:30 choka (long chanting service)

7:00 zazen

7:30 shukuza (formal breakfast)

8:00 clean up & break

The suggested minimum donation for the retreat is $20 per person (Venmo @ironcityrinzai (5532) or use the donate button at ironcityrinzai.org), but, as always, ability to donate is not a requirement for participation. Please, come practice together!

Also, there will be a work party together with the Stillpoint Zen sangha on Saturday, August 17th. There will be one hour of zazen starting at 9:30am, and work will begin at 10:30 on several projects to clean up and improve the building, including refinishing and staining the back deck. We’ll break for a pot luck lunch at 1:00pm. Please feel free to stop by any time to help out!

(Photo by Roland Schmid https://www.schmidroland.ch)

Here is a new short film featuring our local group:

The May dai-sesshin at Korinji was attended by 20 people, including a group of 5 people from Switzerland who host Meido Roshi for a yearly sesshin there. It was a powerful experience and I was very moved by the efforts everyone made. The group also participated in a practice called shodo sampai, which involves walking to and chanting at a number of special sites across the monastery grounds, giving thanks for the week’s practice. On the final day, we enjoyed a chakai, or group tea ceremony. After the end of sesshin, our friends from Switzerland treated us to some homemade strudel that was amazing! Below are a few photos.

Finally, we will be meeting this Monday on Memorial Day, although it may be a small group due to the holiday. This summer I will be speaking more on topics related to the finer points of our physical practice forms and how they support the core intent of our training, beginning with the breath. We will announce our next half-day retreat soon. And we will plan an opportunity, for those interested, to begin practicing tea ceremony. Looking forward to practicing together!

Our first half-day retreat this past Saturday was a great success. Attendees were served pickled-plum tea in the zendo, took part in a long chanting practice and a formal breakfast service, making offerings of rice and rinse-water. We did several hours of zazen and had a long walk to the nearby riverfront where the native dogwoods and other flowering trees were in bloom on a beautiful spring morning. A few photos from setting up the zendo the night before are included below. We will plan another similar event sometime this summer, so please stay tuned!

On Monday we had a talk about death and dying as it relates to zen, in response to a member question. Please find a recording of that talk here:

Earlier in the month we had a talk about effort and relaxation in zen practice:

Recordings of all the past talks are available on our Bandcamp page: https://ironcityrinzai.bandcamp.com/

This coming Monday, 4-29, after zazen we will be discussing the Buddhist concept of “self” as an unfolding process of body-mind that does not recognize the modern, Cartesian view of body and mind as separable.

And finally, please note there will be NO PRACTICE on Monday, May 6th because I will be away at Korinji in Wisconsin attending a dai-sesshin practice period.

Here are the details for our upcoming spring half-day retreat on Saturday, April 20th. Partial attendance is allowed and you may arrive or leave as needed from 8:15am on, but please do so only during kinhin and break times. Pre-registration is not required for the practice periods  from 8:30am on.

8:30 zazen

8:55 kinhin

9:00 zazen

9:25 kinhin

9:30 zazen

9:55 break

10:10 kinhin walk to riverfront

10:40 chi-kung/stretching

11:00 zazen

11:25 kinhin

11:30 zazen

11:55 kinhin

12:00 zazen

12:25 chanting/prostrations

We are also offering an additional early morning practice experience using some of the monastic forms. There is the option of arriving the night before, doing yaza (informal night sitting) and sleeping in the zendo, or arriving from home by 6:20am. Please email (genryojones@gmail.com) to pre-register for the early-morning or for overnight as we’ll need to know the number of attendees to plan for the baito tea and okayu (rice porridge) breakfast.

6:00 kaijo (wake up)

6:20 do-in-ho (movement)/baito sarei (pickled plum tea in zendo)

6:30 choka (long chanting service)

7:00 zazen

7:30 shukuza (formal breakfast)

8:00 clean up & break

The suggested minimum donation for the retreat is $20 per person (Venmo @ironcityrinzai (5532) or use the donate button at ironcityrinzai.org), but, as always, ability to donate is not a requirement for participation. Please, come practice together!

This set of three talks was given this March. Taken together, sila, samadhi, & prajna are one way of describing the practice of Buddhadharma. Sila is ethical conduct or regulating behavior. Samadhi is meditative absorption, both in seated meditation and in activity. Prajna is our inherent wisdom that manifests with the fruition of practice. Please note, you can now find a page with all of the talk recordings linked under the resources heading in the menu. Thank you to everyone for your continuing participation and support!

A big thank you to all of you who’ve been coming on Monday nights to practice together! Here are the recordings from our last two meetings on Buddhist Modernism and Rinzai Zen from 2/19 and on the concept of “Dharma” and practice from 2/26. (Please note, we’ve switched to Bandcamp from Soundcloud for audio streaming). Next week we’ll start discussing the path of practice in terms of sila, samadhi, and prajna, beginning with sila, or ethical conduct.

This past Monday night we listened to part of a recorded dharma talk by Meido Moore Roshi: “Zen: Embodied Spirituality”, which was given at the University of Chicago recently, and had a good discussion about it afterwards. The full talk, including the Q&A, is available on the Korinji Patreon page and is open to non-subscribers. Also, a recording of our previous Monday night talk on the Six Paramitas is now available here. Next Monday, at the request of a member, we will discuss how Rinzai Zen fits into the larger picture of contemporary Buddhism. I’ll be referring in part to this interview with Robert Sharf on his critique of Buddhist modernism, if you’d like to read it ahead of time. See you Monday!

We had another full house this past Monday night–it’s truly wonderful to be able to practice together as a group! Here is the recording of the talk on Shugyo & Bodhicitta. Next Monday we’ll talk more about the Bodhisattva path and introduce the Six Paramitas. Here is a short reading selection for some background background information on these topics.