Bodhi
Manda Zen Center | PROJECTS Center of Gravity Foundation Hall Bodhi Manda Zen Center invites you to join us in celebrating our founder Denkyo Kyozan Joshu Roshi's 40th anniversary of teaching Tathagata Zen in America, his 95th birthday and our 30 years of service to the community.
Reflect for a moment on our founder, Zen Master Joshu Roshi, who has for 40 years taught with boundless compassion and patience. His has been a life of giving, the life of a Bodhisattva. He is ninety-five years old this year and he still teaches the dharma. It is in deep appreciation of his tireless commitment that we plan to build a Foundation Hall at Bodhi Manda. Traditionally, the Dharma Hall, or Foundation Hall, is the place where the monastic world and the lay world meet. During formal training, the Foundation Hall is used for Sutra chanting and Teisho (formal Dharma talks). Year round it provides a place for Buddhist ceremonies, as well as marriages, baptisms, funerals, and memorial services. During the summer workshop period, when the Center is busy everywhere, the Foundation Hall will serve as a silent hall where participants can meditate and contemplate indoors. Since its founding 30 years ago, Bodhi Manda has grown by making relationship and serving the community in Jemez Springs, New Mexico and throughout the world. In Buddhism, Dana means simultaneously giving and receiving. Today we are here to ask if you would kindly help and make this dream come true, for the benefit of all sentient beings. Will you give generously?
Roshi first put down his shoes and cushion in Gardena, California. For five years he never tired, offering Zazen (meditation) and Sanzen (Koan practice, private meeting) in a very small house to anyone interested. He served tea. He cooked. He sat with anyone who came--bearded ones, longhaired ones, young people, old people. He loaded a station wagon with cushions, traveled through the City of Angels from Long Beach to Laguna Beach to the Hollywood Hills to Beverly Hills, wherever he was invited. The first seven day Dai-Sesshin began on the evening of July 21, 1967, to commemorate his fifth anniversary in California. Eventually the Gardena house became too small for all of Roshi's students; parking was hard to find and the neighborhood complained to the City. Many people helped find and purchase a new property in January of 1968. On April 21st Roshi moved from Gardena to the present Cimarron street location in Los Angeles and Rinzai-ji was established. In spring of 1970 Shozan Marc Joslyn found an abandoned run-down Boy Scout camp on Mount Baldy. Roshi looked at it and immediately began planning for its transformation into a mountain Zen center. The land was leased from the Forest Service for 99 years and Roshi's first residential practice center was established there. The first Mt. Baldy Dai-Sesshin was held in August 1970. The Forest Service issued a permit for using the camp as a Zen center in the spring of 1971, and that marked the formal founding of Mount Baldy Zen Center of Rinzai-ji.
Bodhi Manda Zen Center Present Time The primary purpose of the center is to offer genuine teaching in Tathagata Zen as transmitted by Joshu Roshi. This practice has given birth to our seasonal schedule and public activities. In the Fall and in the Spring, the center enters a Kessei or intensive training period of about 2 months, with the guidance of Joshu Roshi. Monks, nuns, and lay students gather for this special time in one's life. In the Winter, residents follow a daily schedule of Zazen meditation (4-6 hours/day) and maintenance work. The guest house is open from December to March to individuals, couples, and families. Guests have no obligation to follow any of the activities the center offers, but are most welcome. Zazen meditation instruction is always available and we offer fine vegetarian meals. In the Summer, the staff prepares the Bodhi grounds and buildings to host any groups that wish to rent the facility. Bodhi Manda has been hosting groups since the late 70's. Many of these groups have been coming every year for as many as 20 years. It was Joshu Roshi's suggestion 25 years ago that the staff and the visiting groups do work practice for the Center on a daily basis. This service has allowed the subject hosting and the object visiting to meet and make relationship. Together, we learn to live the experience of mutually dissolving our self-centerdness, allowing for a new self to manifest itself in a new moment's time. Through sewing, peeling garlic, digging ditches, weeding, feeding the birds, planting, chopping, washing dishes, washing windows, raking gravel, folding clothes, and a myriad of other activities, we became friends in that moment, enjoying one another, laughing and crying, breaking down the barriers of ourselves. This is called living Buddhism. Thank you for 30 years of sharing each other's life. The Master Plan The activities at Bodhi Manda Zen Center are based upon a beautiful monastic system that has evolved over centuries in Japan and China. Most everyone who trains in this system is moved by its intricacy, formality and rigor, all of which support practitioners in their study of Zen Buddhism. Historically, a Zen Monastery includes a Founder's Hall, a Dharma Hall (Foundation Hall), a Zendo (Meditation Hall), and a Kuri (Kitchen). Each place has its own unique vital function and its own set of customs which contribute integrally to the whole. Those familiar with this system know that Bodhi Manda has for thirty years struggled to provide a genuine place of practice as taught by Joshu Roshi. It is our hope that appropriate buildings will help differentiate and harmonize practice activities and public activities. We plan to build a new Zendo, giving up the present Zendo space for public activities only, a Founder's Hall, and a library. To begin with, we are building a Foundation Hall. Over the last 30 years, Bodhi Manda has patiently saved almost $100,000, and we have already received donations of an additional $100,000. The estimated construction cost of the Foundation Hall is $378,000 and the cost of the Zen Garden will be another $75,000. So, we are asking you to help us raise the needed $253,000.
The New Foundation Hall is sited at the symbolic heart of Bodhi Manda. The west side faces the center green space while the east side opens onto a Zen garden and the high mesa. The building, designed by Hadrian Predock and John Frane, fuses ancient traditions of Japanese Zen Buddhist architecture with the context of northern New Mexico's architecture. The primary materials for the Foundation Hall include: rammed earth walls, Pau Lope hardwood, tin roofing, and tatami floors. On behalf of the Abbott teacher, Joshu Roshi Our Board members:
And staff... We deeply thank you for your generous donation. Gassho
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The
Center of Gravity Foundation Hall
Our
spiritual founder and his history Kyozan Joshu Roshi, a Rinzai Zen
Master from the Myoshin-ji school, left his native Japan 40 years
ago when his teacher asked him to go to America to teach Zen Buddhism.
At the same time, Dr. Robert Harmon and Mrs. Gladys Weisbart were
independently looking into bringing a Rinzai Zen monk to Los Angeles.
They sponsored Joshu Roshi to come to America. He arrived in Los
Angeles on July 21, 1962 with an English dictionary in his right
sleeve and a Japanese dictionary in his left sleeve. He arrived
with the firm determination not to die before the true seed of Tathagata
Zen had been planted in America. 
In
the early 70's Michelle Martin was a student of Roshi's who practiced
at Mount Baldy Zen Center. Michelle loved New Mexico and asked the
Roshi if he would come and teach there. The Roshi playfully replied,
"You find hot springs, I come." Michelle's friend Maria Chabot was
at that time the receptionist for the Servants of the Paraclete,
a Catholic order. She overheard a conversation about the possible
sale of a Catholic monastery on the Jemez river and called Michelle
immediately. Michelle invited the Roshi to come and inspect the
site. It had hot springs and he approved of it. Michelle generously
donated the down payment, and the Bodhi Manda Zen Center of Rinzai-ji
was purchased and subsequently incorporated on November 29, 1973.
We are indebted to Michelle Martin's vision, passion and generosity
for finding and helping acquire this site. 
