Editorial
The theme for this Spring edition is ‘Seeing things as they are’, with Ekai Osho’s striking Teisho talk, ‘The Tathagatā’, painting a beautiful picture about Buddha’s activity. This is so aptly and eloquently complemented by Azhar Abidi’s ‘What I think of Zen’ and Roderick Marsh’s ‘Tōzan’s Question’.
From Ekai Osho’s comings and goings and the 30 June Bansan to mark the end of our 2013 Practice Period, the continuation of IBS courses, One Day Workshops and Half Day Sesshin, to the Membership restructure and, finally, the AGM with its newly elected Management Committee–all of this and more is reflected in this Myoju.
The exciting development in recent months appears under the Abbot’s News: ‘The Abbot’s Serious Project ’with which the groundwork for Jikishoan’s vision to have its own home temple has been laid. In our quest to see things as they are, we learn how to walk the Buddha Way in our lives. In Genjō Kōan, Dogen Zenji says: Whether we are caught up in the dust of the world or have removed ourselves from it, we are involved with many doings, yet we only realize what our eyes can see through practicing meditation and studying the Way… But it is not only as if It were just on all sides. You must realize that It is what is beneath your very feet and within every drop of water. (—Shobogenzo, Shasta Abbey Press)
A member recently told me that she reads every Myoju from beginning to end–and then always comes back to it to re-read and absorb. This spring issue contains the comings and goings, the self-expressions by members and students. Please enjoy.
Christine Maingard
On behalf of Ekai Korematsu, Editor and Jikishoan Publication Committee
