Clear Water Zendo (Vallejo Zen Center)

Clear Water Zendo (Vallejo Zen Center) Clear Water is the name of the Zendo at the Vallejo Zen Center. It is a Soto Zen Buddhist Temple in We are a lay sangha and most of us work in the world.

Donations: https://tinyurl.com/h6f3mny

About VZC

Clear Water is the name of the Zendo at the Vallejo Zen Center. It is a Soto Zen Buddhist Temple in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and the San Francisco and Berkeley Zen Centers. The center offers regular meditation, meditation instruction, classes, one-day sittings, work practice, lectures and special workshops. A few of us are retired. Th

ere are a few staff positions but all of them are volunteer. We do pay our Abbess a stipend. Everyone in the sangha helps to take care of Clear Water because it belongs to us and in taking such care, we care for one another as well. The name of the zendo, Clear Water, Comes from a poem by Zen Master Dogen, “The Point of Zazen.”

Realization, neither general nor particular,
is effort without desire. Clear water all the way to the bottom;
a fish swims like a fish. Vast sky transparent throughout;
a bird flies like a bird. The purpose of the zendo is to offer a place for us to practice clarity together, a place to sit down, quiet our minds and pay attention. Compassion grows from this. What else is there? The priest at Clear Water, Mary Mocine, was trained at San Francisco and Berkeley Zen Centers, including four years at Tassajara Zen Monastery. She was ordained in 1994 by Sojun Mel Weitsman, former Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center and continuing Abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. Reverend Mocine has also trained with Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman and former Abbots Zoketsu Norman Fischer and Tenshin Reb Anderson of the San Francisco Zen Center. She received dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in May 2005.

01/20/2024

Dear friends,

As you probably know, Clear Water Zendo and I are cutting way back on our activities. This means our large library needs to find a new home. Most of the books are now available. They are free unless you’d care to make a donation. There are modern books by Suzuki Roshi, Joko Beck, Shohaku Okumura, Uchiyama Roshi, Robert Aitken, Katagiri Roshi, Pema Chodren, Stephen Mitchell, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield et al. There are also translations of older texts by Dogen, Hongshi, Keizan, Vasubandu, Nagarjuna, and many sutras from Buddhas time as well as the Lotus Sutra and the Platform Sutra. And lots more. Let me know if you want to come by and look. Tell your friends. Use email to [email protected] or text at my cell (707) 853-6458.

12/07/2023

I’m stepping down as abbot at Clear Water Zendo on December 16. I’m grieving the end, anxious about the future, excited to see what comes next, thrilled at the prospect of not having to get up before dawn anymore, looking forward to traveling in the southwest, seeing friends more and getting in better shape.

Yvonne Rand used to talk about using the Braille method…feeling your way along. Sounds about right.

12/07/2023

I will step down as abbot at Ckear Water on Saturday, December 16 at 3pm. A group of senior students, mostly lay transmitted, will be leading Clear Water after that. I will be designated the Founding Teacher. We are in process of finding out what this means. Simply put—-I’ll be 80 in February and something has to give.

I will continue to be available to them and to my regular students. I’m will continue to be available to lecture in person or by Zoom to sanghas in the US or wherever. I will not be available to organize anything nor to get up before 6a.m. I may offer a study group this coming spring or summer.

The leadership group will continue to offer morning zazen on weekdays. They may offer a longer sitting or participate in a study group. M

We are feeling our way along. Please wish us well as we find our new paths.

08/03/2023

This last was the very best Jazz Concert party we ever had! Great Nick Phillips Music and lots of people for a great audience! The set-up was really well done and we had a great problem-we almost ran out of seats. Food and drink were fine as well and the weather was perfect.

It was bittersweet for me, knowing it was our last one. Irritating too as it came together pretty easily. As if, with this last one we finally learned how to do it. Oh well. It was a great party!

08/02/2023

From last Saturday's Jazz Party in the Garden at the Zen Center.

07/07/2023

Sometimes we need to say “No.” Being useful for all beings must include me. I am in the process of largely retiring by the end of this year. Clear Water will likely change to a Sitting Group led by a lay transmitted teacher in a nearby town. We’re feeling our way along. It’s bittersweet doing things like Buddha’s Birthday or our annual Jazz concert for the last time.

I found myself singing an old song last month, from Oklahoma! The first line is “I’m just a girl who can’t say no; I’m in a turrible fix!” I wondered why it came up. I slept on it and then realized that I’m saying no and it’s not easy. And it’s time. And it’s exciting.

Save the date for our Jazz In The Garden party: July 29th.
06/21/2023

Save the date for our Jazz In The Garden party: July 29th.

