#41 South Dakota!

 Last night I zoomed in with five others to the Laughing Teabowl Sangha in Rapid City South Dakota. 

Even without an introduction (although I had messaged online back and forth), I felt welcomed. I enjoyed their no-nonsense approach of 35 minutes of zazen, a brief kinhin (walking) and then another 35 minutes of sitting followed by a brief dharma talk by James Kando Green; who appears to be forming a Zendo in Santa Fe. I like some of his talks here.   Green and Laughing Teabowl are affiliated with the White Plum lineage founded in the US by Maezumi and Bernie Glassman.   I remember my powerful experience with Upaya Zen in New Mexico a few months back, Joan Halifax there is also a notable student. 

James offered contemplation of a 'fourfold negation', or 'not this, not that, not both not neither',  which is exhausting to think about, but then 'exhaustion of views' is in fact recommended.   James also noted Kegon's (after Huayan) doctrine of interpenetration.  I reflected on the Heart Sutra which I am more familiar with: 

O Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form;
Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form;
Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness are likewise like this.
O Shariputra, all dharmas are forms of emptiness, not born, not destroyed;
Not stained, not pure, without loss, without gain;
So in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness;
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No color, sound, smell, taste, touch, phenomena;
No realm of sight, no realm of consciousness;
No ignorance and no end to ignorance . . .
No old age and death, and no end to old age and death;
No suffering, no cause of suffering, no extinguishing, no path,
No wisdom and no gain.

I feel so very blessed to find a way out of suffering, which of course is simply to be here, with every last little bit of what is or is not here.