Sweet Plum Blossoms

by Shoken Winecoff*
Abbot, Ryumonji Zen Monastery, Domchester, IA

“Unless a plum is chilled to its core, how can its blossoms smell sweet all over the ground?” - Eihei Dogen, 13th century Zen master. “The truth to live is just to live” - Katagiri Roshi.

I’ll be 70 this June! How did I get here? Impermanence is swift. Time waits for no one. It sends a certain chill to my core. It’s sobering! And yet there’s a sweet smell.

My life is 70 years past gone! I have maybe 10 – 20 – 30 years. Ha! We’ll see. We’re never ready! There’s always something else we would like to get done, even if it is to find our shawl.

When I was 50 I was three years in a Japanese monastery. As you approached the monastery, the front entry walk was lined with plum trees. Even in February and early March the plum trees provided an umbrella of sweet blossoms. They say in Japan that it is the chill that makes the blossoms smell sweet all over the ground.

There are always chills to life. These are the chills that help us to grow, that soften us, that produce a fragrance in our lives that we would never otherwise have. In the moment we wish the chill wasn’t so chilling. But in time we grow to appreciate the sweet smell of ensuing days.

I was sad when both my parents died. My mother was 67 when she died, my dad 91. But in their deaths I found a new part of myself. I now was the senior generation. The chill produced a fragrance that I could never imagine.

In the chill of the cold winter there is just living in vow. If you attach to desire, you come to resent the chills. Living in vow is just to get up in the morning. “The truth to live is just to live” - Katagiri Roshi. Be alive in the moment. Embrace the ten directions. Little by little blossoms appears. Chills produce the fragrance that makes the blossoms smell sweet.

In the morning just get up. Go to the zendo of your life, whether feeding babies, working on the computer, or chopping wood. Sit up straight in the moment at hand. Chant the Heart Sutra – in joy or in sorrow – in appreciation for all those beings who have lived before with the chills. Their continuity produces a fragrance to pass on to others. What more could be asked for?

Let’s continue to walk together hand in hand. We walk under the umbrella of plum blossoms that smell sweet all over the ground.

In gassho, Shoken
_______

*Shoken Winecoff, Abbot of the Ryumonji Zen Monastery in Domchester, IA, can be contacted at www.ryumonji.org. My thanks to Eido Espe, teacher of the Zen Center in Des Moines, IA, for granting permission to reproduce Shoken’s essay, which appears in the monastery’s Spring 2009 “Dragon Gate” newsletter. Shoken is currently in Japan. 5/9

In the Present Moment?

Can’t live in the now.
It’s gone before we know it.
At best, we can live
in the very recent past—
Pretend it’s present moment.

Thanks to meditator Gordon Gaippe for this tanka poem. Gordon has more short poems on his website Letting Go.

Poem by Dogen Zenji

Gaining enlightenment is like
The moon reflected on the water.
The moon doesn't get wet;
The water isn't broken.

Although its light is broad and great,
The moon is reflected even
In a puddle an inch wide.

The whole moon and the whole sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.


Thanks to Jon Shelness of the www.dmzencenter.org for this poem by Dogen Zenji (1200-1253), founder of the Soto School of Zen in Japan.

Begin

A poem by Rumi -

This is now. Now is
all there is. Don't wait for then;
strike the spark, light the fire.

Sit at the Beloved's table,
feast with gusto, drink your fill.

Then dance
the way branches
of jasmine and cypress
dance in a spring wind.

The green earth
is your cloth;
tailor your robe
with dignity and grace.

Thanks to meditator Art Dunbar for sumbitting this poem by the Persian Poet Rumi (1207-1273).

Meditation in Tanka

On a worn seat pad

on a folding metal chair—

I follow my breath,

meditate on compassion

‘til my mind wanders, again.

This short poem is a tanka, similar to a haiku. A haiku is defined as a three line, non-rhyming poem, often referring to an event in nature, or a moment in nature keenly observed. And in Japan it is written in three lines, 5 sound syllables in the first line, 7 sound syllables in the second and five in the third. A sound syllable is similar to but not quite the same as a syllable in English. English-language haiku writers generally ignore the 5-7-5 format, since it's not as culturally meaningful in English as in Japanese.

Tanka is similar, but longer. It's five lines, non-rhyming, 5-7-5-7-7, 31 sound syllables. Sometimes you just can't get it all into three lines.

Thanks to meditator Gordon Gaippe for sending his tanka and providing desciptions of a how to write a haiku and tanka. See Lettinggo.com for more of his poetry.

Spring Cleaning and Sweeping Changes

"When we clean we begin to appreciate how things are there for us, supporting us, encouraging us, and when we appreciate things we appreciate ourselves and one another. So to respect the floor or grounds is to respect ourselves. This is how we develop intimacy and connection. Although everything is one, you will not understand what that means unless you practice it. When you clean, you experience the oneness. You realize everything is helping you."

From "Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks" by Gary Thorp.

This quote was sent by meditator Marsha Hines in response to my sharing memories of my mom back in the 1950's doing what she called her "annual spring cleaning," when lots of clothes and other stuff got given or thrown away, storm windows got replaced by screens, every dish got washed, and every floor got waxed. I remember her doing it all really mindfully, though I don't think the word "mindfully" or "mindfulness" would have had quite the same meaning for my mom as it now has for me.