Many thoughts arise as the start of sesshin at DBZ gets closer – one of my favorites being a beautiful tale, where acts of kindness in the 1930’s graced us with the blessings of our Hollow Bones practice today.
In 1905, Nyogen Senzaki arrived in America from Japan with his teacher Soyen Shaku, who was giving talks on the West Coast about Buddhism. Nyogen Senzaki never returned to Japan and eked out a living, first in San Francisco and then eventually in Los Angeles where he shared the dharma in his “floating zendo.”
Senzaki was so poor in LA that he could not afford to pay Kin Sago Tanahashi for his laundry. Mrs. Tanahashi then offered to do his laundry for free if he could help take care of her son Jimmy, who had Down’s Syndrome and was confined to a wheelchair. The agreement was struck and rippled forth.
Mrs. Tanahashi became a devoted student of Nyogen Senzaki and was given the Dharma name Shubin (Autumn Sky). In 1934, after Shubin showed poems from a magazine to Senzaki, he was so impressed that he sent a letter to the author Soen Nakagawa, a monk doing solitary retreats on Mount Dai Bosatsu in Japan. The intimate friendship they developed across the ocean over decades flowed into events and activities that eventually resulted in the creation of Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji in the Catskill Mountains in 1976. Eleven years later, Jun Po Denis Kelly, our founder, began a seven-year tenure as Vice Abbot at DBZ.
And so it goes … an act of kindness, an accidental poetry reading (but, then again, there are no accidents) brought us to this moment in our practice.
In June, we will gather at the Dai Bosatsu sesshin as sangha, on the mountain with a lake mist and starry skies. With great reverence and awe, when I once again step onto the wooded paths and creaky wooden floors of Dai Bosatsu Zendo, I will bow in gratitude to the efforts, spirit, and teachings of our ancestors.
I hope you will join us to deepen our practice in these halls, in these hills, and experience the profound mystery and wisdom from the depths of our spiritual well.
Namu Dai Bosa!
Reishin Denise Leong
