Solstice on the Prairie Retreat June 2009

Tall Grass Zen
Solstice on the Prairie Retreat

Thursday June 18 - Sunday June 21, 2009
Deep Creek Community Center
in the beautiful Flint Hills
near Manhattan, Kansas

Retreat starts Thursday evening at 6:30 pm and runs through Sunday morning. There will be a precepts ceremony on Sunday at 11 am. You can sit all or part of the retreat. Late entry times are Friday and Saturday mornings at 6 am; 9 am and Noon. The precepts ceremony is open to the public.

If you would like to register for the retreat you will need to register in advance. Please email us at tallgrasszen@yahoo.com or call 785/537-8713 for more information.

Affiliated with the Kwan Um School of Zen
http://www.kwanumzen.com/

Half-Day Retreat in Topkea

Yesterday Margaret and I sat a half-day retreat with our friends at PrairieEyrth Zen Center. Thanks to the PEZC for hosting this.

Ji Jang Bosal

JW Harrington, May 8, 1958 - April 7, 2009.

JW, for thirty years the key administrator for the Kwan Um School of Zen, took his own life yesterday afternoon in Providence, Rhode Island. He is survived by his wife, Jayne, his mother, and thousands of friends around the world.

I did not know JW well, but in our many phone conversations and emails he was always friendly and efficient. Once, during Kyol Che, I did some office work for him. He had such a beautiful calm light. Now I feel so sad for him. He must have felt so desperate and alone.

Let us keep one another close.

Sitting with ease
on the bridge
Deep Creek accepts
another fallen leaf
greeting it with
a circle of radiance
shimmering
to every shore

The leaf floats
nesting into a rock

Form is emptiness

A cloud passes
over sunlight
transforming the vision
to opaque depth

Emptiness is form

Walking back
pick up a penny
in the road
Warm in the hand
South wind cool
on the face

Margaret Wheeler
Tall Grass Zen
2009

UPDATE ON THE FEBRUARY RETREAT

Because our teacher, Linc Rhodes, had to return to Providence unexpectedly, we've shortened the retreat. We will now begin at 9 am and end at 5 pm on Saturday February 7. 

Winter Solstice Candlelight Kido

Buddha’s Enlightenment Day Poem

Buddha’s Enlightenment Day Poem

It took an Indian prince six years of renunciation
Six years of wandering, six years of meditation
To awaken to what the farmer knew every morning of her life

Deep darkness, clearing skies of vivid stars
And each winter without fail
One joyous moment as the morning star
BOOM
First startles the trembling night sky

You have to already be awake to witness this
We are already a part of each and every creation

The stars, seen or unseen. The prairie grasses frozen frosted still
The rice in the paddies picking up the dawn breeze
The rhythm of the sky and stars, dawns and sunsets, twilights, dusk and darkness
The heat, the dust, the barren, lush or harsh landscapes
Can you see the hawk’s breath as she soars low before you startled eyes?

Dawn announces the coming round
Earth wheels to greet a brighter beckoning
Attainment fades with the morning star
As it appeared, so it disappears
The young prince, renunciant
Smiles, touching the earth
Just as the daughter bent to plant the rice
The stars, the earth, the rice, the water, the farmer
The daughter’s offering to the prince under the Bodhi tree

Wake up Wake up Hurry up Wake Up

Draw back the veil, open the blinds
Wake up Wake up
Did you see the morning Star?
Did you oversleep again?

When the stone girls sighs
Her breath does not cloud
The Great Round Mirror

You have to be awake to attain this and let it go:
One by one each creation has it
One by one each creation is complete.

HAPPY BUDDHA’S ENLIGHTMENT DAY


Margaret M. Wheeler
Tall Grass Zen