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Lay Ordination

This year’s Zaike Tokudo (Lay Ordination Ceremony) will take place Saturday, June 15, at 3:00 p.m. in the zendo. Alex Roehrkasse will receive lay ordination from Sojun Roshi. Ellen Levin will receive lay ordination from Hozan Sensei. Congratu­lations in advance to the ordinees, who have been studying and sewing diligently with our sewing teacher, Jean Selkirk. Everyone is encouraged to attend the ceremony and the reception afterwards. Check the zendo bulletin board for details, and please sign up to assist with preparation and cleanup.

Sangha Work Day

Save the date and join us for our all-sangha workday on June 9, 8:00‒4:00. The day will open with coffee and pastries, then zazen from 8:15 to 8:40, work circle at 8:45, with work starting at 9:00. Then lunch provided by our tenzos from noon until work circle at 12:45, winding up with informal zazen 3:45‒4:00.

Come and join the fun festivities and seeds that always accompany our sangha work!

Holocaust Remembrance

Annette Herskovits, a BZC member and Holocaust survivor, recently lost her older brother, who, after their parents’ deportation to Auschwitz, helped Annette and her sister elude capture by the Nazis. She will offer a remembrance of him at BZC on Saturday, May 4 at 1:00 p.m. in the zendo, including some of his own words in letters about his experience.  We are at the end of an era, as witnesses of the Holocaust pass away. This presentation will serve both as a memorial to a warm and happy family destroyed by genocidal madness and a chance for Annette to appreciate her brother’s life and their relationship.

In Memoriam: Jed Appelman

Our Dharma brother Tokusan Jakusho Jed Appelman passed away in his home on February 26, with family and a few friends present. Sojun Roshi presided over a simple bedside service. Jed had chosen a Green Burial at Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley in keeping with the simplicity of his life—just returning to the earth.

Jed had been a Quaker for many years prior to coming to BZC and maintained a concurrent practice at the Strawberry Meeting. He came to Buddhism through the Vipassana tradition and later found Zen by sitting with James Baraz, an early member at BZC, and spending time at Tassajara, where his son Soren was a resident student for ten years.

Jed was a clinical psychologist and also worked in the early days of Silicon Valley. His last employ was at Kaiser, supporting research in strokes and other conditions that he himself had lived with for much of his seventy years.

At BZC Jed was on the Board and held many of the usual practice positions of a devoted student, including and especially Head Server. Jed loved serving us, as anyone receiving his offerings could attest. He embodied metta practice.

He had polio as a child but carried that pain and challenge with equanimity. His deter­mi­nation to practice was evident, and in the remain­ing months of his life Sojun Roshi ordained him as a priest. The BZC and Quaker sanghas, along with his family, witnessed this event. Jed wore the robes as if he’d been a priest for a very long time.

Jed was our foremost welcomer of new­comers. After programs, he sat on the Zendo steps and took the time to have unhurried conversations, getting to know people well. He remembered his new friends and found ways to integrate them into our practice.

This poem (by Mary Elizabeth Frye) was read at Jed’s burial by his brother Dan:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awake in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I did not die.

American Sutra

Friday, May 3, at 5:40 p.m., Professor Duncan Ryuken Williams of USC will offer a dharma talk and conversation with Hozan Alan Senauke at BZC, based on his remarkable new book, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War. This groundbreaking history, just released by Harvard University Press, tells the little-known story of how, in one of our country’s darkest hours, Japanese Americans fought to defend their faith and preserve religious freedom. The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. In this path-breaking account, Prof. Williams reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation’s history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.

Books will be available for sale and signing by Professor Williams. For more information, see the book’s website: www. duncanryukenwilliams.com/american-sutra

Lay Entrustment

On Monday morning, May 6, Sojun Roshi will confer Lay Entrustment and offer green rakusus to Seishi Tetsudo Ross Blum and Sentei Kokyo Susan Marvin. The ceremony and informal dharma inquiry with Ross and Susan will take place at the time of morning zazen. A celebratory reception in the community room will follow.

