The first gathering for discussion and meditation was on Thursday, April 20, 1995. See the newspaper photo below. Shumon and I were in the middle of renovating the main house on the property, now the Kuri (abbot’s residence). The discussion was in the living room with about 12 people in attendance. Many of those people attended other Buddhist groups in the area. They were curious as to what Tendai Buddhism was about. We used the dining room for a limited gongyo and meditation that evening. There were a few people who had sampled Buddhism and were interested in what it looked like up close and personal.
The discussion was titled ‘Tantric Buddhism in Japan and Tibet’.[1] Tendai Buddhism was a footnote to people’s understanding of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Shumon and I recognize that we needed to educate people on the significance of Tendai in Japanese Buddhism and its parallels to Tibetan Buddhism.
We knew that meditation came to the minds of most Americans when they thought of Buddhism. Certainly, Tendai meditation is core to its teachings, but one facet of a much larger set of practices. How does one go about exploring that in an open, welcoming, fashion?
From the beginning our mindsets were guided by having lived in Japan and at a Buddhist temple the previous six years. We had to become attuned to our new life and the expanded role of Buddhism in the Americas in the 1980s – 90s. The first few years were a time of trial and error. With the idea of replicating what we did in Japan we planned on having a public discussion and meditation once a month, followed by participants going to an izakaya (family tapas style restaurants). The commitment to holding the gatherings weekly came very quickly at the request of some of the earliest attendees. Thus, our second meeting was the week following our first meeting.
We were still in the middle of renovations so we would move the discussions and meditations to different rooms of the house depending on what rooms were being remodeled on a given week. Once the renovations were completed, we used the living room for discussions and meditated in the dining room.
For the first few meetings some of the participants went to local restaurants in Chatham. This replicated the monthly Tendai gatherings Ichishima sensei led in Tokyo, where all participant would gather at an izakaya after the discussion and meditation. Several of the early participants suggested that potluck dinners are a feature of other faith traditions in our area of the country. This worked well with our desire to instill the teaching of sangha as integral to the Buddhist Path, along with the Buddha and Dharma.
In order to fund the new temple we started a B&B, the Bodhi Tree Inn. We hosted our first B&B guests, in May and this continued for the next five years. We did a juggling act between the weekly gatherings, holding retreats, Tendai gyo and hosting B&B guests. At the same time Monshin was a chaplain with hospice and teaching at the University at Albany. Shumon was working as a professional interpreter and for an organic food distributor.
The side porch and the dining room filled the role of hondo for the first two years. The number of people attending the weekly gatherings growing too large to be accommodated in these relatively small spaces. The sangha decided we had to have more space. The only place to move was one of the two barns on the property. Thus, a portion of the horse barn was adapted to a hondo.
A wall was built separating the horse stalls from the main part of the building. The sangha pitched in cleaning, painting, laying down carpet, etc. A good friend of Ichishima sensei who owned a Buddhist supply shop in Tokyo had a special butsudan (Buddha altar with side tables and raihan) was constructed specifically to fit the space. He donated the set and shipped it to Karuna Tendai Dharma Center.
We referred to this sacred space as the ‘Spanky’s Clubhouse Zendo’. See the photo below. It was a very special sacred space that served the growing sangha well for almost eight years.
Stay tuned for more of the ‘Story of Tendai Buddhist Institute’ in the next editions of the Shingi.
[1] Many Thanks go out to Rev. Shoshin Sandy Jacon who assembled scrap books that contain news releases, photos and other materials from the early years of Karuna Tendai Dharma Center and Tendai Buddhist Institute.
Gassho with love . . . Monshin