Enso House

This is an excerpt from my March 27 meeting with Dr. Ann Cutcher and several volunteers at  Enso House, the hospice operated by the Tahoma Sogenji Zen Monastery on Whidbey Island, Washington. 

AC: One of the things that has been so interesting to me was demonstrated with the very first guest who was here, and I’ve never forgotten it. And he was a man who lived as a hermit, essentially, on a beach in a shack which he put together with materials that he’d found. And he was, at the end of his life, being taken care of by a circle of essentially strangers who had to walk in to his home in order to get there—there was no road. And he had no electricity and no plumbing. His electricity was a big extension cord, but he had no plumbing. And the one friend who was trying to coordinate his care at the end of his life was desperate, desperate . . . uh . . . The rains were coming; it was September. The friend was leaving town for a couple of weeks; he couldn’t keep this circle together. And he’d heard about Enso House just . . . I don’t know really quite how. And we weren’t ready to accept anybody. We didn’t have any insurance; we didn’t have . . . We weren’t ready. And it happened at the same time as the sesshin was happening at Tahoma, and the Roshi was here, and I . . . This friend came to me in a desperate state, and I went and met the man in his bed and came back and told the Roshi about it and said, “We need to do this.” And there was really no hesitation with the whole board even though everyone was exposed ‘cause there was no insurance. Anyway, this man was brought here, and he was mute. He didn’t speak. And I don’t know if he didn’t speak because he had an organic problem; I don’t know if he’d had a stroke necessarily—he was suffering from lung cancer. But he was completely quiet and he had absolutely alert and awake blue eyes. He could see what was happening. And he got here, and he closed his eyes, and he didn’t open them for a couple of days. And he didn’t say anything. And I would be in the room with him, feeling that he was furious that after having been brought out of his space and put in a . . . Holiday Inn [chuckles]. And it was . . . really distressing to me, ‘cause I felt this so strongly. And then Chisan, the Roshi’s translator, came over and sat with him for half an hour and came out of the room and said, “He’s so grateful. He’s just so appreciative.” And what it made me see is that this is all . . . this whole experience is projection essentially. That really not knowing what is happening is really the basis of everything that happens here. [gentle laugh]  And a projection of our own interior . . . uh . . . life, you know?  So that’s one thing I find really helpful for me personally, to be reminded of that, that I am creating my own . . . um . . . interpretation, and trying to make sure I see that all the time so that I can stay open to what’s really happening.

                That’s one thing. Another thing was this guy Rinsan was talking about, was a fairly young man, who was really adamantly opposed to his dying. It was just not gonna happen. And it was happening. And he was angry, and he was aggressive, and he was sure of himself. And sure of himself in that he was not . . . this was not going to happen to him. And he was too physically weak and on too many incredibly powerful analgesics to safely move around the house. But he was still determined to do that. And at one point, my concern . . . I was just concerned all the time that this man was gonna fall. And he stood up and . . . He was wheeled in a wheel chair across this room, and he suddenly stood up and was gonna walk into the dining room. And as he stood up, the wheel chair went out from behind him sort of, and I pushed it under him, and I said, “You can’t do that!” And he got really mad at me. And I pushed him into the dining room, and I said, “You just can’t do that. You’re going to fall. It’s too scary.” He said, “No! You are the one who needs to calm down [general laughter] and cool off.” [laugher continues] He said, “You need to cool off!” . . . [pause] . . . True. [more laughter]

RBM: What was he suffering from?

AC: He had . . . he had colon cancer, and he had an obstruction of his bowel. He was here for five weeks probably, and not able to eat without incredible pain that required doubling the amount of intravenous narcotic that he was getting continuously. And in spite of that, he was determined to eat. And that was another really difficult thing, to watch him roll himself into the kitchen [laughs] and open the refrigerator [general laughter] knowing that once he swallowed something, we would have to dial up . . . dial up his narcotic and deal with excruciating discomfort. And he was a rock-n-roll drummer . . . a rock-n-roll bassist who had played with a lot of people on the island over his life as a musician. And he really wanted to have a . . . He wanted to gather all the musicians he’d played with together. And they all showed up, some of them on motorcycles, and they brought a coolers of beer, and they set up a whole trap set and two mikes for singers, and, you know, mikes for the guitars and amplifiers, and we moved everything around, and there was like Led Zeppelin music, you know, coming from this dining room. And then he was too weak to play, himself. He couldn’t hold his instrument. But he had a chair pulled up, and he sat in the chair, and someone gave him his bass, and the room got totally quiet, and he plucked off this song, and sang, “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” [laughter] And everybody just like melted. That was pretty amazing.”