06/21/2023

Things as they are

I was reading something about Zen and there was a mention of nonconceptual understanding, or “Things as they are.” I think I kind of get things as they are, but I am not sure I can explain it. Maybe it is better to give an example than try to explain it. My dog Louie is a small poodle mix. He is cute and obnoxiously friendly, and everyone in the neighborhood likes him. Most of the neighborhood dogs like him too. Louie is popular.

At home, Louie often barks at nothing. I take him out and show him that there is nothing there, but he still wants to bark. Sometimes I wonder if he knows more than I do, or can sense things I can’t, but his barking is very annoying, especially when it starts suddenly. I know Louie’s barking shouldn’t get to me (and my wife), but it is hard to relax during his outbursts. Sometimes, however, I think or even feel more than think, that this is Louie. Louie as he is. I can try to change him, but nothing seems to help. Is letting Louie be Louie nonconceptual understanding?

Like lots of people, we got our dog during Covid. He was in a shelter less than 24 hours when I picked him up, but we wonder if the 10 months he spent with his previous owners led to some of his behaviors, like never jumping up on furniture (we have to pick him up), and preferring my wife despite the fact that I feed him, walk him, and take him to the park, etc. Maybe Louie came with some baggage. Maybe not. Maybe this is not about Louie, but is about me. Maybe I need to relax and just see Louie as he is, a cute, friendly dog who likes to bark. Lots of dogs in my neighborhood bark. Do their owners fret about their barking? Or do they say like Osgood in Some Like It Hot, “Well, nobody’s perfect!” Enough about Louie.

By Zach Berkowitz, Senior Student

06/09/2023

Indicted! 7 counts! Including violation of Espionage Act! Sorry if it upsets you that I’m pleased by Trump being indicted.
It seems to me that a bodhisattva should not take joy in the suffering of another. And it is all right to take pleasure in the functioning of our democratic system as it protects our system and our lives.
And, it’s true that I take pleasure in it. I confess. I’m not proud of my schadenfreude. The best I can do right now is to acknowledge it.

06/06/2023

This spring at the Vallejo Zen Center we studied the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts. When I first came to Zen practice I don't think that I gave the precepts that much thought. We started having Full Moon Ceremonies about 20 years ago. A ceremony of reflection and repentance, where we renew our vows to follow the precepts to the best of our understanding and ability. I did not participate early on. I wasn’t comfortable looking at all those issues and then confessing all my shortcomings. I was very self protective. It felt painful. And it’s easy to take something for granted if we tell ourselves that it seems kind of obvious. “Well, of course I’m not going to kill or steal or lie and so on.”

The emphasis on zazen is one of the things that first drew me to practice. “I can do that," I thought. In the Genjo Koan Dogen said “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the ten thousand things.” I think I wanted to jump right to the "forget the self" part and try to bypass the whole studying the self thing. That seemed too painful. Over the years I’ve learned that there are no shortcuts. No jumping over anything. The precepts are a way to study the self. And they can be challenging.

As I’ve gotten older, and I’ve started to feel like the most important thing that I can do is to cultivate more kindness, I can see how that’s part of what the precepts are about.

Studying the precepts can help us see where we’re attaching and where we’re pushing away in our day to day relationships. They are “Inexhaustible mindfulness practices” as Norman Fischer has said. And they help us to see our self protecting habitual patterns and the effect they have in our lives. We need meditation practice to get to know our patterns. Working with precepts can help us see areas that might need more attention. We need both. They complete each other.

Precepts are not handed down from on high. They’re not commandments. They help us to see ourselves. It’s not like anyone’s going to punish us if we don’t follow them. But we might not feel so good. And we might cause ourselves and the people around us an unnecessary amount of grief.

Liam Morrissey, Senior Student

06/02/2023

We just sewed for three days here at Clear Water Zendo (Vallejo Zen Center). Three folks are sewing green rakusus as I plan to give them lay transmission. Two others are sewing blue rakusus. Tim Wicks, Sewing Teacher at SF Zen Center, came and helped us. We sat to begin and end each day. Mostly we sewed. Quiet and intense and full of joy. I even got a chance to repair the okesa I inherited from my teacher, Sojun Roshi. The entire time felt settled and full of sweet intention. Tim and I each gave a talk, focusing on Zenkei Blanche Hartman, our sewing teacher. The talks will stop on be posted on our website. Another joy, to remember her!

Address

607 Branciforte Street
Vallejo, CA
94590

Telephone

+17076492480

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Clear Water Zendo (Vallejo Zen Center) posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Place Of Worship

Send a message to Clear Water Zendo (Vallejo Zen Center):

Shortcuts

Share

Category