Nyozens Pale Moon of Dawn The nun Nyozen of Tokeiji used to meditate on the enlightenment poem of Chiyono as her

theme for realization: With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together, And then the bottom fell out. Where water does not collect The moon does not dwell. Later, Nyozen grasped the essence of Zen, and she presented this poem to her teacher: The bottom fell out of the bucket Of that woman of humble birth; The pale moon of dawn Is caught in the rain-puddles. Commentary When I read that Chiyonos temple, Tokeiji, was a safe house for women fleeing from their husbands, the first safe house in Japan, I knew I had chosen the right koan. Like the water in Chiyonos and Nyozens buckets, I flowed into the world when I was smashed out of an abusive marriage and left to fend for myself in Corvallis, Oregon. I was a Canadian citizen, alien resident in the United States with no means of support. My first encounter with Zen practice was shortly after I moved into safety in Eugene, Oregon. The Eugene Buddhist Priory became my refuge. The bottom fell out of my bucket when, after I began a relationship with a woman who was not in the sangha, the monk at the Eugene Buddhist Priory told me that I had tarnished the triple treasure and that I was not allowed to speak or to touch the objects on the altar. I took refuge at the Dharma Rain Zen Centre in Portland. The bottom fell out of my bucket when I first learned of the power and sexual abuses perpetrated by monks and priests in the Shambala sangha and in many Zen sanghas in the United States. It seemed that there was no place for refuge other than in my Portland Sangha. The bottom fell out of my bucket when, because I had an affair and deceived others about that affair, my teacher at the Dharma Rain Zen Centre banished me from the sangha, telling me in a letter that I was too immoral to be his disciple. I returned to Canada and practiced alone in remote aboriginal communities for ten years flowing practice into the world as I taught through Amazenji, the Internets first online temple which I co-created with another woman who lived in isolation and needed a practice community.

The bottom fell out of my friends bucket when she learned she has breast cancer. One day she was standing in a waterfall, arms held high to embrace the drops, hair wet and pasted to her head. Bliss filled her face. And then the next day she got the news. She has breast cancer, it has spread to her lymph nodes they have to slice off her breasts, dig into her armpits with a scalpel, flood her body with poison and radiation to arrest the ravenous cells before they eat her bones. We can plunge into suffering with the rising of a wind; water can submerge an entire city. Theres nowhere safe. One day we are happy and strong surrounded by abundance, the next day, we are miserable and weak, mired in poverty. The day after the bottom falls out, all we can do is rise with the pale moon of dawn, bow to the moon in every rain puddle, and then begin again. Such is practice.