Long Sit @ Bo Hyun Sa

 

 On the second Saturday of each month there is a long sit which begins at 5:30am. The whole process is highly ritualized and carefully choreographed. 

Freddy, one of the present members, who was also playing the gong, mentioned the 108 prostrations as his favorite. I am not sure if it was something I missed, that happened at the beginning; I was late. Or, if it is something that happens on other occasions. 

However, since I arrived, we did  a 30 min. sitting meditation. Then, we took a break to prepare breakfast. The breakfast was served. There were only 4 of us present. There were some specificities related to the presentation of breakfast that are hard to explain in writing, but that are very important for the ritual. Once finished, we took everything to the kitchen and washed dishes and did some chores.

Then, we went back to the room and did the chanting in Sanskrit ( I assume) that we read from a booklet. Only one of the chants was in English. It basically emphasized the idea of having a goalless goal.

I am not sure at what point we were all meditating. But, there was a moment when the people who come at 9:00 AM were also there. We meditated for another 30 min., then we did some chanting again. We did some walking meditation as well. Upstairs there was Carlos doing interviews. He would ring the bells and one by one would get up and go talk to him. 

When it was my turn, the one thing he told me that I think it is important to document is the structure of my meditation. He said that to subtract myself from my thoughts, the most immediate think is to focus on my breath. The, he suggested I add a mantra: when I inhale I say mentally "who am I," and when I exhale I say "I don't know."

I came back to the room during a walking mediation. I joined. We sat again until every one had gone to talk to Carlos. To end, there other meditation sessions, but I lost track of their order. I left a little bit after 11:00 AM

Bo Hyun Sa: A Korean Buddhist Temple

 

 

The Bo Hyun Sa, a Korean Buddhist Temple is located at 7110 SW 182nd Way, Southwest Ranches, FL 33331. The regular Saturday morning meditation service consists of Beginner's Instruction at 8:30am, and two 30-minute seated meditation session beginning at 9am with a 10 minute walking meditation between the seated meditation sessions, with chanting afterward. Following the chanting, all attendees are invited to partake of tea and conversation.

Seating is provided and there are usually 20-30 practitioners in attendance every week. On the first Saturday of every month, there is just one 30 minute sit followed by a Dharma talk. 

On the second Saturday of each month there is a long sit which begins at 5:30am. One can still arrive to participate at 9am. Three day retreats are scheduled through the year. 

Today, because it is the first Saturday of July, there was just one 30 minute sit followed by a Dharma talk with Socrates and Carlos. George, who leads the Zen Meditation group at the Universalist Unitarian Congregation of Miami was present.

What took me to this temple, is my interest in knowing more about Samuel Lewis (1896 - 1971), the creator of the Dances of Universal Peace, who was a Zen practitioner until he died.  

Some main principles of Zen philosophy are: the denial of the ego, the focus on interconnectedness in the universe, the recognition of attachment as a source of suffering, and the realization that human perception is faulty. The advantage of Zen Dance are universal principles that automatically apply to other aspects of dance. Aerials & Dips, Stealing and Switching, Dancing with multiple partners at the same time, Floorcraft, Leadership and these concepts can be applied to all sports, arts and thought.

The New York Library's (2019) article "Zen Principles Observed in Cunningham Technique and Their Practical Applications by Justin Tornow" posted by the NYPL staff, shows the Zen influence on Merce Cunningham's dance methodology. His investigations into chance procedures (throwing dice, tossing coins, using the I Ching) and creating intermedia works involving a roster of experimental artists could inform the process of using Zen principles in dance creation. His radical shifts in choreographic process and performance are very much the product of an ideology based in Zen thought through which ephemerality, openness, and expressing ideas through practice can be materialized in dance art.
 

As the NYPL's article suggests, Zen, broadly, is anchored in the individual experience; it is not about dogma, and it is not about intellectualizing. It is about practice, presence, and one’s personal experience with Zen ideas. Merce’s dancing, teaching, and making all align with principles of Zen and the Zen arts such as: 

• The ephemerality of each artistic expression, seated in a deep interest in the uniqueness of each moment in space and time.
• An interest firmly anchored in the process, with a clear detachment from known outcomes
• The absence of ego in the practice and process
• An absorption in the exploration of possibilities.

