Thank you!

This past weekend, we hosted shinsan-shiki and hossen-shiki ceremonies, formally installing Koun Franz as the abbot of Sensouji (Thousand Harbours Temple). Here’s a message from Koun:

Thank you, all of you. We talk so much about the vows—about the practice of committing to something even when we don't know what we're doing or exactly how to get it done. This last year, and especially this last week, we saw and felt that right here in the community. I was always aware that all of you were investing so deeply in something you'd never even seen, something that I wasn't always good at describing. That's been incredible to watch. When I stepped up on the platform, in the robe that you sewed, and looked out at all of you under the tent, and all of you on the monitor, and all our guests, I felt overwhelmed by the realization that in this moment, this is who we are.

So many of you came together, planning meticulously and then bending to meet each moment: driving, hosting, preparing food, making things (so many things—from altars to programmes), setting up and managing tech for every possible scenario, supporting those who were online, and much more. Thank you. I especially want to thank the board (Ko-e, Konnen, Dave, Toshin, Teishin, Jisoku, and Chugen): you planned this for more than a year and, over time, took on more and more roles until at the end, you were thousand-armed Avalokiteshvaras, helping in every direction. Ko-e, as president, you held so much in your head and in your hands, always present, never wavering. We are all deeply fortunate to have a board so courageous and so capable.

I think it should give us pause that to make these ceremonies happen, many priests travelled from halfway across the world. Among them were teachers and dear friends, but there were also more than a few who came without knowing any of us, or even anything about us except that we were raising the dharma flag in Canada for the first time. That mattered to them, so much that they crossed 12 time zones to make sure it happened. Members travelled from Puerto Rico and from across Canada, and they travelled via Zoom from places far and wide, in Europe and spanning North America. They—you—came to support this community, to be a part of it, and to encourage it to step up and take its seat in the Zen world. 

There is a kind of hidden agenda to these kinds of ceremonies. Beyond the significance of the actual ceremonies, the scale and complexity of them is intended, I think, not only to cement the role of the abbot in the community but also to deepen the abbot's sense of indebtedness to the community. In turn, the community develops a sense of belonging in, and indebtedness to, the larger Soto Zen world. In the simplest possible terms, ritual brings us together and changes, in ways big and small, our understanding of who we are and what it is that we are a part of. It's thank you and yes, rolled into one. It looks like we're doing one thing, but what we're really doing is much simpler, and goes much deeper.

As the weekend progressed, I heard some version of the same two things over and over again: one, a feeling that we were at last putting something down, releasing it after so much time and energy spent; and two, a sense of having picked something up, of carrying a new weight. I feel both, deeply. Perhaps you do too. 

On that note, I'd like to ask a favour, which is that you try on calling me Hojo (abbot) going forward. I imagine it might feel awkward for a while—for all of us. But I trust in that part of the tradition, the one that invites us into our roles in such a clear way. And I will need all the support I can get as I try to understand myself in this new (old) role. In the Mountain Seat Ceremony, I called upon the Earth and Spirits:

As I move through light and dark

In the world above the Earth,

In the world above the sky,

In the earth world,

In the spirit world,

In the world beneath the earth,

In the world beneath the water.

Please—do not let me lose my way.

So I ask the same of all of you—please.

One more time: thank you. I'll close with the verse to the community I read from the platform during the Opening of the Hall:

We are one body, one mind, one suffering, one peace. We come together in this moment; we are together in every moment. We pray that the merit of our actions will reverberate to all beings throughout space and time, that they may also in turn become others’ dharma ground. Seasons change, aeons pass, worlds rise and fall, but may this mountain never move.