1970s Zen Buddhist Meditation Training

Diamond Sangha

In the early 1970s I was living at a Zen Buddhist meditation training center on Maui called Maui Zendo. 

“Diamond Sangha” was a small journal that was published during those years. 

It covered doings at both Maui Zendo and KoKo-An Zendo on Oahu. 

Diamond Sangha (1973) Table of Contents

 This is the Contents page for the 1973 edition of the Daimond Sangha journal. 

Poems by Alan Mitchell

 scarface flashflood meandering memory

carve on the depth of the desert

the sleep quench of the sandmans's thirst

*****

moon flush

below midlight

salt the clouds

and sand sea

*****

the day moves itself

impaled in a mirrored ditch

speeding through the bricks of the sun

*****

baby background noises

buries in the beginner's evening

by the dust of catastrophe

*****

someone who is in trouble with death

leave shriek mutinies

at an avalanche of years

lost in the waste

Maui Zendo Zen meditation retreat

This photo was taken at Maui Zendo directly after the end of an intensive week-long Zen meditation retreat. 

I am directly behind the girl with the cropped hair in the front row, on the right side of photo. 

The Zen master, Yamada Koun Roshi, isn’t in the photo. 

Yamada Koun Roshi

  Yamada Roshi was a deeply enlightened Zen master who traveled from Japan 

to instruct us in Zen and lead this retreat.

Yamada Roshi at Koko An Zendo

 This photo was taken in Honolulu at Koko-An Zendo in the Manoa district of Honolulu. 

These shots were all taken around 1972. 

The fellow at the head of the table is Yamada Roshi. 

The man to his right is Robert Aitken Roshi, head of the Daimond Sangha Zen organization. 

Both of these awesome Zen master teachers have passed away. 

It was my honor, privilege and great fortune to have met these two men.

 

Calligraphy by Yamada Koun Roshi

 When Yamada Roshi traveled to Maui Zendo to lead our retreat, he volunteered to paint calligraphy for 

each of us. 

We could choose whatever theme we wanted. 

I chose. 

“Endurance”. 

Well, what can I say? 

I still own this calligraphy and I have endured, down these many years.