Senji Rosenblum and Jisan Tova Green
By Senji Rosenblum
Greetings, sangha! I am a San Francisco Zen Center member and student, and I live beside a river in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. My daily life allows for Zen practice and study infused with the beauty and awe of the natural world that surrounds me. I meditate in the woods, in the garden, by the river—and in the river!
I have been practicing at City Center for the past eight years with my teacher, Tova Green. I am often asked how I do this. First, Tova and I turned to technology long before the pandemic and have held regular practice discussions and small group study first via telephone, then online. By visiting City Center as a Guest Student on a number of occasions, I was able to sew my rakusu under the kind and patient guidance of SFZC sewing teachers. I received the precepts in January, 2022 and was honored with the name SenJi WaDo-River (Compassion/Peaceful Way). In addition to visiting City Center through the years, I have taken part in practice periods from afar to provide depth and breadth to my practice.
Choosing practice periods that focus on an aspect of practice that I want to explore or a text that I wish to study, I enter with the intent to participate, study, and inquire as fully as my schedule will reasonably allow. Although I’m not able to spend an entire practice period at City Center, I try to visit City Center for several weeks during practice periods to participate in person and to attend sesshin, or at least a One-Day Sit.
When I am at City Center, my usual practice in the mountains is replaced by a different kind of beauty—that of sangha. Zazen in the early morning zendo, chanting together in service, attending class, sharing meals and conversation, studying together in the dining room, the warmth of a face to face smile— these are also founts of beauty.
The underlying quality that I bring to a practice period is intention. A practice period requires and strengthens my intention to sit more, to study in a guided way, to absorb Dharma talks and classes, and to infuse my daily life with practice, even more than I already do.
When I’m practicing at home, following this intention requires that I set a daily schedule and write down every element of the practice period that I will be attending to each day—morning zazen and service, watching a recording of a class or Dharma talk, blocking off time for study and assignments. I hold these commitments as firmly as I do other meetings or appointments. Because I am not usually in the temple and following the schedule there, I make a plan and I stick to it. I like how participating online offers me flexibility, but I have to be careful to honor the boundaries that I set.
To aid in these efforts I share my intention, plan, and boundaries with my husband beforehand and he honors them. I am so grateful for his support of my practice. I also share them in a general way with groups that I am involved in, so that they understand when I cannot participate as fully as they might usually expect.
I feel incredibly blessed to both live in the mountains of West Virginia and practice at SFZC. I am very grateful for those who make this possible via technology and extend deep bows to them. Most importantly, I offer deep bows to Tova for being willing to take a chance eight years ago to teach me from afar. I learn and grow in my practice and as a person each practice period. Honoring my intention to do so, even from so very far away, has made a huge difference in my life.
