▶ Kyogen’s “Man up a Tree”: Teisho A PLUMBER IN THE EMERGENCY SUFFERING AND TSUNAMI: Teisho by Roshi Philip Kapleau DEPT.: Interview with Paul McCormick by Sensei Amala Wrightson SUMMER 2020 | VOLUME XLII, NUMBER TWO EDITOR Chris Pulleyn | [email protected] ZENBOW EDITORIAL CONSULTANT The mind of the Zen adept is taut—ready, like a drawn bow Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede | [email protected] COPY EDITOR Spring 2020 | VOLUME XLII, NUMBER TWO Cecily Fuhr | [email protected] AUDIO TRANSCRIPTIONIST The summer of our discontent. Re‐ 3 M SOUNDINGS Jennifer Kyker viewing the editor’s note in the Spring issue The coffee koan | Definition of ART DIRECTOR of Zen Bow, it seems like ancient history. paramita | Attention and the brain | Daryl Wakeley | [email protected] (Actually it is, as this issue has been so long PROOFREADER It’s okay to be not okay | Experiencing John Pulleyn in the making.) At that time, we were the Great Pause planning to dedicate this issue to climate CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS change and the steps we are taking, as an All readers are encouraged to submit essays and institution and as individuals, to reduce images at any time and on any topic related to Zen harm to our planet. While that is still an practice. Articles may be of any length. Suggestions SENSEI AMALA WRIGHTSON for articles and artwork also welcome, as are “found enormous subject—perhaps the subject— objects” such as quotations, haiku, and/or excerpts of our times, the pandemic and the explo‐ The tsunami of 2004 from articles in other publications. Submission guidelines may be found on the Zen Bow page of the sion of racist tragedies this spring and Disaster, destruction, and Center’s website: www.rzc.org/library/zen-bow. For summer have taken precedence. acceptance. ▶ 8 any and all questions and suggestions, please email Chris Pulleyn at [email protected]. The late Susan Sontag titled her best- known essay, “Illness as Metaphor.” The PAUL MCCORMICK, MD SUBSCRIBING TO ZEN BOW pandemic has become an apt metaphor for �e subscription rate below reflects current postage the state of our nation. It has illuminated the A plumber in the fees: 4 issues 8 issues best and worst of our government and our Emergency Department U.S.: $20.00 $40.00 medical system. It has highlighted the deep FOREIGN: $40.00 $80.00 How did I get here? Finding a path of divisions among our citizens as to what compassion. ▶ 14 Please send checks and your current address to: character and good behavior look like. It Zen Bow Subscriptions Desk has also revealed the shallowness of Rochester Zen Center ROUNDTABLE 7 Arnold Park American exceptionalism, when we Rochester, NY 14607 compare our pandemic response to that of Zooming Zen PLEASE NOTE: If you are moving, the Postal Service other countries. charges us for each piece of mail sent to your old In five or ten years, what will constitute Participants respond to our first address, whether you have left a forwarding online sesshin. ▶ 19 address or not. If you change your address, please “2020 hindsight”? Our hope is that the let us know as soon as possible. Send your address fevers and rages of this year will abate and corrections to the Zen Bow Subscriptions Desk at the above address or email [email protected]. we will have learned what it takes to be one ROSHI PHILIP KAPLEAU nation, indivisible, and compassionate. And COUNTLESS GOOD DEEDS for that, we all know that the best we can Koan commentary: If you’re thinking about financial planning, estate do is head back to the mat. May all beings Kyogen’s “Man up a tree” planning, or both, please remember that there are myriad ways you can help the RZC through planned attain Buddhahood.—Chris Pulleyn When saying a word of Zen can kill giving. �e right kind of plan can help you reduce you. ▶ 22 your taxes significantly while providing for a larger, longer-lasting gift to the Zen Center. Because there is a wide array of bequests, annuities, trusts, and other financial vehicles to consider, you’ll want to work with your financial advisor to decide what’s 26 M SIGHTINGS best for you. Long-time Zen Center member David Kernan, an attorney who concentrates his practice Book review | Anti-racism training | in tax law, has generously offered to help point you Movie review | New EV chargers in the right direction at no charge. For more information about planned giving and David’s offer, ONTHECOVER please contact the Center’s receptionist. IMAGE BY Barbara Regina Dietzsch | B. R. Dietzsch (German, 1706–1783) came from a family of artists (her father, brother, and sister were also COPYRIGHT ©2020 ROCHESTER ZEN CENTER painters), and specialized in gouache paintings of animals and plants. