Green Buddhism Talk, December 11

This is an opportunity not to be missed!

Our Appalachian Zen House Founder, Steve Kanji Ruhl will be sharing his years of study and experience of Green Buddhism in the Appalachian Zen House's Green Appalachia Program and Ahimsa Village's Sustainability Series.

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On zazen being not optional...

I gasp at the chill air hitting my lungs, my cheeks, as I emerge through the low door of the yurt. At my feet black walnut casings have been mounded by a frantic squirrel on grass now crisply whitened. Early morning sun softens a pale valley sky, the rooster crows. I stop under the maple tree to marvel at fallen leaves, edges and veins of brilliant red fingers most delicately frosted with sparkling white.

Inside the farmhouse cast-in-iron moose, lumberjacks, hemlock tree, fox and flying geese radiate soft warmth. Through the crack in the wood stove red flames glimmer on the moose’s shoulder. The sounding of the singing bowl fades through my body in long resonating curves. Crows caw alternating with a distant rooster. Cat licks my fingers. Lightness in, releasing outwards of nothing. The morning being breathed…

Navigating Abundance, November 15

This contemplative journey is part of our developing Green Appalachia Eco-Tours project, promoting mindful awareness of the natural world in this time of environmental crisis.

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Here is an opportunity to take another brief journey of awakening. (A description of our earlier one at Black Moshannon State Park is in the previous blog.)

We will gather in a box store's eatery taking with us no money, cell phones, or ipods. After an introduction and guidance on "Not Knowing and Bearing Witness" we will spend time in the store opening our awareness and experiencing directly our own responses to what attracts us. We let go of all thoughts of purchasing anything for ourselves as this would interfere with our direct seeing.

We will then reassemble to share our experiences with each other and start to shape any personal action that may arise from this time. I did this journey last night and was very surprised by what I encountered!

After Sunday I recommend viewing the video http://www.storyofstuff.com/ to see another view on the issue of consumption, and to add to processing of your experience. If you have already seen this video, please put memory of its presentation aside during your journey of discovery at the box store.

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Black Moshannon Whole Earth Body/Mind Encounter, October 25, 2009

This contemplative hike is part of our developing Green Appalachia Eco-Tours project, promoting mindful awareness of the natural world in this time of environmental crisis.

We start around a campfire at Ahimsa Village on a cool morning. Sitting feeling earth holding us, sky opening above, forest around, and, with alert, soft, wide-open senses, the sounds, smells, and air on our skin. A few more sense- and awareness-opening activities and we were away to Black Moshannon State Park. “Moose Creek” it means, and black from the tannin colored waters, or perhaps the darkness underneath the dense foliage of original hemlocks and white pines lumbered long ago, then devastated by fire.

The trail. Using a soft-focused seeing that brings the world dynamically alive and fresh, we walk on a narrow trail in a small pretty valley. It lies between ancient mountains reputed to be higher than the Himalayas once, but now worn way down. The route is undoubtedly an old Native American trail.

A full stream flows with assurance, black with tannins, slightly flooded, and with shining fast moving bubbles. It is edged with rhododendrons whose trunks bow, then reach, in vivid rhythmic curves seeking light beneath second growth of hemlocks, oak and birch. Fallen leaves and toadstools dot luminous green moss. Original growth has left an occasional large, colorful, and slow-rotting stump.

Being still. We come upon a pool in which bubbles break forth from a white sand bottom, a natural spring that rushes through mossy rocks to the creek. There are strangely no mayfly or even caddisfly larvae under the rocks, but the water temperature does feel warmer than the main creek. Here we go to separate places that call us, and sit waiting for the landscape, the families of trees, the fold of the mountains, the sky, to accept us, before investigated our space with each of our senses. Returning we share our perceptions, many in common. The moving threads of shining fine cobwebs in the breeze; the complex and beautiful spreading of plant life arrayed in deference to the sun, each in its own delicate form accommodating each other; bird song…

A steady hike getting to know each other, looking for animal, insect and bird life, noting the scents, and sounds, brings us to a large rock gently sloping to the stream. It is a perfect spot for sharing a lunch of eggs, homemade bread and apples in the sun. We share information too on how ecosystems, trees, and birds, support, protect and feed each other in the natural cycles.

Then onward, quietly, using the Native American silent fox walk, now through more recent forest as indicated by many young pine trees. It is Sunday when hunting is banded. But still the shots ring out. We blow a shrill whistle and they cease, at least for a while.

Expressing stillness. Again we find separated spaces. This time, on the theme “all is one,” we draw, photograph and write our connection. (How could we do otherwise?) The sun is low and reflecting very brightly. A shape depicted by several of us is a horizontal circle with a growing form emerging from the center.

weeds sparkle,

river sparkles,

leaves sparkle,

the bare twigs shine,

giving back

the one light enfolding.

On our way back we stop to investigate a recent beaver dam. The leaves are still green on the woven branches and teeth marks are evident on nearby, nipped-off shrubs. A beaver slide traverses the slope to the still, reflecting water, but no animals appear as we wait silently. A beautiful walking stick, stripped of bark and marked all over with beaver teeth presents itself lying across the dam however.

We end around a small fire with a sage smudging to enhance and transform our energies, and a circle of appreciation for the rich and beautiful day together. We honor the elements of earth, air, fire, and water; those who had gone before (including the Civilian Conservation Corps that, during the Depression, replanted the forest we now see); and those who come after us to take up the consequences of how we live our lives. We vow that such wilderness experience will be available to our great-grandchildren.

