The Three Treasures Zen Community (TTZC) is a Zen Buddhist community instituted in Rancho Penasquitos, San Diego. This passionate community draws its name from the three Jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma, or the teachings, and the Sangha, referring to the community of Buddhist practitioners and followers. These “Three Treasures” or Jewels are a place of refuge for this Zen community and also form the foundation of their practice of Buddhism.
The practices that are the vehicles through which the TTCZ observes Zen Buddhism are zazen and sesshin. Additionally, TTCZ functions within a “Home Temple” framework of practice, through which Zen training can be of real value to everyone, and one’s level of commitment being determined by the participant’s own pace, interest, and aspiration.
Zazen literally translates to “seated meditation.” While meditation is practiced in many forms in various religious traditions, including Hinduism and Jainism, zazen specifically encompasses two types of meditation. One form is a deeply focused type of meditation, usually directed toward a Zen koan, an absorbed focus commonly called “samadhi.” The state of samadhi “produces a calm that pervades the whole body and mind and allows one’s natural insight to reveal itself.” The central meditative method of Soto Zen, which is foregrounded in TTZC practice, is “shikantaza,” or “just sitting.” Shikantaza is a form of meditation that is characterized by astute attentiveness, yet absent of an object of such pointed focus. Furthermore, alongside koan and shikantaza meditative practices,beginning students of TTZC are also trained in thoughtful mindfulness. Zazen is typically practiced every Monday evening, and can be supplemented after with the chanting of Zen liturgy or talks on a selected koan on occasion.
Sesshin are the intensive silent meditation retreats at TTZC. At these retreats, participants have the opportunity to study the nature of their own thoughts and feelings and how both impact their lives. These silent meditation retreats also allow the mind to still and simply be thus, allowing the individual to fully be self reflective, and illuminate one’s understanding of being in the world and their own lives as well. According to the TTZC, through extensive sitting periods, interviews with a teacher, service, practice, and eating meals together in the ancient tradition of oryoki, one can begin to understand and appreciate the very nature of one’s life. In a sense, it is in such a pure, reflective, and contemplative atmosphere that deep and valuable insights, as well as true Buddhist realization, can emerge. Additionally, although being a Zen Buddhist community, the TTZC embraces, and even encourages creative, alternative forms of sesshin practice. For example, most retreats include the Practice of Immediacy in the Arts, an innovative technique designed to access one’s natural, creative abilities. Utilizing mediums such as sculpting, painting, musical instruments, song and poetry, the Practice of Immediacy in the Arts encourages one to freely engage in artistic expression, allowing a creative flow to emerge, and in doing so, open one to their present, intimate, moment-by-moment experience. In addition to sesshin, the TTZC also offers zazenkai, or a mini-retreat that usually lasts only one day and is in essence a day long version of sesshin.
The TTZC recognizes that many of the cultural values, constructs, and practices shaping an American practitioner of Buddhism are vastly different from those that influenced the peoples in the lands and societies in which Zen originated. Individuals and societies are informed by an unique historical and cultural inheritance, and America and its peoples are no different. Therefore, the TTZC chooses to operate with a Home Temple Model in order to try to support the particular needs of American practitioners. The idea behind the Home Temple Model is to have a non-residential Zen community in a home setting. In such a place, the TTZC place a strong emphasis on sesshin, the student/teacher relationship, and sangha. Specifically in Rancho Penasquitos, Roshi’s Nicolee and Barry, two teachers in the TTZC convert their family room into a zendo each Monday, and at the end of the evening, the sangha turns the zendo back into the family room. “Home as temple and temple as home” is a central aspect of practice at TTZC because it elucidates the idea that wherever one is in the world is an appropriate location for Zen practice. The TTZC readily admits to the shortcomings of the home temple practice, namely that there is limited access to the center at other than scheduled times, lack of ownership by the sangha of physical practice space, and fewer opportunities for sangha members to interface with each other and teachers on an impromptu basis. Such disadvantages however, are outweighed by the benefits, which, in addition to the spiritual benefits, include pragmatic considerations such as the limited need for fundraising and the low overhead which keeps the need for participant contributions lower than at other Zen centers. In terms of practice, students take full responsibility for what they put into and get out of it, and the Home Temple framework also ensures that sangha connections are intimate and kept up by practitioners at their own discretion.
The TTZC is a part of the White Plum Asanga, an organization comprised of advanced Zen practitioners who are leaders of Zen Communities in the lineage of Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi. Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi was ordained as a monk in the Soto Zen tradition at age eleven. He received degrees in Oriental Literature and Philosophy from Komazawa University. As a monk, he practiced and studied at Sojiji, one of the two main Soto monasteries in Japan, and received Dharma transmission from Hakujun Kuroda, Roshi, in 1955. Then, in 1956, Maezumi Roshi came to Los Angeles as a priest for the Zenshuji Temple, the “Soto Headquarters” of the United States at the time, and devoted the rest of his life to laying the groundwork for the growth of Zen Buddhism in the West. In 1967, he established the Zen Center of Los Angeles and would go on to establish six more temples in the United States and Europe that are registered with Soto Headquarters in Japan. Additionally, in 1976, Maezumi Roshi established the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, a non-profit educational organization designed to promote scholarship on Buddhism and its historical, philosophical, social and cultural ramifications. During his life, Taizan Maezumi Roshi transmitted the Dharma to twelve successors in America, while also ordaining 68 Zen priests and giving the lay Buddhist precepts to over 500 people.
There is a guiding compass that informs how the TTZC understands the world, other religious traditions, and the variety of Buddhist teachings which comes in the form of the White Plum Asanga Core Values. In a sense, these core values are a brief synopsis of the teachings of TTZC, as well as other White Plum Asanga communities. The first core value calls for the familiarity of practitioners with the history of the lineage, as the past informs the present and it is the roots of a tradition that affords a religious community their authenticity and authority. The interdependence of all beings, and our human responsibility to engage in the alleviation of suffering, on a personal level and with the world at large is fundamental to the TTZC. Additionally, a cultivation of self-awareness that in turn allows one to recognize their own limitations in their capacities as students, teachers, and practitioners of the dharma, is also central to the TTZC. The core values also make explicit that all human beings have an essential awakened, enlightened nature, the actualization of which is the highest goal of Zen meditative practice. Finally, the TTZC respects the diversity of religious traditions dharma expressions in the world.
Ultimately, the TTZC is a dynamic, driven Zen community that employs classical Zen Buddhist methods, while making these practices accessible and accommodated to a Western, American audience. Perhaps, the best summation of the goals, aspirations, and purpose of the TTZC can be drawn from their Mission Statement, which declares that the TTZC aims “to create a compassionate and open environment for all people interested in the study and practice of Zen; to offer a Zen Buddhist approach to religious practice and understanding as well as other meditative and spiritual practices to help relieve the suffering of oneself and others; and to foster the transmission of Zen Buddhism in a western context.”
Bibliography
“Three Treasures Zen Community.” . Accessed November 26, 2016. http://ttzc.org/.
“White Plum Asanga.” . Accessed November 26, 2016. http://www.whiteplum.org.
-Shalin Shah