About...

Bird's Nest Zendo is a contemplative and ceremonial space for Zen Buddhist meditation and monastic practice located in Oneonta, NY with an online precense welcomng those of all religious traditions and contemplative experience.

The word Zendo means Zen hall in Japanese. Zen originally comes from the Sanskrit dhyana (pronounced jah-nah) meaning meditative absorption. We practice a form of meditation called zazen in Japanese, literally "sitting zen." The practice is not intended to escape yourself, or tune out, or to experience ecstatic states. The practice of zazen is to simply awaken to reality just as it is.

As we grow in our practice, our hearts open, and we discover a greater clarity by not getting carried away with the habitual mental patterns that cloud our perception. One way it can be said is "ordinary mind is the way" -not ordinary as in mundane whims, but ordinary as in nothing extra added. Attending to each moment we experience, we can find deep satisfaction and connection in simply being alive.

The Zendo is the residence of Jishin Liz Robson, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest and teacher. Jishin trained at Endless Mountain Zendo, a rural hermitage in Stillwater, PA with the Genro Lee Milton, Osho and Yayoi Matsumoto, Sensei; at Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist training monastery in the Catskills, most recently under the Abbot Chigan Roland Jaeckel, Roshi. She has also served at the Syracuse Zen Center Hoen-ji, with Shinge Sherry Chayat, Roshi.

Jishin (Liz is just fine too) took the lay Buddhist precepts in 2008, was later ordained as a monk, and in 2023, received ordination as a teacher. Jishin has served as head monk at the training monastery and has practiced Zen Buddhism for 25 years. She is available to teach meditation, for talks personal and public, to support practitioners in their investigations, and for ceremonies that mark life's spiritual journeys.

Choka-an, the Bird's Nest Zendo (literally bird's nest hut), takes its name from Niao-k'ê Daolin (鳥巢道林 741-824), a Zen master known as "the Bird's Nest Priest." He could be found meditating on a seat made of the thickly-growing branches of a tree, where magpies would come nest too.

As legend has it, a great poet of T'ang, was officiating as governor of the jurisdiction at the time. The governor visited the master and remarked, "Well, it's a dangerous seat you have up in that tree!"
"It would seem yours is far more dangerous than mine," retorted the master.
"But, I am the governor of this district, and I don't see what danger there could be in that."
"Then perhaps you don't know yourself...for when your passions burn, and your mind is unsteady, what could be more dangerous than that?"
After further words, the governor then challenged the master, "What is the teaching of Buddhism?" he asked.
The master recited the three fundamental precepts:
"Not to do harm,
To practice all that is good,
And to keep the heart pure;
This is the everlasting teaching of all the Buddhas."
The governor huffed, "Any child three years old knows that."
"Well," concluded the Zen master, "although any child of three may know it, even an old man of eighty can not do it."

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