Dedication. Later, sadly, we learned that the day before our hike, a young woman out hunting had been killed by being shot in the chest in Black Moshannon Forest Park. She was apparently the primary witness in a pending rape trial. We offer our deepest sympathies to her family and community and to all those whose lives have been thus broken.

May all beings in distress experience the healing power of our interconnection (as we did in wilderness that day) to bring peace and gratitude into all the activities of our lives!

Please join us on our next mindful awareness Green Appalachia hike! It may well be to the shopping mall. Phone 610 833 8027 if you are interested.

AZH leaders "fascinate" at an ecumenical conference on climate change

In Pennsylvania's Centre Daily Times October, 31, 2009 Rev. Thomazine Shanahan writes in the

Clergy Column

““Protecting the planet and all of life is a transcendent responsibility—for both the scientists who study it and those of religious faith who are able to express its spiritual importance.”— E.O. Wilson, Harvard biologist and naturalist.

 
Earlier this month, at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on Penn State’s campus, the university’s Rock Ethics Institute acted as a bridge between the communities of science and faith as it sponsored a two-day free-to-the-public conference on “Stewardship or Sacrifice?: Religion and the Ethics of Climate Change.”

...The two days overflowed with fascinating participants. Zen Buddhists talked about the interconnectedness of all things. So did the climate scientist who described global impacts of climate change. One panel session featured Pennsylvania churches and synagogues responding to climate change: local initiatives, international ethical dimensions. Workshops concentrated on practical responses...."

Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/479/story/1601194.html#ixzz0ViciaSyp

Sustaining Our Integrity: Waking Up and Being Real with Rosalind Jiko

Does the world situation get you down??? This month's talk will feature ways to transform this feeling. Details and flyer above. Click on flyer to make larger.

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APPALACHIAN ZEN HOUSE: SOCIALLY ENGAGED BUDDHIST PROGRAMS ARE FLOURISHING AS FALL BEGINS

“Engaku” is the Japanese Buddhist term for a deluded practice of “pursuing self-enlightenment while ignoring the cries of suffering in the world.” At Appalachian Zen House we do not practice engaku. Inspired by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and other founders of socially engaged Buddhism, a worldwide movement endorsed by the Dalai Lama, at Appalachian Zen House we enact the Bodhisattva Vow to free all beings from suffering by regularly getting off of our meditation cushions and working to realize enlightenment by serving those who are hurt and in need.

In the past several weeks, in keeping with our mission to heal the earth and to serve those who are underserved here in our home of rural Pennsylvania, we have been very busy:

* Following our successful “Earth Education” summer camps at Ahimsa Village for low-income kids, led by Kelle Kersten and Jiko McIntosh, our Green Appalachia programs now enter a new phase as autumn begins. The committee for “Bald Eagle Bio-Fuels,” coordinated by Bob Flatley, met recently and Kim Bytheway offered a building in Julian for use as a project site; we plan to soon begin a pilot project converting several home heating oil tanks in Bald Eagle Valley from fossil fuel to bio-fuels, which we’ll purchase from regional sources.

Also, our “No Harm Farm” initiative at Ahimsa Village – starting a community-sustained agriculture project that will teach low-income people to grow organic food, and donate surplus to needy people in our area – will move forward in early November as we do work outdoors to build fences and prepare the soil.

And our Green Appalachia Eco-Tours project, promoting mindful awareness of the natural world in this time of environmental crisis, is now underway. Recently Jiko led a meditative day hike in Black Moshannon.

* Through our membership in the State College Area Interfaith Mission, we Buddhists of the Appalachian Zen House also join with our Christian and Jewish colleagues in providing underserved people in Centre County with rental assistance, blankets, free recycled furniture, fuel assistance, and – if they’re homeless – temporary emergency shelter.

Through our membership in the Creation Care Coalition of Centre County – part of the national organization Interfaith Power and Light – we work with our Christian and Jewish neighbors in addressing global warming and climate change through programs with our local congregations. In early October, Steve Kanji Ruhl and Jiko were the only members of Buddhist clergy to participate in a two-day, statewide, predominantly Christian conference at Penn State called “Religion and the Ethics of

Climate Change,” where they provided the conference with a Zen Buddhist perspective and distributed literature on Appalachian Zen House, the School of Living, and Ahimsa Village.

Incidentally, Kanji will offer a presentation on “Green Buddhism” as part of the Ahimsa Village Sustainability Talks series on December 11 – please watch for further details.

* The Floating Lotus Zendo of Appalachian Zen House continues to offer genuine, formally authorized Zen training in the renowned Japanese lineage of Maezumi-Yasatani-Harada, providing zazen and kinhin, dharma talks, private interviews, council circles, and pastoral care and counseling to a growing sangha.

* And finally, our “Speak Your Peace” program, coordinated by Sunny Rehler, commenced on Sunday, November 1, from 2:30-5:30 with an interactive workshop called “Getting Past ‘Us Versus Them’: How Conflict Resolution Techniques Have Worked in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” facilitated by Kristen Lokhan and Jessica Arends at the Friends Meeting House in State College, PA.

Please see our website at www.appalachianzenhouse.org for ongoing information about our programs at Ahimsa Village and elsewhere. You also may read about us in recent and current issues of magazines such as “Tricycle: The Buddhist Review,” “Buddhadharma,” and ”EnlightenNext.”

We are a registered non-profit corporation in Pennsylvania and gratefully welcome your financial support of our valuable work in taking Buddhist practice beyond the self-centeredness of engaku. Please send checks made out to Appalachian Zen House to Steve Kanji Ruhl, 198 Terra Vista Street, Howard, PA 16841. Many thanks.