Cypress Trees in the Garden: pp. 124-132.

5/4 - James Ishmael Ford

                The small sitting group I host in Fredericton meets at the Shambhala Center—which has been generous in allowing us to use their space. It is, however, located on Serenity Lane, and every time I have to give people directions, I cringe just a little bit.

                Today we are in the city of Providence (Rhode Island) and at the corner of Benefit and Benevolent Streets—the location of the First Unitarian Church of Providence. (Unitarians, I am informed, prefer the term “Meeting House”—but the sign out front designates it as a church.) The minister is James Ishmael Ford, who is a Unitarian Minister as well as a leading figure in American Zen. I can’t resist asking if he doesn’t blush just a little when giving the address of the church. “Just a little bit,” he admits with a laugh. “But I do love it.”

                It is a beautiful spring day in Providence; bright yellow forsythia bushes are rife; a street fair of artists and artisans has turned several blocks of Benefit Street into a pedestrian mall. James arrives in the church parking lot while Joan and I are just getting out of our car. He’s in shorts, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. He has a beard and glasses with large round lenses. He has a professorial look, but not the professorial manner. I suspect he’s an excellent minister.

                And he’s proud of the history of this building on the corner of Benefit and Benevolent Streets—the first congregational church in Providence, which eventually morphed into the First Unitarian Church in Providence. He takes Joan and me on a tour. It is quite a lovely structure—elegant, classic lines inside. A ship’s prow pulpit raised high above the congregation, one assumes to assure good sight lines. I can’t resist asking him to pose in the pulpit for the photo; the shorts and sandals, after all will be concealed.

                While Joan goes for a walk, James and I meet in his office in the Parish House—an administrative building connected to the “meeting house” by a walkway and atrium. His ministerial robes hang on the back of the office door. There is a votive candle to the Virgin of Guadalupe under a Mexican papier-mâché rainbow on one shelf, a framed rendition of the Heart Sutra in Kanji over another set of shelves, a New Mexican horned cow skull, and a statue of an ape contemplating Darwin’s skull.

                I start with my standard opening question—what is the function of Zen?

                “I think it’s to heal the heart.”

                And the function of Unitarianism?

                “Well, I think it’s the cure of the human heart as well.”

                James is the founder of Boundless Way Zen. Melissa, and another teacher—Josh Bartok—are his  students, but the three of them—along with David—make up a teaching team of equals. As I had noted in Worcester yesterday, one of the strengths of Boundless Way is that it combines multiple teaching lineages and, presumably, approaches. It’s an important experiment, a serious effort to address a number of challenges facing Zen if it will be able to persist into the future, rather than being—as James puts it—merely a “historical blip.”

                His concern about institutional matters is one of the reasons I was particularly interested in meeting him. In his work and writing, he has identified many issues which occurred to me as well as I worked on the third book in the series. The problem is how to address them without an institutional structure which has the authority to speak on behalf of all the Zen teachers in America. There is the American Zen Teachers’ Association, but it has specifically chosen not to act as a governing body. So there are issues, but as yet no effective vehicle for addressing them.

                In our conversation, we identify four:

·         The need for a mutually agreed upon code of ethics which are, in some manner, enforceable;

·         The matter of assessing the authenticity of teaching authority (transmission)

·         Common and accepted standards for priestly education (Zen priests need to be more than meditation teachers)

·         And Ford adds, “Envisioning a way to support teachers.”

None of these have been resolved, but Ford has taken leadership in bringing the issues forward. And for that we should be grateful.

                There is also the matter which Sunyana Graef brought up, that while North American Zen has focused on the development of wisdom, it has not always been that good at developing compassion. “That’s something maybe they can learn from Unitarians,” Ford suggests. Unitarianism is a liberal, non-credal, tradition with a history of social engagement. There is a trade union meeting going on in Parish Hall while we meet in his office.

                “Are there any other Unitarian Ministers active as Zen teachers?”

