The
Toronto Zen Centre is on High Park Gardens, a well-to-do neighborhood on the
west side of the city. I follow a stone path around the house to the back
entrance, passing carefully cultivated and maintained flower beds adorned with elegant
Bodhisattva statues. Downstairs, there is a Zendo (with about twenty-six
places) and a Buddha Hall opposite. A student takes me up to a sun-room on the
second floor where I meet Taigen Henderson (his students call him Sensei
Henderson). “It looks like the property taxes might be a bit steep here,” I
say. He nods his head.
Taigen
is a dharma heir of Sunyana Graef, who had expressed surprise that I had not
included him on the original list of teachers I had intended to visit. She had been
right. It was a major oversight on my part.
The
Toronto Zen Centre, the first affiliate center of the Rochester Zen Center, is
also the first official Zen practice center to be established in Canada, and
Taigen is the first Canadian teacher to be trained in Canada. “He wouldn’t tell
you that,” one of his students informs me, “because he’s so humble.” I was
aware of that humilty while I talked with him, but I was also aware of his
self-confidence. He’s a man with a lot of life experience who is very much at
ease with where he is at this moment.
When I
ask the two students I met afterwards to describe him, the first thing they
both noted was that he was inspiring. “You think, wow, if I could be like
that.” They tell me that he embodies the teaching.
I’ve
heard other students describe their teachers in similar terms. Zen training
does—if one persists in it—form people of strong character. I suspect that, at
least in part, it’s because these are people who know themselves deeply and have
nothing to prove to anyone else. They are the “true man of no rank.”
I
remark on his sense of humor. “He has a great
sense of humor,” the students tell me, and has the ability to use that humor to
lighten tension when things become challenging or difficult.
He has
a very expressive face and is a wonderful story-teller. And he has some pretty
amazing stories to tell: The story of spending several years in Ceylon (Sri
Lanka) when a young boy, at which time he got his first taste of Buddhism.
“Somebody showed me a high school year book in which I said I wanted to be a
Buddha when I grew up. I was just being a smart-alec at the time.” A story of
spending months deep in the British Columbia interior, 200 miles from the
nearest road, with two other young men. “We didn’t see one other human being in
that time.” A story of working in an asbestos mine. “They were just realizing
how dangerous this stuff was. In Toronto they were worried about brake-linings,
and here I was sweeping asbestos dust half an inch thick up off the floor.” A story
of waking up and seeing smoke pouring through a vent and realizing that the
house next door was on fire. “The firemen came and broke the windows, and the
house went up just like that. It made me aware just how impermanent life is,
and I thought if I didn’t start doing something now, then when?” A similar
sentiment is inscribed on the han outside the zendo.
He went to Rochester to do a workshop with Philip Kapleau and told Kapleau that he
would like to train there for a while. Kapleau told him to stay in Canada. So
he returned to Toronto and joined the affiliate branch here. He found work in
the construction trades, doing house renovations. Eventually, he worked on providing
low-income housing as well as training to homeless people. He also helped build
some women’s shelters, including one called “Women in Transition.” “They gave
me a t-shirt with their name on it, but a friend of mine suggested I might want
to think twice about wearing it.”
Sunyana
Graef by this time had become the teacher in Toronto, while also maintaining
centers in Vermont and Costa Rica.
Taigen expressed an interest in living a life more fully committed to practice,
and she told him that it wasn’t time yet. His work with the homeless and
women’s shelters was, after all, an example of Right Livelihood—the fifth step
in the Eightfold Path. Eventually difficulties with a sub-contractor resulted
in him leaving the trade, and then the time was right for ordination.
The
Centre had been at another location, in a neighborhood where prices were low because
of fears an expressway was going to be built alongside. When the expressway
plans were withdrawn, house prices jumped. The Centre was able to sell its
place for $400,000, and purchase its current property for $350,000. At the
time, it was also considered a less desirable neighborhood because of the
occasional stench drifting in from nearby stock yards. When the stock yards
were closed, house values went up. “The property is now probably worth
$2,000,000,” Taigen admits.
It is
axiomatic that when one enters the path, opportunities arise. At times, events
occur which even appear to support that axiom. What else would one expect for a
True Man of No Rank?
Cypress Trees in the Garden:
Cypress Trees in the Garden:
Henderson, Taigen – 346, 353-67,
369, 387, 389
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