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN ZEN BOW ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS ALONE AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE ROCHESTER ZEN CENTER, ITS DIRECTORS, ITS A publication of the Rochester Zen Center GETTY MUSEUM TRUSTEES, ITS MEMBERS, OR ITS STAFF. 2 ZEN BOW SUM MER 2020 Summer 2020 Soundings THERE IS NO COFFEE how less than our IF YOU IMAGINED by the title that this own tribe. Or that would be an article about the no-thing na- anyone who is ture of coffee, forget it. �is is just an LGBTQ is a sinner anecdote about belief. �e coffee came or has an incurable along for the ride. illness. Such beliefs I occasionally do secular meditation re- are common; many treats. At one, it was mentioned that the millions of people breakfast cook would make coffee each hold these or simi- morning. I drink coffee regularly, so I lar mistaken be- looked forward to having a cup of joe. liefs. When such On the first morning, I went into the beliefs are perva- kitchen but found no coffee. �ere were sive, society itself cans of ground coffee, coffee filters, mea- can become com- suring spoons, drip coffee machines—all plicit in perpetuat- the necessary supplies—but no coffee to ing them, and the drink. So I drank tea. Later, I noticed taped to it: “Press lever down to dispense beliefs become built into social struc- someone using a pour-over device—it coffee.” �e world had provided the neces- tures, rules, and institutions. looks like a funnel that sits directly on sary information, but I had missed it! Amplified to tens of millions of people top of your coffee mug. I had never used My lack of experience and the limita- by the megaphones of mass media, such one before, so I watched carefully and de- tions of my senses had resulted in my de- wrong beliefs can congeal into the most cided to give it a try later. veloping a mistaken belief (that there obstructive misunderstandings—they �e next morning, I went to the was no coffee), which led me to change create false internal maps of reality, kitchen: again, no brewed coffee. Risking my thinking and actions, and which also which can persist for months, years, even a mess, I made a pour-over. It was great— led to other mistaken beliefs, such as lifetimes. Such beliefs can span even mil- I’d used about three times as much that the breakfast cook didn’t want to lennia and persist across civilizations, a ground coffee as necessary. bother making coffee. And once this be- collective dysfunction that, when left un- On the third morning, I went to the lief took root—that there was no questioned or unchallenged, powerfully kitchen early: again, no coffee. I decided coffee—it stayed. I didn’t need to do any- influences our group behavior. Such be- that this breakfast cook had no interest thing to reinforce it. Once there, it sim- liefs can motivate people to harm one an- at all in making coffee. I started a pour- ply remained. other with words and actions, and even over, and in the quiet stillness of waiting Isaac Newton’s first law of motion violence and war. for it to drip through, the breakfast cook states that objects at rest tend to stay at In my situation with the coffee, I no- walked into the kitchen, put his mug rest unless some force is applied to them; ticed that there was no intention involved into what looked like an empty drip- it seems there is also such a law for hu- in the development of the wrong belief, coffee machine, and pressed a lever. And, man thinking. Only the fortuitous arrival no conspiracy by the head cook or anyone voilà!, fresh brewed coffee filled his cup of the breakfast cook to fill his own else to get me to believe something and its aroma filled the room. I had coffee mug dislodged the fantasy of false—it just happened through circum- never seen a coffee machine like it—it “there is no coffee.” stance. Yet in everyday life, there are had no carafe, but dispensed the coffee I didn’t have to “figure out” anything powerful people and organizations trying directly into a cup. to let go of this particular belief, I didn’t to deceive people, working intentionally For three days my behavior had have to think my way out of it. �e world towards getting us to hold wrong beliefs. changed because of a tiny, mistaken belief revealed the mistake to me. Although Some do it because they themselves that there was no brewed coffee. How had trivial—no harm was done by this wrong are ignorant and are repeating their own this happened? belief—it illustrates how unquestioned false ideas.