Toko Kyudojo

Yesterday was moving day. Jim, working with Lucille, Charlie, Moira, Nancy and Mike, and schlepping by Kathryn, Toko moved into Garrison Institute for monthly practice. Next scheduled is 24 February but check the website for time and future dates.

This is one of the readings from Toko's Last Shot on 17 December at Shambhala NYC: Our practice is to meet life exactly as it is and to notice whatever fear, anger, or doubt gets in the way of direct intimate contact with the moment, bringing attention to that as well. Rather than changing something or seeking to get somewhere we imagine we should be, practice is about seeing clearly exactly how things really are and how we relate to them. Practice thus becomes an increasing intimacy with life just as it is, and there is nothing including the ideas that we should be getting something or somewhere that is unworthy of the clear, nonjudgmental attention we call meditation. On the Cushion by Douglas Phillips in Tricycle, Spring 2003

This is just a reminder: Monday, 17 December, Toko will be hosting "Last Shot" at Shambhala NYC on 22nd Street, our home for the last 20+ years. Except for monthly practice at Garrison, NY, we do not have a new regular home. Please join us by 6:15. Bring a memory and a dish or beverage to share. See you then.

Hello kyudo practitioners and friends, This note is to invite you to a closing. On Monday night December 17, 2018 we will close this chapter of Toko Kyudojo. It is not the first chapter and not the last certainly the longest so far. Our home, our space, on west 22nd street has been a container that has nourished almost everyone who reads this. Some more than others. Likely in some proportion to how often you showed up to one of the more than one thousand Monday nights that ...we have practiced there. The closing will be low key event. You do not need to bring anything. If you have a kake you could bring that. No uniforms or yumi or ya are needed. We will take a last shot in our street clothes as we meld back into a diaspora for a while. We will evoke the early days of Kyudo in American when groups shared whatever little bit of equipment was available. You practiced with what was there, not like today when our equipment is the right strength and fit with spares and lighter yumis at the ready. Please bring some food, perhaps something that is not often seen at Kyudo events, something good to drink, a musical instrument, a poem, a thought, a story, a photo. Mostly the idea is to show up one last time if you can. Shoot, do not shoot, celebrate this passing. A moment, before whatever comes next. We will meet at 6:00 to set up and open class at 6:30. If you are not a regular and you plan to join us please let us know you are coming: [email protected] If you might be coming from afar and need or want a place to sleep that night we may be able to help you, please let us know. If you cannot join us and wish to send /share a thought please do. Sincerely, Jim Boorstein

A reading from this week: In reply to the question ’What is the best that people can possess, what brings them truest happiness, and what is the sweetest of the sweet, and what is the pleasant life to live?’ the Buddha answered: ‘Trust is the best that people can possess; following the way brings happiness; truth is the sweetest of the sweet; and the practice of insight is the pleasantest way to live’. From: "The Sayings of the Buddha"

After a long time away, the (almost) weekly readings are back. "As it acts in the world the Tao is like the bending of the bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance, It takes from what is too much and gives to what is not enough." #77

This past Monday's Reading is from "Cave in the Storm" the biography of Tenzin Palmo by Vicki Mackenzie "Mindfulness can be interpreted in two ways... Concentration, which is narrow and laser-like, or awareness which is more panoramic. One could take as an example listening to music. If one is really listening to music it is as if one is absorbed into the music. As the poet T.S. Eliot put it, 'Music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts.' That is concentration. But to know one is absorbed in the music is awareness. Do you see the difference? When we are aware, we are mindful not only of what we are doing but the feelings, the emotions that are arising, and what's happening around us as well."

Reading from Monday night: As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of the bow. The top is bent downward;... the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and gives to what isn't enough. See more

This week's reading is on meditation and is from Dr. T.D. Suzuki: "While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in daily life. The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. Do not think about anything. Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. Then eventually you will resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself."

Toko Kyudojo - Japanese Zen Archery Last night's Reading: "Many things happen as you sit. You may hear the sound of the stream. You may think of something, but your mind doesn't care. Your great mind is just there sitting. Even when you are not aware of seeing, hearing, or thinking, something is going on in big mind. We observe things. Without saying 'good' or 'bad', we just sit.We enjoy things but have no special attachment to them. We have full appreciation of them at this time, that's all... that is the way we practice zazen." "Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness", Shunryu Susuki

Taken at our 2018 Garrison Intensive Program.