Jukai
Tassajara was cold, sometimes 20 below, F, and the river full. The water sounded like a waterfall, thunderous, roaring, and wherever you went there was no getting away from the sound. It was wonderful. The days were dark, a sliver of sunlight after breakfast as the sun rose in a trough of the mountain ridge, then soon disappeared until near sunset for another brief visit. As the practice period ran its course gradually more daylight, rising temperatures, and more wildlife appeared. It was my first practice period at Tassajara and I loved it. Especially I'll be forever grateful for the opportunity to sit Tangaryo. For five days the new arrivals sat from 4:20 a.m. to 9 p.m. We were joined by the community for morning zazen and service, and for evening zazen, and for the three Oryoki meals in the zendo, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apart from that, the ten Tangaryo students sat facing the same wall in the otherwise empty Zendo. And in the afternoon at some point tea was brought in, which we were served with a cookie.
It was a precious time. We had a half hour break after each meal. There were no periods of zazen, we just sat. If you needed to go to the restroom you did, if you needed to do kinhin you did. Time became eternity.
The practice period (Ango) was led by Zenkei Blanche Hartman, then co-Abbott of SFZC, sharing the Abbotship with my teacher Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Norman lived at Green Gulch and Blanche at City Center in San Francisco. Actually, I could say the Ango was led by Shakyamuni Buddha, but that might sound a little too esoteric.
The practice period was the spring of '97 and I had spent the previous year living at Green Gulch. Actually, I arrived at Green Gulch in October of '95 and did two practice periods there – the winter and the spring, or the fall and the winter, depending on how you reckon things. During my second practice period there I asked Norman for Jukai. He agreed. It had been a difficult enough decision to make, to ask Norman or to ask Reb. Much as I loved Reb's teaching and am still so grateful for his teaching, I gravitated more towards Norman's style and way of being. What I appreciated most about Norman at the time was I could easily sit zen, zazen, through his talks and even in his class. Because of how Reb delivered his talks that was not so easy and I got the impression he didn't really like it during class. But I may have been wrong, it was an impression. I feel as though I learned a lot from both these teachers, and from the whole community and way of life at Green Gulch. It's a gem of a place.
I remember arriving there, after spending the first week of my trip with friends in San Francisco, they were renting an apartment there, coming over the hill in a taxi I got from Manzanita parking lot where the Golden Gate Transit bus had brought me, and looking down onto the 'campus' of Green Gulch as the taxi turned down into the drive and thinking 'Yes!'. The complex of buildings set in trees and farmland suggested both activity and serenity, and promised to be what I was looking for, a place to practice.
So, after Norman said yes, I set about sewing a Rakusu! That meant going to the sewing room on Sunday afternoon and learning how to do the Namu Kye Butsu stitch. Although I lived at Green Gulch it took me forever to sew the Rakusu. There was / is much of Zen practice I didn't like, perhaps still don't, but see its value. At the time I saw the value of having to come to terms with doing an activity that I didn't like, and that I didn't really connect with, and that offered me much practice of making room for my negative responses or reactions, impatience and frustration. I had a wonderful environment to sew in, and teachers who helped me along every step of the way, and eventually it was sewn.
Then there was the waiting. Norman suggested that the practice period at Tassajara would be a good time and I readily agreed. He would be visiting for a week or so while Blanche left. I never really knew why Blanche left, was it to maintain connection with the City Center or was it just to make room for Norman to teach. They got along so well together and their styles so compatible that I can't really see it being the latter. So Norman arrived and it was great to see him, great to hear his teaching again, and great to meet him in dokusan. He wondered if I had a preference for when to do the ceremony, and I suggested, at first, St Patrick's Day, then I had a second thought and suggested the 16th, the eve of St Patrick's Day.
I was led in to the Zendo by Daigan, whom you may know recently died. He was the Tanto at Tassajara at the time and quite an impressive practitioner, with his US Army life showing through. The Zendo was full of the community, sitting facing into the room, on the Tan, with the kersone wall-lamps burning. I was the only initiate and so it was quite intimate, facing my teacher across the ordination table.
I received my new name, Buddha's Robe (the Rakusu) and the lineage papers of this branch of the family tree. I had decided earlier that if my dharma name was reasonably pronounceable I would change over to that. I think I picked up this idea from the Western Buddhist Order, where I had practiced for over 4 years before deciding I really had to do 'Zen'. Perhaps I had also picked it up from the knowledge that Christian monastics change their name when they join, it's a form of rebirth, a sense of change or commitment, a sense of direction. It took some persistent effort to get people to go along with it, not so much because they didn't want to, but because of habit and culture. At SFZC very few people changed their name to their dharma name, and so there wasn't a culture to 'go along with', whereas in the WBO there was and is. At, SFZC that has changed, with many people now choosing to be called by their dharma name.
So, I received Jukai just over 18 years ago. Later I received Shukke Tokudo (priest ordination) from Norman, and was Shuso (head monk) at Tassajara, again for an Ango that Blanche was leading, and then I received Dharma Transmission from Norman in 2009. As Arlene (Daigan's wife) said once, that's a lot of sewing!
Recently I gave Jukai to Liam and Kathy in Belfast. The ceremony was beautiful, it was so good to see how well the BZ Sangha could manifest this beautiful ceremony, quite a lot of 'practice' goes into it. And it was really wonderful to have Rebecca from Hebden Bridge and Devin from Glastonbury at the ceremony, their effort and support was wonderful to see. I said in my talk that morning that the ideal setting is a practice period, next best is a 7 day sesshin or a retreat, next a weekend, and next a 1 day. We had a 1 day sit and the ceremony was well contained.
Liam reported to me since how much he appreciated everything and how powerful the ceremony was, and that was unexpected. Yes, these rituals are very transformative, deepening the process that has already been going on for some time before. They have an impact and make our practice life more real.
Ingen
Dublin
June 16, 2015.
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