CONTENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS

Spring Zazen-Kai with Eshin April 2005

Annual General Meeting June 2005, date to be announced. Please note that an ammendment to the constitution will be voted on at that meeting. The ammendment will allow board members to serve for more than two years, as needed. See minutes of the last annual general meeting.

ARTICLES

Disclaimer: all views expressed here are the responsibility of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the society or its directors.

Web Picks

Writings of a Western Roshi

The Perils of Religion

CONTACT THE BOARD

Edward

Jim (away September 2004 to May 2005)

John (assistant to the treasurer)

Judith (Newsletter editor)

Ken (Treasurer)

Larry (President)

THE NEWS

from the editor: Judith Johnson

The spring zazen-kai with Eshin has been scheduled for April 23rd and 24th, please let Judith know if you plan to attend. As usual there will be a 7:30 p.m. Friday night event open to the public. Both the Zazen-kai and the Friday night event will take place at Willows Hall. A poster is available, please print and distribute this in your community.

The Zen group has been maintainingTuesday night zazen and twice yearly two day zazen-kai in spite of low numbers at times. Although our core group is small (8-10 people) there is a clear committment to ongoing practice, and the group has evolved, sharpening practice after each zazen-kai. We need more people to train for jikijitsu and shoji positions, so it is encouraging that Gerry has commited to take the jiki role in 2005, and has already helped out as shoji this year.

Ken completed a second combined zen and yoga retreat at Dhanakosa, Scotland, before returning to Prince George. Ken and Kinnie resumed zen group attendence in January, welcome back.

The zen group is affiliated with the Zen center of Vancouver. The first member of that center to ordain as a lay nun or monk was Corinne. Her Tokudo Shiki (ordination) was on Saturday January 8. Corinne has an interest in ikebana as a Zen art. Her Buddhist name is Myorei. Most members of the Vancouver Zen Centre and Mrs Sumi's Ikebana school attended. Here ia a picture of Myorei. More pictures may be viewed at http://www.zen.ca/myoreitokudoshiki.html.

Myorei's example inspired members of the Zen group to investigate the concept of lay ordination. A person interested in lay ordination needs to regularly assist at at their local sangha, attend zazen-kai and sesshin, work with a teacher, and eventually be ready to assist others with practice (teaching at a certain level.) This is different from practice as an unsui (nun or monk) at a training center. The lay person can keep meeting their family obligations while still making a serious commitment to give time and effort to zen practice.

A one day Vipassana retreat was held at St. Michael and all Angels Anglican church, this was followed by the two day Vipassana retreat with Adrianne Ross. More than 40 people started the 2 day retreat, including 15 people who had never sat before. Thirty six people completed both days of the retreat.

Carlo delivered a box of free copies of the book Venerable Acariya Mun Bhuridatta Thera: a spiritual biography by Acariya Maha Boowa Nanasampanno. These books are at Willows hall on top of the library cupboard. This is the story of a Thai monk (Theravadin tradition.) Anyone who is interested may help themselves to a copy.

Mary gathered information for us about "Jizos for Peace." This project is an initiative by the community of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The project's goal is to gather 270,000 Jizo images drawn or stamped on cloth to take to those cities in August 2005, one for every person killed in the bombing. Information about Jizo, news about the project and directions on how you can make Jizo images to donate to the project can be found at the Jizos for peace website.

Our updated brochure is now available in PDF format on the "about" page of our website at http://www.bmsnbc.com/about.htm Please feel free to print and distribute it as appropriate.

It's great to get contributions to this newsletter; please free to submit! Photographs, write ups of events, your art or poetry etc. are welcome.

We seem to have lost almost all of our black support cushions. If anyone knows where they are, please help us get them back.

thanks

Judith

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