When asked by a student to describe Buddha’s teaching ‘in a nutshell’ Suzuki Roshi responded “Everything changes.”

Everything changes. Impermanence in action. The reality of daily Buddhist practice.
Covid 19 is part of that never ending change, though its practical, emotional and psychological challenges and consequences are of a magnitude most of us in developed countries are not used to facing. Adapting to change with compassion is Buddhism in action, no matter the enormity of compassion required to meet those challenges. The long term consequences of Covid 19 are impossible to know and painful to consider, but how each person and every sangha deals with it matters. Whether one believes the scientists or the skeptics, follows the advice of the medical profession or the coronavirus deniers, wears a protective mask or a shirt saying “Covid 19 Is a Hoax,” practices social distancing or spends evenings in a favorite crowded bar, how one responds to it is, literally a life and death matter. At this writing over 7,000,000 Americans have been stricken with Covid 19 and more than 206,000 have died, which are significantly more casualties than any other nation……and growing.
For several years I have been a member of the Bozeman Zen Group, taught by Karen DeCotis, which is part of the Bozeman, Montana Dharma Center. In order to fulfill its compassionate practice of reducing suffering in the world and not contributing to Covid 19’s statistics, the Bozeman Dharma Center closed indefinitely on March 14. It is not likely to open any time soon. All Dharma Center’s different sangha and group meetings, including workshops, retreats, classes and visiting teachers have virtually continued through Zoom. Some members of the Dharma Center, including me, are not zoomers and have continued our practice at home, alone. I have missed the deeply cherished twice weekly Zen Group and weekday noon open sits at the Dharma Center.
In June the Zen Group initiated a middle path between the Dharma Center closure and non-zoomers—-a once a week half hour morning kinhin through Sunset Hills Cemetery in Lindley Park in downtown Bozeman. Participants meet, form a circle with at least 10 feet distancing (masks are optional), receive instructions and choose a leader for the day and perform kinhin along whatever path that day’s leader chooses through the cemetery. Kinhin is a traditional form of Zen which applies the core concept of mindful sitting meditation to the movement of walking. Between periods of sitting (usually 30 to 60 minutes) in Zen Centers 10 minutes of kinhin is always welcome to get the blood flowing back into the legs and the rest of the body. The physical/mental/emotional health benefits of simply walking need no reiteration here, but kinhin makes us more conscious of the movement of our body and what we are doing with it. This helps us avoid unconscious movements. As walking is a physical and mental expansion from sitting in a chair kinhin is an expansion from sitting on a zafu. And the expansion continuously changes and never ends. Usually, between 3 and 10 sangha members attend kinhin in the cemetery, and in August a once a week on a different day half hour evening kinhin was added to the agenda. The practice and its locale are wonderful tools for the sangha to maintain its personal, face to face bonds as a community while following the advice of scientists and the medical profession regarding Covid 19.
There are more than 16,000 graves in 56 acres of the 73 acre Sunset Hills Cemetery, the first occupied since 1867 by Mary Blackmore. The City of Bozeman immaculately maintains the area with its lush lawns and towering pine, spruce, maple and other trees providing shade and shelter to both residents and visitors. I cannot speak for others’ unwavering focus on each well placed step of kinhin or conscious breath that propels it, but I notice that my eyes sometime take my mind to the gravestones and the names and dates upon them and to thoughts of the lives they may have lived and, of course, the change that will eventually allow me to join them.
Covid kinhin in the cemetery is a worthy part of the path for Zen students practicing compassionate Buddhism in a changing world.