Upper Valley Zen Center
  • About Us
  • Schedule
  • Contact/Find Us
  • Intro to Zen
  • Donate
  • COMMENTARY
  • Guiding Principles
  • Family Zen
  • CHANTS
  • Morning Protocol
  • Study Texts
  • Legal Documents
  • Retreats
  • Seichu
  • About Us
  • Schedule
  • Contact/Find Us
  • Intro to Zen
  • Donate
  • COMMENTARY
  • Guiding Principles
  • Family Zen
  • CHANTS
  • Morning Protocol
  • Study Texts
  • Legal Documents
  • Retreats
  • Seichu

MORNING PROTOCOLS                                                        ​Gendo

Picture
CHANT (repeated three times)

shu   jo  mu  hen
sei  gan   do

bon   no   mu   jin
sei  gan   dan
ho  mon  mu   ryo
sei  gan   gaku
butsu  do  mu   jo
sei  gan   jo

 
Equipment
  bell/gong
   wood drum/clappers/some strike object to maintain rhythm

Sequence     
Sit ends, time keeper (jikijitsu) hits one bell
1)   Chant leader hits bell/gong 3 times. 
3)  Leader chants first two lines  ("shu jo mu hen/ se gon do") without drum/rhythm
4)  Leader hits  gong once, starts beating something to establish rhythm (slow and steady)  and others join the chanting. 
5)   At start of
second repetition, leader hits bell once 
6)   At start of third repetition, leader hits bell twice .
7)    At end of the third repetition,  leader hits the bell three times, at “gaku”, then “mu”, then “gan”, (see highlighted text).

Hint:  Try using the same striker to hit the bell and keep the rhythm


HAN  -  7/5/3 pattern


     Loud/soft/soft
     Loud x7/ soft
      Roll  (slow,  then accelerates, til  hammer bounces of its own weight into oblivion)
     Loud x5/ soft
     Roll  (as above)
     Loud x3/ soft
     Roll 
 (as above)
     Soft, soft, Loud
 
Note:  Zoom blurs the distinction between loud and soft, so soft needs to be extra soft. 

HAN DEMO

HAN DESCRIPTION  (Gendo)

       The han is a slab of wood, usually some dense hardwood, often carved on the backside to create a resonant sound.  It is struck with a mallet (see video) in a pattern that is traditional in Zen temples.  In my training, it was struck in the morning and at night at a time when the half-light of dawn or dusk was just sufficient to reveal the lines in the palm of your hand.  In our Center, and on Zoom, it is also struck at the start of morning practice.  Traditionally, the han hangs outdoors, to be heard far and wide.   At the sound,  everyone stops what they are doing.  In the Zendo, and on Zoom, practice starts with  everyone in Zazen posture.   The jikijitsu  (practice leader) stands, lights incense and then, as the jikijitsu does three great bows,  the han is struck .  
         The han as a solemn  reminder of the passage of time.  No time to waste!  The han itself is traditionally inscribed with words, translated, in one case, as: "Great is the matter of birth and death, quickly passing, gone, gone. Awake each one, awaken!  Don't waste this life!"
          Our morning Zen on Zoom involves people inventing hans from available materials in their own homes, shaking the dust from old Zen temples everywhere.  Listen carefully and the message is the same.

BOWING

How to bow.  Bowing is Zen training.  To enter the zendo (place of practice), first bow: hands together at chest height (called “gasho”), bending forward at the waist.   Then, with hands in gasho, walk to your seat.  Facing away from your seat, bow, then sit.  Before getting up (as during a rest break), bow.  Before leaving a standing position to walk (during a walking break), bow.  Before resuming your seated posture, bow.  If in doubt about what to do next, bow! 
 
Sometimes we do three 
great bows.  Stand hands in gasho.  When the bell rings bend forward from the waist and continue downward to kneeling position on the floor, flattening your body to the floor as much as possible to touch your head to the floor.  With hands flat on the floor beside your ears, turn them palm up and lift, then turn them back over flat on the floor.  With the muffled strike of the bell stand (see protocol above), hands in gasho.  With the next bell, repeat the bow.  The third and last bow is announced by two bells.  Afterwards, standing once again, the bell sounds three times. On the third bell, hands in gasho, bend at the waist to end with one ‘small’ bow. 

Why Bow?   There seems some deep human need to humble ourselves in a way that bowing and prostration satisfy.  The act of bowing embodies  paradox, the experience (“thusness” ) of coming and going;  a paradox that is our shared reality with everything.
Bowing in Zen tradition is sometimes accompanied by this chant (translation):
​

“Bower, bowed to,  same empty nature. 
Self body,  other body, not two. 
Bow with all beings,  attain liberation. 
Manifest the unsurpassable,  return to boundless truth.”


nyorai shorai sho ku jaku
jishin ta shintai mu ni
gan gu shujo tai ge datsu
hotsu mujo iki san po




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