On Sunday, many SFZC residents attended the 90th anniversary ceremony of Sokoji in Japantown. Konjin Gaelyn Godwin, the Director of Soto Zen Buddhism International Center, and Abbot of Houston Zen Center describes Sokoji as “the temple from which hundreds of North American temples emerged after Shunryu Suzuki arrived to serve as their Abbot in 1959. The celebration was deeply moving, beautiful, elegant.”
Welcome to a new Branching Streams affiliate, Facing the Mountain Zen Group in Reno, NV. Founding and guiding teacher, Shinzan Sekibu Alice Tulloch received dharma transmission from Baika Andrea Heaton in 2018. Facing the Mountain has have had a physical location in Reno since 2014, and offers both in person and online zazen and other practice events.
As Election Day in the U.S. now less than two weeks away, many sanghas are responding to the intensity and uncertainty of this time by offering ongoing or Election Day vigils or sittings
Guiding teacher Koshin Steven Tierney writes, “Oceans Compassion Sangha (San Francisco) and friends have been sitting together for Peace and Justice in response to the world in which we live online on Tuesdays at 7:00 a.m. and Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. PDT. The format is 25 minutes of Zazen followed by a poem or verse on peace read by somebody different each time. Here is the Zoom link.
On Election Day, Steven will join me to co-host Election Day Zazen at San Francisco Zen Center, in person in the Conference Center at 308 Page Street from 4 to 8:30 p.m.
Zen Center North Shore’s (MA) Guiding Teacher Joan Amaral, writes: “we’re holding an Election Day sesshin on ZenZoom as a way to encourage grounding and connection at a particularly anxious time for many. You can log on at any time from 6am-11pm – the whole time the polls are open East-West. We’ll be sitting half-hour periods of zazen and walking five minutes in between. There will be breaks at 7:30am, 12:30pm and 5:30pm for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chanting before each meal. But otherwise, just sitting. Sitting with it all, with ourselves and with each other.”
So’on Jim Hare, the guiding teacher of Valley Streams Zen Sangha in Sacramento, CA wrote an article, “Funding the Future,” describing the way his sangha is investing funds in a Community Foundation to provide support for future teachers after Jim retires. He offered to make it available to other Branching Streams sanghas. It’s posted on the website.
Here’s a correction to my last newsette: Dharma Heart Sangha (not Heart of Compassion Sangha) in Cotati CA began their Fall Practice Period this week, focusing on Training in Compassion, the Practice of Lojong, studying Norman Fischer’s book.
Two more programs in the SZBA’s 2024 series, Celebrating the Voices of Women in Buddhism, are coming up – on Sunday October 27.Receiving the Marrow by Bowing; and in November, Throughout the Body, Hands and Eyes: Compassion and Bodhisattva Activism. All events are online via Zoom, and open to all on a sliding scale donation.