                “At the moment I’m it,” he admits. But then he also points out that many Zen groups across the country started out in Unitarian Church (Meeting House) basements.

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Ford, James – 27, 138, 191-205, 208, 210, 211-13, 220, 221, 222, 224, 228-29, 230, 251, 271, 322-23, 324, 417, 418, 468.

5/3 - Boundless Way Temple

The great Asian tales of Zen often portray temples and the resident priests as very dour places and individuals. Zen, after all, is serious business, nor is it something for the faint of heart. Poor Huike had to cut off his arm before Bodhidharma would even take notice of him standing in the snow. But the feeling one gets upon entering the Boundless Way Temple in Worcester, Massachusetts, and meeting the resident priests Melissa Blacker and her husband, David Rynick, is quite simply joy. One immediately thinks, “What a delightful couple!"

                Melissa has a natural exuberance. And it is significant that her path to Zen did not follow the standard route of angst and despair—although, to a certain extent, David’s did—that one so often hears about after asking, “What brought you to practice?” In her case, she was trying to make sense of a mystical experience—a spontaneous kensho—she had while a fourteen year old girl attending summer camp. One morning, she went down to the beach by herself, sat cross-legged in the sand, and, as the sun came up, had a profound sense of the interconnectedness of all Being. “This,” she thought, “must be what adults feel all the time!”

                The next day when her mother came to fetch her, Melissa confided to her, “Mom, I saw the sunrise.”

                “That’s nice, dear. Sunrises can be very pretty.”

                And with that, Melissa realized her mother had no idea what she was talking about. But she also knew that what she’d experienced had been real and revealed something genuine.

                I’m struck by the story which so closely resembles my own. So I go out on a limb. “I’ve described it as wonder, awe, gratitude, and reverence,” I tell her. I'm curious to see if the formula resonates with her. It appears to do so. 

                One has, at times, a sense of things coming together almost as if by providence. That has also been my experience. The same forces are at work here. For example, there is a granite Buddha at the entrance to the house. It is seated in front of a flowering cherry tree whose blossoms are just past their prime. The cherry tree had been rescued fortuitously as they cleared the growth from the front of the house in order to build a wheelchair ramp.  It had almost been uprooted with all the other unwanted vegetation, but David recognized the small plant as a cherry seedling and protected it. Then a man helping set up a waterline at the temple asked if they’d like a Buddha for their entrance. They had several Buddhas, thank you. But this is a Buddha for outdoors. They had some of those as well. But this one is over five feet high and weighs about three tons! It had been carved in China and shipped to Worcester for a Vietnamese family who had wanted a garden Buddha but had no idea how big the statue they’d commissioned was; when they refused delivery, it was offered to two ethnic Buddhist groups in the city, neither of which had a place for it. It seemed big even for the Boundless Way Temple, although it now clearly belongs here. Jung might have used the term “synchronicity” to describe the series of events which led to the statue finding its present home under the cherry tree; Buddhists call it “karma.”

                When we arrive, the Temple is preparing for “Buddhas Over Worcester,” a sculpture exhibit which opens tomorrow. Joan and I get a sneak peak at the pieces. They range from the traditional to the playful—a red trolley bearing three Buddhas painted brilliant blue. Or a Buddha made from what seems to be an old CB radio set. The playfulness seems appropriate at a Zen Temple which has, in addition to the traditional altar, a Beanie-Buddha in its Zendo.

                Both Melissa and David trained with one of Philip Kapleau’s students for many years. David then went on to study with and received transmission from George Bowman in the lineage of Korean Rinzai teacher, Seung Sahn. Melissa received transmission from James Ford, John Tarrant’s student, in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Yasutani Roshi and Robert Aitken. Perhaps one of the things, intentionally or not, that the name “Boundless Way” refers to is the manner in which they have brought together elements from several lineages and teaching styles.

                But it is also “boundless” in the way a certain concept has been brought to life here. David describes one of the things which convinced them to buy the present property: “We came up with this vision of a place of beauty and practice, and somehow that crystallized for us what we hoped to do. So, for example, the grounds have been my great labor of love which creates this place that you feel when you come into it.”

                And one does feel it. It is very real.

