The San Francisco Zen Center reports that wildfire entered the grounds of Tassajara Zen Center this afternoon at 2:15 Pacific time. Director David Zimmerman called SFZC from Tassajara to report the crew of five is unharmed and watering down buildings and grounds.
I will update this post if I learn more today.
UPDATE: Sitting With Fire reports that the fire has passed through Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the crew of five is safe. "The fire approached quickly from three sides shortly after 1pm and passed over Tassajara mercifully fast. The crew were able to move around outside the safe space and keep the sprinkler system working."
Some small buildings were lost, but the main buildings are intact. The monk fire crew will keep watch through the night for embers falling from the hills above TZMC.
I’ve been away from home for more than a month, but it seems no matter where one is in California, wild fire smoke cannot be escaped. Yesterday a thick haze settled over the area I’m visiting along the American River, and the sun turned deep reddish orange.
There is a cooling breeze this morning, and the sky is clearing, but this blessing for us may be fanning flames elsewhere.
My husband has been going home weekly and brought back the local paper with him. He handed me the section about the Tassajara Fire. One of the monks interviewed spoke of how” meeting” the fire has changed his life and deepened his belief.
I can so relate. My life also changed when faced by fire 31 years ago in Tassajara, and took a profound and lasting spiritual turn.
The Tassajara fire burning now is very personal fire for me in some ways because I lived off of Tassajara Rd, right on the edge of the 1977 Marble Cone Fire. Unforgettable, it brings back memories of being evacuated when the firefighters lit a backfire from my property line. Some of my friends lost homes, and the Zen Center, which I visited often as a resident of Tassajara, sustained considerable damage.
I read this morning on line in the ‘Californian’ Tassajara is still surrounded by fire which is heading down to Chews Ridge. Fire crews are backfiring again from my former home. I’ve lost touch over the years with the friend who purchased it from me, but I’m very much in touch inwardly with my old neighborhood right now where I still have family.
I’m saddened to read of lost structure sat the Zen Center, but touched and gladdened that a man’s practice is strengthened and his faith restored. I think the concept most shared by Buddhists and Sikhs is attachment/detachment. This is one of those times when we have the opportunity to really ‘get’ what that is all about.
Buddhism in its institutional form followed a pattern of integration, organisation and influence in concurrence to the early history of societies across the sub-continent. The entire process can be unified into the metaphor of the wheel of Dharma that the Buddha had turned during his first sermon in the Deer Park at Sarnath. The integration of various cultures can be seen as spokes of the wheel held by the organisation of early Sangha, the swivel. The growth of trade and polity that increased patronage could be seen as the motion of the wheel, which slowed down by the growth of local cults, when Buddhism slowly dissipated to isolation and eventual abandonment.