Saturday, April 4th @ 10:00 am
Dharma Talk: On the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi
While we unfortunately had to cancel the 3-day Study Sesshin with Rev. Chiho Bryan Clark, we are pleased to be able to offer a Saturday Morning Dharma Talk in AZC’s newly formed Online Zendo.
“Though the basis is reached and the approach comprehended, true eternity still flows.”
— Dòngshān Liángjiè (Jp: Tozan Ryokai)
The Jewel Mirror Samadhi is grappling with some pretty challenging questions about the nature of reality and our awakening to it: that enlightened reality is always perfectly flowing, without any effort or input on our part. And yet, we still have to practice. We still have to attain ‘Yi’s archer’s skill’ even though, in the end, what that skill is pointing to is impossibly beyond our ability to comprehend or articulate. Through meditation, dharma talks, and class discussion, we will explore Dongshan’s poetic assurance that living the mystery of a human life, rather than solving it, is fulfilling our purpose in the universe.
Rev. Chiho Bryan Clark’s Dharma Talk is celebrating the famous 9th century Chinese poem Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, composed by Zen Ancestor (and founder of the Caodong School of Zen) Dongshan Liangjie.
Rev. Chiho Bryan Clark graduated from UC Berkeley in 2003 and moved to Green Dragon Temple/Green Gulch Farm three weeks later. After some years at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, he moved back to GGF to train as a priest with Tenshin Reb Anderson, with whom he ordained in 2010. After completing several years of training there, he moved to City Center in November 2018 where he is currently living out his dreams in the accounting office. Bryan’s interests include the Chinese masters of the Soto Zen tradition as well as the 13th century Japanese philosopher-monk Dogen Zenji, and the relationship between the unavoidable perfection of reality and our human capacity to find fault in anything.