From Television Around the World to Zendo in Warwick
Jacob Seiryo Gendelman, who had been traveling the world creating sets for television, theater and other productions, began a zendo at Warwick Community Center two years ago. In an interview with the Tri-State Lookout, he explains the zendo’s genesis and future.
What circumstances, inner and outer, prompted you to start a zendo, and what is its official name?
As an ordained priest, I’ve made a commitment to providing a container for Zen practice—and warwick zendo is exactly that—a platform to make Zen practice available in Warwick. My teacher, Charles Tenshin Fletcher, Roshi, initially asked me to commit to at least two years keeping the doors open. We’re about 6 months past that now.
Officially, the organization is warwick zen, and the place is warwick zendo. Zendo is—very roughly—Japanese for ‘zen practice place.’
What kind of work and projects had you been doing?
I’ve spent the last thirty years (until this fall, in fact) working in television—I’ve been a partner at blackwalnut, LLC., fabricating environments for television news, sports, theater and live events. You’ve probably seen our work: NBC’s Sports sets at the Olympics, for instance. I’ve been lucky enough to work all over the world, and all over the US. It’s been an adventure.
Where are you from originally, and what direction had you planned to go when you went to college?
I grew up in New York City and suburban north Jersey—and always considered myself a city kid. I studied screenwriting at NYU, and spent several years working in the film business before circumstances brought me back east.
Could you capsulize the evolution from that vision?
Well, it’s definitely been a journey. Once I stumbled into meditation practice, it began pretty quickly to bleed into every aspect of my life. You could call it an underpinning to everything else, really. Life’s become overtly practice, and vice-versa. The journey informs both things. Really, they’re the same thing. Until very recently, my work life and spiritual life were overtly separate but you could say, invisibly linked. Now they’re overtly one--but there was never really a difference.
How did you encounter Zen Buddhism, and what attracted you to it?
I’d always had a kind of spiritual bent—although it was well-hidden underneath the usual preoccupations and compulsions. I’m 36 years in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. When I was getting sober, in 1987, I started a solo meditation practice, which I found extremely helpful at the time. A friend suggested I visit the Zen Center of Los Angeles, and, boom. I felt 100% at home in Zen the minute I sat down in the zendo.
Where and with whom did you train, and how did you choose them?
I first trained at the Zen Center of Los Angeles with Taizan Maezumi Roshi—I was very lucky to work with Roshi, even though for a relatively short time—he was a pioneer in bringing Zen from Japan to the West. I took vows as a Buddhist with Maezumi Roshi, and, after I came back east, I studied for some time at the Zen Community of New York, with Bernie Glassman, Roshi, who was Maezumi’s first successor, and a kind of zen revolutionary: Bernie brought all kinds of social action into Western Zen practice, which I really appreciated. My teacher now—and with whom I took Tokudo—that is, priest’s vows—is Charles Tenshin Fletcher, Roshi, also a successor of Maezumi’s, and the Abbott at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center, in the San Jacinto mountains in Southern California. I’m at Yokoji in retreat several times a year. I deeply appreciate Tenshin’s practice: Yokoji is an isolated place, totally off-grid and at 5,500 feet. Tenshin sets a high bar of just getting on with things, coming from a deep well of realization, but incredibly grounded and matter-of-fact. He keeps me from going off on abstract tangents, which is a bad habit of mine, and a real distraction in Zen practice.
Could you provide a couple of pivotal/poignant anecdotes from your training that pointed you in a particular direction?
Pivotal: landing at Zen Center of Los Angeles and having the great good fortune to meet and work with Maezumi and Tenshin Roshis.
Poignant, and ultimately pivotal: At a certain point over the thirty-six years I’ve been involved with Zen practice, I fell out of regular meditation. Life was just very demanding with work, kids, family, etc. At some point I lost the thread of who I was—what that meant—and got distracted by all kinds of things, and zazen (what we call seated meditation in zen) stopped. Over the course of that time, and with hindsight, unsurprisingly—I fell into a deep depression. Everything felt completely out-of-control and there was this spiraling sense of despair.
