Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

Over the years a few people have asked me about receiving the precepts. Since I have not received dharma transmission myself, I am not in a position to bestow them yet; but I can help them along the way. I thought one of my earliest students would be the first to go ahead and receive jukai, but family and work have been his main focus for the last couple of years. 

I have worked with Sherwin for a number of years as part of my Monday evening group, and seen him through several stages of deepening his practice, as well as getting married, switching jobs, and other life changes. He asked my teacher Zachary if he could study the precepts with him, did his sewing at Berkeley Zen Center, and received his rakusu and new name at the lay ordination at City Center last Saturday, with friends and family in attendance.

I did not have a role in the ceremony itself (beyond taking photos, as usual), but I did get to choose the characters for his dharma name, based on, as I discussed in my Zen Center talk last week, where I see him now, and what I believe will flourish in him over the years. When we met in the Monday group this week, he said that his reaction on hearing the name was “That’s not me,” though he appreciated that the characters seemed apt. He was trying to figure out how this newly named child of Buddha would fit in alongside his worldly name and appearance.

As I also mentioned in my talk, it was 21 years to the week since my jukai, and sixteen years since my priest ordination, so I have been reflecting on how far I have come – much further than I imagined in 2004, that’s for sure.