Practice Period Sesshins

Our practice period will open with a one-day sesshin on Saturday, May 11, and end with a five-day sesshin June 19‒23. Hozan Alan Senauke will be leading both sesshins. Sesshin days run from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. except the final day of the five-day sesshin, which ends with the Shuso Hossen (3:30‒5:00 p.m.) followed by a reception.

Please sign up for the one-day sesshin by Wednesday morning, May 8, and for the five-day by Saturday, June 15. If this is your first sesshin at BZC, we recommend that you first participate in a full Saturday program, have oryoki instruction, and speak with the sesshin director.

The fee is $35 per day, which should be paid in advance. Put checks marked “May sesshin” or “June sesshin” in the courtyard laundry room mail slot, or mail to BZC Office Manager, 1931 Russell St., Berkeley, CA 94703.

For additional information, please see the bulletin board or contact the sesshin director, Gary Artim (sesshindirectorbzc@gmail.com or (510) 676-9756). If you wish to stay over any of the nights, contact the shika, Hannah Meara (hmeara@gmail.com or 831-566-3878).

Spring Practice Period

Our 31st annual practice period will begin with a one-day sitting on Saturday, May 11, and continue through the Shuso Ceremony on Sunday, June 23. This year Sojun Roshi has asked Hozan Sensei to lead the period. Hozan encourages BZC members to increase their commitment to practice during six weeks—while of course continuing to tend to their obligations outside the gate.

Sojun and Hozan are pleased to announce that Shiken Seigetsu (Clear Intention/Serene Moon) Carol Paul has agreed to be the Shuso this year, sharing the Abbot’s seat and setting an example for us all. Maria Winston will serve as Benji (Shuso’s attendant) for the practice period.

Hozan Sensei will offer a Thursday night class at 7:15 from May 16 to June 13, exploring two fascicles by Dogen Zenji: “Zenki” (Total Dynamic Working) and “Shoji” (Birth and Death). Materials will be available on the bulletin board shelf.

A practice period calendar is included in this newsletter. Practice period applications are on the bulletin board shelf. Please fill out one and return it to Carol Paul’s mail slot on the community room porch by Monday, May 6.

Remember that in addition to signing up for practice period and turning in a registration form, you need to sign up separately for all the individual practice period events. See the bulletin board for these signup sheets.

Addition to Ethics Guidelines

The Harmony, Ethics, and Reconciliation (HEAR) Committee has recently addressed several conflicts which arose between sangha members when one person hired another to do work that resulted in a series of misunder­stand­ings, unclear and unspoken expectations, anger, and general distrust. These resembled situations in the past when sangha members engaged in arrangements with other sangha members that involved the exchange of work and money or rental arrangements.

Until now, the guidelines addressed professional relationships between helping professionals and other sangha members. The HEAR Committee felt there should be some strengthening of that guideline. The Com­mittee also wanted to add that all business relationships among sangha members are potentially fraught and should only be entered mindfully.

Therefore, on the recommendation of the Committee, the BZC Board passed the following revision to section 3 of the BZC Ethics Guidelines, which deals with Sangha Relationships:

3.d.  Professional or Business Relationships Among Members

Sangha members are discouraged from using the community as a source of business, contract work, or professional clients. BZC teachers and sangha members who work as physicians, psychotherapists, or attorneys should avoid entering into professional relationships with other sangha members.

 Problems have sometimes arisen when one sangha member enters a business relationship with another member. All sangha members should be mindful of the delicate balance between worker and client and the complexity of these connections when both parties practice at the same dharma center.

A complete copy of the Ethics Guidelines can be found on the BZC web site. If you have questions or comments about the Ethics Guidelines or these revisions, please contact any Board member or the chair of the HEAR Committee, Stan Dewey (standewey@comcast.net).

Oryoki Training

The next lessons in our formal meal procedures (“oryoki”) will be Saturday, March 2, and Saturday, April 27, 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in the zendo. If you would like to schedule another time to learn or fine-tune your oryoki practice, contact Sue Oehser at 510-339-0243 (voice only) or soehser@earthlink.net.

You can also receive briefer instruction during any full Saturday morning program that is not a sesshin. After the first period of Saturday zazen, the director will ask if anyone would like instruction in eating in the zendo.  Raise your hand and meet the director on the porch, who will assign someone to give you oryoki instruction in the community room before service and breakfast.