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Blacker, Melissa Myozen – 200, 201, 207-215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 228, 229, 418

Rynick, David Dae An – 200-01, 207-08, 209, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215-222, 228, 418

5/2 - Vermont Zen Center

The Vermont Zen Center in located in Shelburne, a small, artistically-inclined community outside Burlington, which itself is a pretty city on  Lake Champlain. One notices the Peace Pole at the foot of the Center’s drive before one sees the official sign set in a small flower bed. The sign has the calligraphy figure with the three vertical strokes associated with the Kapleau lineage and the simple declaration: Zen Center.

                Proceeding up the driveway, the next thing one notices is the landscaping. The grounds are impressive and lovingly cared for. The Magnolia trees are in full bloom, their bases littered with large white petals. The rhododendron is in flower, along with many colorful bedding plants. The teacher, Sunyana Graef (her students call her “Roshi”) informs me that when they bought the house, it was in the middle of an alfalfa field and there was only a single tree—a pine which now towers over the property. A spruce the sangha (community) planted, however, has almost reached its height. The sangha is celebrating its’ 25th anniversary this year. The cedars and other trees, plants, bushes, and flower beds have all been added in that period.

                Inside the building, one is struck by the craftsmanship apparent everywhere. The original house has had several extensions and is now able to house sixty people for sesshin—comfortably. I admire the care taken with both the woodwork and the lighting around the various shrines. Polished hardwood floors run throughout the building. The first room one enters is a living room, with stuffed furniture and a big fireplace. Sunyana explains that she wanted the members to form a community, to get to know one another. If they went straight into the Zendo or the Buddha Hall, they might never get to know one another. So they take a moment to sit and chat before proceeding into the formal areas of the center. It’s the type of touch I will learn to expect from her.

                “How did you become a teacher?” I ask.

                “My teacher [Philip Kapleau] told me it was time.”

                “And then you came to Vermont. Was that because he asked you to come here?”

                “No. My husband and I chose to come here.”

                “Was there a community here?”

                “No. Not really.”

                “But you’d lived here before?”

                “No.”

                “So, why . . . ?”

                She grins bashfully and looks away (she has several shy mannerisms and asks me not to take her photograph). Then she spreads her hand and shoulders in a gesture which recalls her Jewish heritage and says, “I like cows.”

                She remembered driving through the state as a child. It struck her as bucolic and beautiful. It is. This is the first time Joan and I have been to the state, and we are both struck by how attractive it is. The Zen Center fits its surroundings. The building and grounds are elegant.

                It is a space one could easily come to love.

                There is a Jizo figure under the magnolias out front, and a small Jizo grove in back. But the dominant devotional figure in the building is Kannon—the Bodhisattva of Compassion. There are several statues of her, including one that greets people who come in the front door. Sunyana trained at Rochester, where the style of teaching has frequently been described as “boot camp Zen” or “Samurai Zen.”  The emphasis in Rochester, she tells me, was on the attainment of wisdom (awakening) but maybe not as much on the attainment of compassion as it should have been.

                Sunyana does not use the kyosaku. “Roshi [Kapleau] relished telling how when he was training at Hossinji with Harada Roshi  he would stay up all night being beaten on the shoulders by a monitor, but he didn’t make his breakthrough there.” It wasn’t until he came under the milder training of Yasutani Roshi that he had his awakening experience, and yet—ironically—when he started teaching in Rochester, he returned to the harsher training methods used by Harada. Well, it was the ‘60s, and most of his students were hippies. He may well have thought they needed the discipline.

                There are several kinds of retreats offered at the Vermont Center, in addition to the standard seven day sesshin focused on seated meditation. There are “work” sesshin, in which people spend more time working on the grounds. And there are “Metta” Retreats—Loving Kindness retreats. These are now led by one of Sunyana’s disciples, Dharman—a former university professor who shame-facedly admits he taught a course on Buddhism while in the department of philosophy before he had begun practice.

                I ask him what makes Sunyana (Roshi) a good teacher. The first thing he mentions is her integrity. And then he stresses her compassion. “I’m so glad I found a teacher who was a woman,” he tells me.

                She also happens to be a professional baker.

                I get the feeling that Sunyana is a teacher one could easily come to love.

Cypress Trees in the Garden:

Graef, Sunyana – 204, 329, 337-51, 361, 374, 388-89, 468