What is this site that you have stumbled onto?
This is the website of a small meditation group located in the University City Neighborhood of San Diego, CA. We mostly meet at the house that I share with my wife and kids. Sometimes we meet outdoors.
I created this group when my Zen teacher, Charlotte Joko Beck, indicated that it was time for me to go off on my own and have my own students. I met Joko over 30 years ago, and studied with her for about 25 years. This group has been a long time in the making.
This is a third generation American Zen group. Joko’s main teacher, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, brought Zen from Japan to America. After Joko went off on her own to form the Zen Center of San Diego, she diverged significantly from the traditions that she had trained in. Japanese readings and chants were dropped. Gone were robes and rakusus. Gone were paid staff. Her teaching itself evolved more and more to use people’s lives as the basis for teaching.
Although I too studied with Maezumi Roshi, it was only for a short time. My main teachers have been American: Dennis Genpo Merzel Sensei, and Charlotte Joko Beck Sensei (as she was known before she dropped her Zen title). I spent by far the most time with Joko, and her influence is by far the greatest.
My group has diverged even further from the Zen that came from Japan. Yet what we are doing is still Zen. Robes, titles: these are all peripheral. Zen is fundamentally about spiritual awakening, oneself awakening to one’s own essential nature. More than that, Zen is about the manifestation of that awakening in one’s own life. And Zen is about transmission, in the sense of one person helping to facilitate this awakening, and its manifestation, in another. What Zen is about, this group is about.
A phrase I used to hear often around Zen centers was "nothing extra." Zen cuts right to the heart of the matter. In that spirit, I have continued to drop what is non-essential.
The spiritual awakening that Zen is about is the awakening to one’s own essential radiant Self that needs nothing.
In the spirit of that Self, this Zen group charges nothing, and we do not accept donations of money or gifts. Our events tend to be sort of potlucks, where everyone contributes something in that sense.
We avoid titles here, except for one: host. Every event has one or more host. The host is the organizer, and often gives a lot in terms of time and money.
Of course, as this is my Zen group, I am usually the host of most events, often with a great deal of assistance from my wife, Joni.
If you would like to give more to the group, consider offering to help a host, or, even consider hosting an event yourself.
Even if you are not affiliated with me or with this Zen group in any way, I still want to support you in the development of your own meditation group and the hosting of your own events. To this end, I have posted, and will continue to post, the materials that we use here in support of our retreats. These materials are in our Sesshins (Zen Retreats) section. There is also a Readings section, and Sam Gabriel’s Zen Talks and Writings. Feel free to use anything that you find here.
If you would like me to give talks at an event that you are hosting, let me know and I will do what I can within schedule and travel constraints.
Spiritual awakening happens spontaneously within a person; it is not an understanding that can be taught. However, one person can help to facilitate awakening in another, and it is probably true that, in most cases, awakening requires this facilitation by another. I believe this was true in my case. It is not easy to find and stay on the path.
But does this facilitation imply a teacher-student relationship? Teacher-student implies teaching, and Zen is not about an understanding that can be taught. Perhaps more importantly, teacher-student often implies authority of teacher over student, and this authority itself can easily crush the self-reliance required for awakening.
The term teacher is not only used to refer to a role, but also to refer to a position, a position in an organizational hierarchy. Zen centers have teachers and they have students, where the teachers are in a privileged position. This serves to inflate the self-importance of teachers, which only interferes with their ongoing spiritual development. This privileged position also implies power, which, in some cases, has led to the actual abuse of students by teachers.
A better term for this facilitation is mentoring. Mentoring has all of what is necessary for the facilitation of awakening, with nothing extra. Some of the relevant aspects of mentoring:
Mentoring is a relationship between two or more people, usually two people. A mentor is someone in a mentoring relationship, not someone who holds a position within an organization.
A mentoring relationship targets a specific purpose, in this case, the facilitation of awakening. It does not imply a broader authority (or worse, some magical power).
A mentoring relationship is not about giving advice. It is about promoting and encouraging self-reliance in another person. It is about supporting another person in their own pursuit to meet their own goals.
Mentoring relationships recognize that a personal commitment is required from both (or all) parties involved. This is a commitment of time, energy, and, most importantly, personal involvement. The time commitment is usually spelled out explicitly; for example, "We will meet every week on this day at this time."
It is well recognized that both (or all) parties in a mentoring relationship derive benefits from the relationship itself, and mentoring relationships rarely involve any monetary payment between parties.
Mentoring relationships terminate when their work is done, are non-exclusive, and are subject to review at any time by either (or any) of the parties involved.
If you feel that entering into a mentoring relationship with me would be useful for you, let me know, and we will discuss what that might mean in your case. Also consider entering into a mentoring relationship with me and your partner or a close friend — there could be advantages in that.
Sam
Sam Gabriel, San Diego, CA
http://home.roadrunner.com/~clothespin
sam_gabriel@yahoo.com