I had the good sense to finally contact a therapist—frankly, out of desperation—and started working with her. She has a grounding in contemplative psychotherapy, and when she discovered, in our first session, that I was a long-time Zen student, she asked why I wasn’t sitting anymore. I couldn’t coherently answer. That prompted a little opening, a little flash of insight: I’d been dodging myself, hiding in distractions. Avoiding the difficult places, right? She had me sit zazen right there, for a few minutes, and that at-home-feeling came right back. That was the beginning of a long and difficult road back, and it led directly, and completely naturally, to returning to practice, and ultimately, to deepening my commitment to Zen, taking priest’s vows. Which turned out to be simply an expression of who I am, who I always was. Once I embraced that and stopped fighting it, things got much simpler.
How did you land in Warwick?
In 1999, my wife and I were living in Brooklyn, in a two-bedroom walk-up brownstone apartment that was really a one-bedroom with a very generous closet. At the time, we had two small children, two and four. There was no way we could afford a bigger place–the home we wanted—in the city. A friend suggested we look at Warwick. My wife was raised in Ireland, and I think the Warwick Valley reminded her a little bit of home—there are certainly enough cows to remind you of the West of Ireland—and we ended up buying the first house we saw.
What is your plan and vision for your Warwick zendo?
There’s always a tension in Zen between just getting on with things without drawing attention to your practice (or your self), and with making the container available to people who might be interested or feel an affinity. I think for warwick zen, the practice is to make the container of the zendo—the meditation hall, and zen practice in general—available and known, so if this is for you, or if you’re curious, we can be found. And if the practice is for you, that the container is open and available going forward. So, growth and stability. Ultimately, we’d love to be able to have a full-time dedicated space. In time, we will. One step at a time, always.
What is lined up for the plan, and what more is needed?
We’re just beginning a concerted outreach program, with flyers, posters around, and listings in the local papers, etc. I also do a monthly Introduction to Zen workshop at Chosun Tae Kwon Do. They’re great people, and have been very supportive of warwick zen. The Intro workshops are a great way to get a taste of practice and see if it’s for you. Kind of dipping-your-toe in.
How has your practice affected you?
Let me put it this way: we’re always practicing something. Sometimes it’s frustration, or impatience, anger, whatever. Sometimes it’s joy, sometimes it’s heartbreak. Things rarely go the way we expect—or want them—to. Zen practice has allowed me an opportunity to make choices in what I practice moment-by-moment. Breath-by-breath. It’s opened the space to let my thoughts and emotions just be there without being swept away by them. Practice has given me the tools to appreciate the fact of this moment right now, without obsessing about the past or worrying about the future—those are ghosts, and science fiction. What’s real is right here, right now.
There’s no end point: life’s a work-in-progress, a work-in-process. You just keep refining, and returning to this moment, this breath. We’ve only got this one moment, this one life. I’d like to enjoy it as much as I can, do as much good as I can, and as little harm as I can. Our lives can be an offering to the world if we allow it. You don’t need to shave your head and wear robes or whatever. Life is a gift.
What are you offering now at the zendo? Do you have unique or unusual offerings that Warwick lacks now or planned for the future?
Warwick Zen is that unique offering. The practice of zen in particular is an opportunity to take a deep dive into how we live, and how we can fully inhabit our lives without limit, how we carry that fearlessly forward. Actualizing that, in any and every way possible, is the plan for the future. I’d like to hear more laughter—falling-down-crying-kind-of-laughter. That’s’ great stuff. Let’s do that more.
Jacob Gendelman holds meetings in person Wednesday evenings from 6:45-9 p.m. at Warwick Valley Community Center, 11 Hamilton Ave., Warwick Ny 10990, and on zoom Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 5:00. Zoom links are on the warwick zen website.
Email seiryo@warwickzen.org, Phone: 917.922.9421.
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