An outdoor, socially-distanced Sunday program at Great Vow Monastery in Portland.
Photos by: Courtesy Chobo-Ji, Jill Irwin, Shokan Harrison Martin

As people around world have struggled to adjust to the coronavirus since March, people living in Dharma communities have found unique ways to bring the pandemic situation onto the path.

We checked on three live-in Zen communities in the Pacific Northwest, to see what tools and approaches they’ve developed to cope with life in the time of virus.

Great Vow Monastery Co-Abbot Chozen Bays, and resident Allie Fried, making masks for Sangha members and a local hospital.

For people at Great Vow Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon, quarantining has been relatively easy because it fits the boundaries of the retreats they organize every month. 

“We’re used to the mode of closing the gate and cutting off personal contact already,” said Shokan Harrison Martin, a postulant responsible for audio, video, and photography at Great Vow.

However the residential Zen community of lay and ordained people had to invent some new protocols, a “bubble” of safety, to keep people uninfected. This was needed because traditionally a wide variety of people come and go for retreats, workshops, and intensive periods. Also a few people in the community of 17 are at higher risk of infection.

Under Great Vow’s new rules, any new people must quarantine and be tested for COVID-19 before entering. While people used to come just for a meal, and week-long retreats at Great Vow were common, now people must commit to a month to be admitted.

The Zoom broadcast of the outdoors wedding of Sara Shinei Monial and Danny Soten Lynch, with a small group of people outdoors.

At the same time the monastery has reopened its normal Sunday program a bit, by limiting the number of invitees, requiring social distancing, and simultaneously streaming live on the internet.

“With online streaming, zoom meetings, and increased daily offerings, now more people from afar are participating,” said Martin, adding that people have joined from across the United States and even from Europe.

And has the nature of Great Vow’s Dharma practice changed?

“The heart of offering support and the Dharma, as well as shaping our lives around how to relieve and end suffering, that has not changed at all,” Martin said. “It has just taken a different form.”

When the state of Washington locked down last spring, Blue Heron Zen Community in Seattle cancelled all their in-person meditation practices and retreats and switched exclusively to online practice.

Pre-Covid Great Vow, where people ate and practiced in close proximity.

With just three residents living at Blue Heron now, adjustments have not been difficult since the three are spread over three floors and don’t cross paths that much. All three work regular jobs.

For safety’s sake the three have reviewed the Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for safe living and cleaning practices during the pandemic.

Several months into the pandemic, Guiding Teacher and Zen Master Jeong suggested that resident Matt Bushroe lead a weekly Friday morning practice session outdoors. The idea was to structure the session to be as inclusive and safe as possible, so Sangha members could practice together in person again. 

At Blue Heron, Matt Bushroe (left) speaking with Pat Caffee on the lawn, before Bushroe leads outdoor practice.

Now members sit together for 25 minutes in the back yard, at least 10 feet apart, and limited to 10 people. And despite the arrival of the rainy Northwest winter, Bushroe is committed to continuing no matter the weather.

“If it rains we’ll improvise and deal with it,” Bushroe said. “Maybe move chairs under the eaves.”

Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen Ji in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood is not a monastic Zen community. Instead it provides a structured meditation and work environment for eight residents, including Abbot Kokan Genjo Marinello Osho.

Chobo-Ji Abbot Kokan Genjo Marinello Osho Genjo Marinello leading Zoom zazen.

“We’re used to sharing tea and some meals together once a month, with an hour of communal work weekly, plus up to nine hours of meditation and retreats together,” Marinello said. “Not much has changed since the pandemic, except we’re not doing shared meals together. Now only people in the zendo practice here, and everyone else attends by Zoom.”

When someone at the zendo leaves their bubble of separation from possible infection, they notify each other and assess the risks together. If it seems that someone might have been exposed to covid-19, they get tested. If someone has to travel, they wait a week or two until gathering again.

So far no one has been sick. However, a couple from Chicago, who were staying at a zendo apartment they reserved through Airbnb, did get diagnosed with covid-19 during the visit. Once they were diagnosed, they left Cho Bo Ji.

Marinello gives a Zoom Dharma talk.

“While we used to have week-long retreats,” Marinello said, “Now we’re doing three-day retreats via Zoom. Even among the residents, we keep socially distanced.”

Marinello said their practice has become richer on several levels during the pandemic. For instance on one day recently more than 20 people logged onto a daily zendo Zoom meditation practice, many of them from distant points including Kansas, Vancouver Island, Oregon and Arizona. Even a person from Germany has joined their daily meditations.

“People used to travel here for retreats,” Marinello said. “But now they can attend daily zazen via Zoom.”

The gardens behind Chobo-Ji continue to thrive despite the pandemic.

The essential distinction between how people at all three Zen centers are responding to the pandemic, compared to more worldly people, is the Dharma.

 “Zen practice in general is like a deep keel, keeping you stable in the midst of storms,” Marinello said. “Right now there are lots of storms. All of us are talking about how grateful we are to have our Zen practice.”