{"id":469,"date":"2014-01-26T14:16:07","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T19:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=469"},"modified":"2014-01-26T14:16:07","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T19:16:07","slug":"korinji-monastery-dedicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"Korinji Monastery Dedicated"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"KorinjiArrival\"<\/a>By Meido Moore, Shinjinkai<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Bright, breezy autumn weather greeted attendees at a November 3rd ceremony dedicating the zendo of So’tekizan Korinzenji, \u201cPatriarch’s Target Mountain, Shining Forest Zen Temple,\u201d or Korinji for short.\u00a0 Korinji is a new Rinzai monastery near Madison, Wis.\u00a0 Zen priests, students and supporters from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Utah \u2013 including a number of Birankai Aikido teachers \u2013 gathered together to witness the event.<\/p>\n

The ceremony began at the newly constructed Korinji gate, which I was pleased to dedicate by sprinkling salt and water on its posts while reciting the hak’ku darani, the heart mantra from the Surangama sutra.\u00a0 Moving uphill to the zendo where guests were being \"birankai<\/a>seated, this continued within the building as the corners of each room were sprinkled in the same manner.\u00a0 Salt and water are purifying substances, while the purpose of the mantra is to liberate beings and remove negative forces.<\/p>\n

Following this the chanting portion of our ceremony began.\u00a0 The Heart Sutra was chanted by all, followed by several repetitions of the Great Compassion Dharani (Daihishu) and the Crisis-Averting Dharani (Shosaishu).\u00a0 Dedication was given first to Monju Bosatsu or Manjusri, the Bodhisattva often enshrined in places of meditation.\u00a0 Further dedication was then given to the attendees and their families, to all Korinji donors and volunteers, and to the many teachers \u2013 including Chiba Sensei \u2013 whose inspiration has been crucial to Korinji’s establishment.<\/p>\n

After this formal ceremony several individuals spoke to the group, commenting on the significance of founding a place of training in today’s world.\u00a0 Finally I gave a teisho (formal dharma talk).\u00a0 Since it is traditional that a poem be offered by a newly arriving abbot, I recited the following to mark the occasion of Korinji’s birth:<\/p>\n

A crow flies over this valley,<\/em><\/p>\n

white with frost.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dawn comes with flashing blade<\/em><\/p>\n

and a bowstring’s hum,<\/em><\/p>\n

thrusting through with her spear<\/em><\/p>\n

the poles of the spinning world.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is the goal of the Patriarchs?<\/em><\/p>\n

Gathering twigs for a fire,<\/em><\/p>\n

pulling in our chins<\/em><\/p>\n

against the cold.<\/em><\/p>\n

It could be said that here are several levels of meaning in these lines.\u00a0 Aside from a few references that might be familiar to Zen practitioners, those who have experience of Zen’s fruition might immediately grasp what is behind the words.<\/p>\n

A zaike tokudo (jukai) ceremony commenced soon after this, during which four students \"KorinjiCeremony\"<\/a>received lay Buddhist precepts and were given dharma names.\u00a0 With official activities ended guests stayed to enjoy tea, coffee and sweets.\u00a0 Everyone was invited to sign a flat piece of polished cedarwood which will be lacquered and then sealed within the zendo ceiling to commemorate the occasion.<\/p>\n

All in all it was an amazing day…and the culmination of quite a few years of work.\u00a0 The completion of this first structure marks the historic birth of a new Rinzai Zen monastery in the West.\u00a0 It is with gratitude and deep emotion that we reflect on all the circumstances which led to this.\u00a0 Especially, I am grateful to all the people whose life energy has been so freely given to this end.<\/p>\n

We invite everyone to help out as we continue to build Korinji (and hold our first short sesshin there this spring).\u00a0 More information can be found at www.korinji.org.\u00a0 A gallery with more images from the ceremony is here:\u00a0 http:\/\/korinji.smugmug.com\/KorinjiDedication<\/a><\/p>\n

– Meido Moore<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meido Moore, Shinjinkai Bright, breezy autumn weather greeted attendees at a November 3rd ceremony dedicating the zendo of So’tekizan Korinzenji, \u201cPatriarch’s Target Mountain, Shining Forest Zen Temple,\u201d or Korinji for short.\u00a0 Korinji is a new Rinzai monastery near Madison, Wis.\u00a0 Zen priests, students and supporters from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Utah \u2013 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Korinji Monastery Dedicated”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2RSKg-7z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":472,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}