Zen Center Courtyard


Free zazen instruction and orientation for beginners: Saturdays 9:20-10:00 a.m. in Community Room.

NOTE UPCOMING TIME CHANGE! BEGINNING JULY 26 OUR FREE INSTRUCTION AND ORIENTATION FOR BEGINNERS WILL TAKE PLACE ON SATURDAYS AT 8:50 AM, IN THE ZENDO.

Saturday morning talk: 10:10-11:00 a.m. in zendo.

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Classes
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Berkeley Zen Center

Classes

Sign-up sheets for classes are posted on the zendo bulletin board. Please check there for last-minute changes.

  • Summer Sutra Study: Four Parables from the Lotus Sutra, Beginning Thursday, July 17

    Laurie Senauke will teach a four-week class on the Lotus Sutra; each week we'll recite and discuss a parable from this seminal text. These parables illuminate our true relationship with Buddha. The class meets from 7:15 to 8:45 pm each Thursday evening. Unlike most of our classes, you can come to all or some of the sessions, to accommodate your summer recreation plans. The cost is $5.00 per class.



    Interview with Laurie Senauke by BZC Class Coordinator Ron Nestor.

    Ron: This is your third summer sutra class and it seems you're making a shift from the earlier period sutras to the parables within the Lotus Sutra.

    Laurie: I had been choosing from among the Pali scriptures and now I'm tackling a Mahayana sutra. Going from the early Pali sutras to the Lotus Sutra is sort of like going from hiking on Mt. Tam to climbing Mt. Everest in one day. I'm having a little trouble with altitude sickness. The Lotus Sutra is a whole different world. It's all love and spendour. The seven parables within the sutra are great stories, all about skillful means.

    Ron: Do you think that's the common thread that runs through the parables?

    Laurie: Yes, they're all about skillful means. We may think that skillful means is tweaking or modifying the truth so that people can hear it, sort of a watered down version. But there's nothing BUT skillful means. Maybe that's what the sutra is saying. Responding to the current situation appropriately- it's the expression of our practice moment to moment. So it's not like a substitute or incomplete.

    Ron: I'll think about that.

    Laurie: Those are the kinds of questions we'll be talking about. Another common thread is that the stories are about our relationship to Buddha. In two of the parables he's the father and we're the children. In one of them he's the rain and we're the plants and in another he's the trail guide and we're the hikers. It's like realizing ourselves in the family of Buddha - children naturally grow up to become parents.

    Ron: It seems one reason why the sutra is so popular, particularly with the Nichiren sect is the message that we can do it or are it, even feel our capability is very limited.

    Laurie: And that this amazing world of miracles is always available to us somehow.

    Ron: Speaking of family, my niece who just graduated from college went on a solitary hiking retreat in the Rogue River area of Oregon. Because she has a meditation practice and interest in Buddhism, she took the Lotus Sutra as her only reading material. She was somewhat disappointed and told my sister that all it said was, "Buddha is good, Buddha is good". I just read that zen master Hakuin, when he first read the sutra, had the same kind of response. "It's all just cause and effect- so what?" Later after many years of practice and in his 40's he reread it and had a transformative experience, breaking down in tears and sobs, wrung out with gratitude and awe. He said none of his previous study or realizations could match the Lotus Sutra.

    Laurie: I've heard that in the early days of San Francisco Zen Center, when Suzuki Roshi presented the Lotus Sutra, the students felt it was too fancy. He responded something like "Oh no it's not fancy enough! Not even close." Reality is even more amazing. (laughs)

    Ron: Why do you think both Hakuin and Dogen and other zen ancestors were so drawn to it?

    Laurie:There's something very ultimate about it. It's sort of like zazen. The sutra is all about how great the Lotus Sutra is, but when you get to the end it's like, what IS the sutra? Our zazen is surrounded by all this specialness - special room, special seats, special movements. We build this whole thing around zazen but in the middle of an actual period of zazen there's nothing there! (laughs) You know what I mean? Zazen is just whatever's happening.

    Ron: Thank you.


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    Last revised 07/02/08.
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