Dear zen friends

1)        March Sesshin          03/08  to  03/12

           April Sesshin             04/12  to  04/16

2)  I expected this winter would be long. The first snow fell in October. Yet I did not think the weather would be hard like this. We experienced power outage many times. Having walked in town, gusty wind reminded me of walking on Mt. Washington.

There fell little snow first. Then snow has fallen continually little by little and it did not melt due to low temperatures. It is one foot deep around zendo now and looks to stay here for long.  Adjustments of daily activities must be made.

3)  We do not call words in civilization into question. We do not doubt about the power of language. Countless books and magazines have been published. We become exciting by reading novels and newspapers. Even internet is backed by computer languages and words are seen everywhere.

It is said that ancient civilizations began with writing systems. Many scholars believe historical events must be verified by written records. Many of them do not accept past events as historical facts if they were not recorded.

Now a prominent scholar says that there had been a civilization without records of languages in ancient times. You may imagine Mayan or Inca civilizations.

His view explains why Japan did not import Chinese writing system till 7th century. People knew Kanji for centuries before but did not accept it. In the meantime big monuments and beautiful relics had been made, which we can see.

He also said that by writing and reading, we have lost the ability of memorization. Memory and memorization is an important function of human life. Why don’t we use it?

In fact almost all people think knowledge is recorded and stored in websites. People rely on search engines. They do not need to memorize anything. It is obvious that modern minds are different from ones in civilizations without records.

Regards.

Eishin Ikeda

Valley Zendo