On Queensland Zen Centre

Take the Benleagh train to
Moorooka and follow these flowers.

I had the honor and privilege of practicing zen at Queensland Zen Centre on 18 March 2018.  The usual schedule was slightly altered due to the Guiding Teacher's illness.  Their website, linked above, should be taken as a model for zen center websites.  I should have paid more attention to it myself.

Their practice that Sunday morning was just as they describe on the website, except Zen Master Senshin did not participate: "Our practice periods begin with three prostration bows and a period of chanting meditation.  We chant traditional Buddhist sutras and chanting books are provided.  After chanting, periods of sitting meditation - following the breath, in stillness and silence - alternate with walking meditation.  In addition, individual interviews with our teacher, Zen Master Senshin, are held as part of our Sunday morning practice. We close with the Four Great Vows and three prostration bows, and then there is time for refreshments, questions and discussion.   Instruction in each of the practice forms is offered throughout the session."

I included a visit to a zen center on this trip because zen practice is an important part of my life.  If I am not able to become comfortable practicing zen in Australia I won't live there.  I did not think it would be a problem, but enlightenment is not what you think.

I was greeted warmly at the door by the same person with whom I had been corresponding over email, one of the senior training teachers.   It was a warm morning, my skin was sticky from a very brief walk from the train station.  After putting away my bag and turning off my phone I was offered water and pleasant instruction in the information quoted above.  It is so refreshing to see a zen center keep their website tidy.

I have to "tilt the bell" a bit with my practice because of arthritic knees.  They hold up fine for walking and sitting on western furniture.  Zen practice often includes deep prostrations and floor-sitting which can cause my knees to hurt.  The way that I cope with the pain often causes me to interfere with the pace of the group.  For this reason, when sitting with a group at a new center, I make a point to request to sit in a chair and permission to substitute deep, standing bows for full prostrations.

They didn't give me time to request these accommodations, they suggested them.  They have their attention on the right things.  This was deeply comforting.

The lineage of the teacher is a bit unusual for my experience.  I sit with two traditions.  One is Soto Zen, and my line of teachers goes directly back to Dogen, who founded it about fourteen-hundred years ago.  I have one "generation" of American teachers between myself and Dainin Katagiri, who was Japanese, trained in Japan, and has a Japanese lineage all the way back to Dogen.

The other tradition I sit with is Theravada, and loosely so, tracing back to an Australian who trained in a Thai lineage.  My sangha is urban, young, and led by an ex-punk covered in tattoos out of the hippest parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I took the precepts in the former lineage.  I sit sesshin, a formal silent continuous practice period of several days, with the former lineage.  I suppose I look to it as my religious authority.  I sit regularly with the latter lineage, they are local, and the talks have been very valuable to my understanding.

There's a Korean influence on practice at Queensland Zen Centre, or it's probably more correct to say there's a Japanese influence on Korean practice here.  It's hard for me to say from my perspective, which is almost exclusively in the American adaptative tradition of the Japanese style of zen.  They chant in Korean, and instead of chanting, they really sing, and in beautiful evocative Korean scales and melodies.

I was familiar with the sutras we chanted, just the English or Japanese versions, and some of the briefer chants were in English as well.  Chanting is a fascinating practice and "understanding" the language contains a lot of ultimately fruitless attention to the illusory separately-existing individually-identifiable self which is all the problem to begin with!  I loved this Korean chanting.  Here's an example from YouTube:



This is a challenge for a newcomer, I have neither seen phonetic Korean before nor have I heard the gorgeous melodies.  Sincere practice means "seeing" the chant with my ears and following along every moment, diving as directly into now as one can.  Staying silent would be far too attentive to the illusional self that is experiencing all of the awkwardness.

Chanting along anyway feels awkward, but the practice is profound.  I would never have another chance to be brand-new to this style of chanting again.  I was very grateful to have this chance with a sangha that was both tolerant and did not hesitate to offer instruction when appropriate.

It was most comforting that the senior training teachers would speak up and correct errors in practice at the time they became worthy of it.  Instruction was direct, brief, helpful and delivered with kindness.  I gave them a few chances to exercise their skills myself.

One of the most charming aspects of their practice is they do walking meditation outside.  The center is in a residential neighborhood, in a former private residence.  It has a backyard.  They conduct walking meditation at a moderately fast pace, and they wind right out the front door and on to the beautiful patch of earth in the area.  Birds are singing in the trees, geckos are croaking on the porch.

This also provides an additional challenge to this newcomer.  I wore hiking boots to the center, not expecting to have to put them back on during that morning's practice.  I usually put them on in a sitting position using both hands and a shoehorn.

I did what I could, but I had to get out of line to do it, which was a hassle I didn't need.  Taking them off again was just as problematic.  Lesson learned: bring sandals to Australian zen.

They sit facing in, which tempts my mind to wander in a way that facing the wall, as we do in Soto  practice, does not.  Counter to what one might assume, sitting facing inward causes me to close my eyes, which is a bad idea in meditation.  I don't usually face this particular challenge, so it was interesting to see what my mind did with it.

After the practice period, we sat for about an hour on the back porch and chatted with snacks.  Two very kind members of the sangha offered to drive me back to the part of Brisbane I was staying in.  They also showed me their beautiful home briefly, I was touched by their casual kindness and generous offer of time and attention.

I was more than comfortable with this little taste of zen practice, I was intrigued and a bit invigorated intellectually.  What do these teachers have to teach me?

I bought a copy of the Guiding Teacher's book, Essence of Mind, by Zen Master Senshin, and read it on the plane back to the US.  It is quite good.  She's done palliative care, which is a particularly interesting direct connection between us.

I didn't meet her in person.  I met her sangha and felt something of her that morning as she was elsewhere in the building caring for her illness.  Subtle movements and the occasional cough let me know she was there.

Reality is a bit more clear after my visit to Queensland Zen Centre.

Gassho.