Ichiza, nigyou, sanshin
一坐, 二 行, 三心
One sitting, two practices (vow and repentance), three minds (magnanimous mind, nurturing mind, joyful mind)
This expression from Uchiyama Roshi’s last lecture at Antaiji in 1975 has been the guiding principle of both his leadership of Antaiji and Okumura Roshi’s leadership of Sanshin. “After that, I had to come to this country and practice without my teacher, so this teaching has been my teacher. To me, sanshin is the conclusion of his teaching.” Sanshin, or three minds, comes from Dogen’s Tenzo Kyokun and was thus originally a monastic teaching, but Okumura Roshi found it a meaningful organizing principle for his new American practice place. “For Dogen the three minds is a practical teaching for monks within the monastery, but Uchiyama Roshi said that this teaching is not only for monks in the monastery but for anyone who lives with others. Of course, most important is zazen, but sanshin is how our zazen works in our daily lives, whether we are living in a monastery or in society, with our families, in our workplaces or in society at large. When we live together with other people we need these three minds.”
Since at the time of Sanshin’s creation in Iowa City its eventual location had not yet been determined, naming the place could not follow the frequent American custom of calling it after its home town. Instead, Okumura Roshi named it after this founding principle: a community in which the members practice together with three minds.
Although Sanshin was not designed to be a “monastery,” practitioners studied the Eihei Shingi for the first few years of its existence in order to understand how a traditional Zen community functions and is organized. “In a training temple there is a structure—the abbot who has ultimate authority, the officers and teachers who can lead the practice and who can teach the training monks, experienced training monks, and young training monks. There is a hierarchy, and if it’s a good community, new monks are taught by the elders based on Dogen’s instructions.” However, because Sanshin was a new community and was not a traditional training temple, there were no experienced teachers and practitioners to transmit the spirit of formal practice or explain and lead the operations of a Zen community. “That’s why I decided to study the Eihei Shingi at the very beginning of the history of this temple,” Okumura Roshi concluded.
One sitting, two practices (vow and repentance), three minds (magnanimous mind, nurturing mind, joyful mind)
This expression from Uchiyama Roshi’s last lecture at Antaiji in 1975 has been the guiding principle of both his leadership of Antaiji and Okumura Roshi’s leadership of Sanshin. “After that, I had to come to this country and practice without my teacher, so this teaching has been my teacher. To me, sanshin is the conclusion of his teaching.” Sanshin, or three minds, comes from Dogen’s Tenzo Kyokun and was thus originally a monastic teaching, but Okumura Roshi found it a meaningful organizing principle for his new American practice place. “For Dogen the three minds is a practical teaching for monks within the monastery, but Uchiyama Roshi said that this teaching is not only for monks in the monastery but for anyone who lives with others. Of course, most important is zazen, but sanshin is how our zazen works in our daily lives, whether we are living in a monastery or in society, with our families, in our workplaces or in society at large. When we live together with other people we need these three minds.”
Since at the time of Sanshin’s creation in Iowa City its eventual location had not yet been determined, naming the place could not follow the frequent American custom of calling it after its home town. Instead, Okumura Roshi named it after this founding principle: a community in which the members practice together with three minds.
Although Sanshin was not designed to be a “monastery,” practitioners studied the Eihei Shingi for the first few years of its existence in order to understand how a traditional Zen community functions and is organized. “In a training temple there is a structure—the abbot who has ultimate authority, the officers and teachers who can lead the practice and who can teach the training monks, experienced training monks, and young training monks. There is a hierarchy, and if it’s a good community, new monks are taught by the elders based on Dogen’s instructions.” However, because Sanshin was a new community and was not a traditional training temple, there were no experienced teachers and practitioners to transmit the spirit of formal practice or explain and lead the operations of a Zen community. “That’s why I decided to study the Eihei Shingi at the very beginning of the history of this temple,” Okumura Roshi concluded.
