Tassajara Zendo Fire
On March 27th, Tassajara residents were awakened to the sight of the zendo engulfed in an inferno of flames.
As a former resident of Tassajara, I have memories accumulated from several practice periods and three months as Shuso. And I am part of a larger Tassajara sangha of present and former residents, summer guests, and workers. Each of us carry memories of this building: Oryoki meals, service, zazen, laughter, pain, Dharma talks, Tangaryo, cleaning, and ceremony. Residents during an ango, may recall fondly, as I do, standing on the engawa at dusk on each “8” day preparing for Nenju, a ceremony to recall and renew our faith and effort in practice.
This was a sweet time at the end of the day, as we lined up outside on the zendo porch. Standing barefoot we felt the smooth undulations of the wooden planks under our feet. Boards that we had cleaned daily with a damp rag and that reflected the effort of generations of students since the zendo was built.
The zendo’s high perch looked out over Tassajara’s cabins and during Nenju we gazed across Cabarga creek below the zendo, seeing Suzuki Roshi’s garden, the Kaisandō building and the Abbot’s cabin. The ceremony began with hans echoing a call and response through the valley announcing the Abbot’s procession as they offered incense at various temple altars. We listened to the Abbot’s footsteps fading into the distance and returning. Then the deep resonance of the Densho bell as the procession reached the zendo. We felt the air and calm of the sacred silence of evening passing. Earnestly, the Ino recites:
Carefully listen everyone. Twenty-five centuries, seventy-three years ago the great Tathāgata entered nirvana. When this day is gone, your life also decreases. Like a fish in a puddle, what pleasure is there here? We are to practice constantly, as if to save our heads on fire! Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care. Throughout Zenshinji the Dharma safely resides, bringing peace to all. Everyone in the ten direction knows an increase in joy and growth in wisdom. Thankfully we recite the names of Buddha.
And this is still so: “Throughout Zenshinji (Zen Heart/Mind Temple) the Dharma safely resides.”
The zendo that burned was not the original zendo. Nor was it the first major building to be destroyed by flames at Tassajara. Originally Tassajara was a resort with a hotel that was located on the same spot as the zendo that just burned down. That hotel caught fire in September of 1949. In 1978, the original Tassajara zendo, located off the current kitchen, was destroyed when a fire started in the chiden area during a ceremony. (see: https://www.cuke.com/tassfire/index.htm) Like the current fire, the seated stone Buddha was almost destroyed. Experts at the de Young Museum in San Francisco restored the Buddha and it was later installed in the new (now gone) zendo at Tassajara. Produced in the Gandhara region of Pakistan it was probably made around the 3rd or 4th century c.e. Here is a picture of the same Buddha statue whose head is resting in the ashes and burnt wood of the recent fire.
The place of our memories is now gone. We will never forget or return. Yet, even if we had entered the doors of the old zendo innumerable times, each time was new and would not be replicated. Such was true of the hotel and the first zendo. Yet, for me, they are stories. Everything is different and we cannot mourn what we did not experience, except as a thought, wish or fantasy.
The old zendo burned down, the old hotel is gone, and now “my” zendo is gone; it is just a memory. But, at a future time another building will be there, or the garden will be bigger, or some new use will arise. The future guests, students, priests and Abbots at Tassajara will make new memories and sit in a new space and call that place their zendo.
And perhaps in the future, I will stand on the ground of the old zendo and send a fond blessing to my memories. But I will not be “a fish in muddy water” asking “what pleasure is there here?” because there is just this place, this time, this life of practice where we stand right now. It is still our lineage of warm-hand-to-warm-hand. There is joy and wisdom still to arise from these ashes. Yet, as Dōgen so poignantly wrote about practice, “Yet, in attachment blossoms fall.”
Tenzen David Zimmerman, San Francisco Zen Center’s Central Abbot, who is currently leading the practice period at Tassajara wrote after the fire: “Good morning. Tassajara practice continues uninterrupted. The Sangha is resilient; monks sit zazen in the Retreat Hall. Canyon wrens sing on the Kaisandō roof in the morning. Frogs chant along Cabarga Creek at night. Gratitude to the Buddhas and Ancestors, the mountains and waters, for this liberating Way of life.”
And so it is. Our practice is impermanence. This is just another way to say inter-being, co-dependent arising, intimate life, lineage, Buddhas, ancestors, and foolish human beings, frogs chanting and a wren’s song. No one was hurt; practice persists. The Dharma reaches everywhere.