These interests are based in Zen principles of a) non-attachment, b) no-mind, c) impermanence, and d) beginner’s mind. They represent just some of the ideas that Merce Cunningham and John Cage likely encountered during their time attending D.T. Suzuki’s classes and workshops at Columbia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This encounter with Zen visibly affected their perspectives on life, practice, and art from that point forward.

One Zen principle stands out as particularly useful in the dance classroom: beginner's mind. Shunryu Suzuki explains beginner's mind as such: "

 "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's, there are few." 

It is clear to me, says Tornow, that Cunningham operated with this kind of mindset. For if one were to be so confident that there was little left to know, they wouldn’t be so open to all the options! Instead, he was driven to explore the possibilities for dancing in the classroom, on the stage, in non-traditional spaces, for the camera, on a computer...

The beginniner's mind creates a way of considering dance that allows us to hang up our ego, our expectations, and our attachments, and bring mindfulness into our practice—and, of course, as is central to Cunningham’s work, to be open to all the possibilities a Zen mind set provides.

 Link:

NYL Staff (2019). Zen Principles Observed in Cunningham Technique and Their Practical Applications by Justin Tornow. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/02/13/zen-principles-merce-cunningham-technique

 

Samuel L. Lewis also known as Murshid Samuel Lewis and Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti was an American mystic and horticultural scientist who founded what became the Sufi Ruhaniat International, a branch of the Chishtia Sufi lineage.

He studied with teachers from the East and West, primarily Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882 - 1927) and Nyogen Senzaki (1876 -1958). Inayat Khan was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. Senzaki was a Rinzai Zen monk who was one of the 20th century's leading proponents of Zen Buddhism in the United States.

After years of study, Lewis was recognized simultaneously as a Zen master and a Sufi murshid (senior teacher) by Eastern representatives of the two traditions. He also co-founded the Christian mystical order called the Holy Order of Mans. His early interest in international seed exchange and organic agriculture also established him as one of the pioneers of green spirituality. His most enduring legacy may be the creation of the Sufi Dances or Dances of Universal Peace, an early inter-spiritual practice that has spread around the world in the 50 years since his passing. 

He considered Ruth St.Denis (1879 - 1968), his teacher, his "fairy godmother." St. Denis was an American pioneer of modern dance, introducing eastern ideas into the art of dance. As the co-founder of the American Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, she was the teacher of several notable performers. A noted modern dancer, St. Denis, was one of the predecessors of modern dance in the West. She was a teacher and a colleague of Murshid Sam Lewis. She was a major influence on him, who called her “Mata-Ji” (Honored Mother). 

 Samuel Lewis, also known "joucarly as Sufi Sam," had discovered of Mevlevi dance through Ruth St. Denis and Vilayat Khan (1928 - 2004), the son of Inayat Khan (Lewis 2014). Vilayat Khan was an Indian classical sitar player. Ruth St. Denis, who developed the Society of Spiritual Arts (later called the Church of the Divine Dance) and the Rhythmic Choir in New York City, was the inspiration for the founding of the Sacred Dance Guild and Samuel L. Lewis' Dances of Universal Peace (Stewart 2000). Besides Suf- ism, Lewis studied Jewish mysticism and the Kabala. 

The dances of Universal Peace were first formulated in the late 1960s by Lewis, (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti). It is to Samuel Lewis that we owe the formulation of this way of joining together in contemplative dance that is now known as the ' Dances of Universal Peace( Sokoloff 2000). Thus, Ruth St. Denis brought together dance and spirituality in the 1920s, portraying divinity on stage, while Murshid Samuel Lewis, influenced by both St. Denis and Hazrat Inayat Khan, brought us the Dances of Universal Peace in the 1960s (Vorensky 2001). 

Lewis joined the ideas of St. Denis with those of H. I. Khan and developed some fifty dances, calling upon many different spiritual traditions to do so (Dass & Goleman 1990). Now danced worldwide the Dances of Universal Peace is a nondenominational meditative practice that combines simple chants with simple movements. Their goal is to focus on the idea of "one world, within and without."

 Link: http://www.southfloridazen.org/