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| Desert Zen Center - Chùa Thiên Ân |
| a Zen Buddhist temple dedicated to teaching meditation to everyone |
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10 a.m.
Meditation
Dharma Talk
Chanting
August
5 - Roshi
12 - Su Co Tam Huong
19 - Su Co Tam Huong
26 - Roshi
Service is followed by fellowship and light refreshments
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Can't make Sunday Service?
Visit the Dharma Talk Archive at DesertZenCenter.org
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Meditation & Dharma Class
Thursday Nights
7 p.m.
We continue to enjoy a great class series focusing on Achaan Chah's A Still Forest Pool (online link to the book on our website or simply click http://tinyurl.com/stillforestthanks to our friends at dhammatalks.net). Please join us. |
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Photo by Eric Reed
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Everything changes...
August 11 - Canceled Temple Work Day 18 - a.m. Pederson Moving Day* 5 p.m.-? Mala Making Workshop September
8 - Day at the Temple
9 - Roshi Traveling (Vulan)
16 - Vu Lan Celebrated at DZC October
12-14 - Sesshin / Retreat
November
2 - Renunciation Day (Anniversary of the day Avalokitesvara took Bodhisattva Precepts)
10 - Special Bodhisattva Day at the Temple & Ceremony Giving Bodhisattva Precepts
December
7-9 - Bodhi Day Sesshin/Retreat
8 - Bodhi Day (Buddha's Enlightenment)
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Sangha Bulletin Board
What we're up to
(never mind the grammar!)
August 18th Moving Day
Katie and Richard Pederson's family move to a new house (west Apple Valley area) on the morning of Saturday, August 18th. Cheer them on and help make it happen! Contact Katie
(760) 948-8085
for details & to volunteer
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August Work at Temple
We've noticed it's hot... humid... and hot.
The horses next door are wilting,
and our neighbors to the west seem to be farming dust.
So, we're pre-emptively canceling August Temple Work Day
(enjoy your second Saturday of the month!).
However,
Vu Lan, a major holiday, is approaching, & Su Co would be
thrilled to have help in preparation -
Please call to arrange your fun. Cool drinks will be provided!
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Mala Workshop -
August 18th, 5 p.m. until ??
By popular request and at a later time (hoping to mitigate the heat!), we'll be holding another Mala-making Workshop on Saturday, August 18th.
Bring special projects (including malas to repair) or beads/materials to share. We will have beads & materials available: some for free, some at cost.
Also available, beautiful new malas from Jorge Infante, who will join us for the workshop and try, yet again, to teach Su Co how to make a sliding knot.
Tea and snacks provided (also iced beverages with more ice).
Join us!
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Just a small note to let you know VenerableThích Ân Giáo Roshi
is scheduled to have corrective eye surgery
on Thursday, August 9th,
and will be taking time off / taking it very easy for the next two weeks.
We will keep you apprised of his condition via email &
will let you know when he can have visitors.
Until then, please call Su Co at 818/535-7286 with any urgencies.
Apparently, he won't even want to open his eyes for several days...
And his surgeon promises that he will have startlingly blood red eyes in
the week(s) following the operation. 
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Vu Lan
 Vu Lan is the Vietnamese name for one of the most important Buddhist holidays, known in Sanskrit as Ullambana (Japanese Obon). According to the Buddhist lunar calendar, this falls on the 15th night of the 7th month (so it changes every year), occurring on August 31st, 2012. At DZC, we will be celebrating on Sunday, September 16th. The holiday is actually observed throughout July/August/September.
In part, this is due to cultural/calendar differences, but it is also a socially practical option, so that monks and laypeople may attend ceremonies at their home temple(s) as well as visit with friends. Roshi will be traveling to various temples during the upcoming months, participating in their observances.
The holiday is based upon a sutra wherein one of the Buddha's Disciples, Mahāmaudgalyāyana, became deeply concerned that his mother (not a very nice nor a good woman) had been reborn into suffering and asked the Buddha how he might help her. The ceremony developed from this story is celebrated every year in honor of our ancestors, in remembrance of family and friends who have passed, and in deepest appreciation of our mothers (whether living or dead).
In most of the world, this holiday falls at the end of the summer training period for the monks and is the occasion of a great memorial service for all who have passed away during the year. Because many monks and nuns are gathered together for the purpose of training, it is considered an auspicious time for the memorial service to take place. This is also a time when families visit the gravesites of relatives, set food out on their home shrines for ancestors, and ask the monks to remember their ancestors at the temple with a special service.
Because this is the end of the Rains Training period (Vietnamese An Cu) for monks and nuns, a Puja (ceremony for the giving of Dana) is performed by the lay members of the temple. Monks receive packages containing such things as soap, toothpaste and tooth brush, razors, writing pens, towels and wash cloths and material for the making of robes and the special pant-shirt/pajama outfit worn under their robes.
At DZC, Vu Lan begins the three month Rains Season Training period, when we seek to intensify and focus our practice.
(But more on this subject in September newsletter!)
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 Koi Pond Rennovation
Our old pond liner began to leak just as July hotted up, so Florence Mayce, Tyler King and Su Co held a small moving day for the koi and goldfish.
Our new pond is a different, interesting shape, although it currently lacks an abundance of delightful samsara muck
(since relocated to the flower beds). The fish and lotus plants seem to be setting in quite happily. Drop by and say hello on your way to enlightenment.
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All I teach is Loving Kindness...
-- Thây Thích Minh Nhat
There is an organization in my area that works with young men to help them in their relationships with others. Outside their building is a sign that says, "To have Peace and Happiness in your life you must learn to forgive."
Forgiveness is something that we don't talk about much. Yet, if we are to practice Loving Kindness, it has to be there. Forgiveness is really about learning to let go. Without Forgiveness, we are attached to something just like a chain to an anchor. Sometimes, we find that we can forgive others -- sometimes with ease, sometimes with difficulty -- but the hardest one to forgive is ourselves. As a prison chaplain, I run into this all of the time with those inmates with whom I have contact. I often think on the killer Angulimala, who became a monk Disciple of the Buddha. When he asked for the Buddha's forgiveness, the Buddha said he had to learn to forgive himself. Gandhi said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." And, in truth, whether we seek Forgiveness or seek to Forgive, that is when we become aware -- we discover -- that "sorry" is not enough and we actually have to change. Always remember, Forgiving is not forgetting, but letting go of the pain.
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Leaping into the next step...
Two Great Masters stepped off the wheel in June.
Very Venerable Ni Sư Thích Minh Chau (Fern Shin Getsu Myosen McGuire)
and Thương Tọa Thích Minh Tri (Ken Hogaku Sho McGuire)
died suddenly, within days of each other. 
Both Ken Roshi and Fern Roshi ordained within the Japanese Soto Zen lineage of
Soyo Matsuoka Roshi, and followed the way of the Zen Priest for many, many years.
Their attainment was recognized by The Most Venerable Thích Ân Giáo Roshi in a Transmission of the Light Ceremony in December 2010, which welcomed them into the Vietnamese Lam Te Thien tradition.
They were greatly beloved, each and both: Great Masters, truly great people.
We read the obituaries:
The days pass into months and we miss them, hearing a silence that echoes all the way from New Mexico. We hold them in our thoughts, in our hearts... and we let them go in the echo of Fern Roshi's Vajra question. "Will it help my Zazen?"
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