Thank you to everyone who attended, and attended to, our recent sesshin. It was remarkable to practice with you all in this way, spread across space and time.
During sesshin, Susan and Kynan invited us to be present, right where we find ourselves, and see what might emerge, free from our thoughts about it. The invitation was to experience in writing, or in the form of a mandala, just what was emerging… an invitation that is endlessly extended. Here are some of the beautiful, creative ways in which our worlds spoke directly with us.
Front row: Sensei Kynan, Roshi Susan, Deborah, Lizzie. ()
Dear Sangha,
You are formally invited to an online Tea Ceremony party on Saturday, August 15, starting at 3pm. RSVP Essential. Details below…
Please join us to welcome Deborah Chadwick formally into her place at the heart of sangha care. I am writing to announce a new sangha appointment which enlarges us all – that of Sangha Attendant, identifying in Deborah someone who is clearly a born Jisha to the Sangha.
Deborah has been a committed member of Zen Open Circle for almost two decades. In that time she has acquitted herself deeply and fully in the lengthy koan journey. Her Dharma eye is clear, her heart is all-inclusive, her support of the gate of practice has long been felt. Whether aware of it or not, we have all been touched and supported by her many years of wise, selfless care and unstinting service of sangha.
In the Zen tradition, ‘Attendant’ is an honorific that signifies someone bearing complete trust in attending to the needs of teacher and sangha, closely following what is arising, alert to new issues or needs, and offering wise mentoring to those stepping up into sangha roles. An ‘attendant’ literally tends to what is happening, paying the mind of close attention that moves with circumstances in her work of taking and offering care.
Deborah’s appointment, which is warmly supported by our management committee, is founded in her seniority and depth of practice experience, but more than that, in who she simply is. It is one more flowering of the way in which everyone is continually invited to find their place in the weave of sangha relations becoming ever complete.
I now move formally to invite Deborah to actively explore and live into a wider, deeper Jisha-like role, on the sangha-wide scale of our expanding community life, responding as it must to the impacts and strange gifts as well of this time of pandemic.
And I invite you in turn to be sure to come to the party to help us all create a warm, moving and noisy welcome (there may be music) to Deborah, and to offer your own aloha to this moment of celebration of all that she has long been so generously offering us — and all that can now begin to flower further in the space of Sangha Attendant to Zen Open Circle.
Please bring with you the Chado (Way of Tea) requirements of a cup or teapot of green tea, some small sweet delicacy to go with it, and perhaps a very short seasonal poem. (Kimono, optional).
